SPIELBERG MOVIE SHOWS ANOTHER FACET OF THE LINCOLN LEGEND

Academy Award winning director Stephen Spielberg, and Pulitzer Prize winning author/playwright Tony Kushner, along with Hollywood actor Daniel Day Lewis, have teamed up to bring the myth and legend of Abraham Lincoln, America’s sixteenth president into sharper and a much narrower focus than any movie has done before.

    

It’s not easy rewriting “accepted historical facts” about an individual who is revered the world over.  Cliché’s, however, have a way of hardening over time; becoming the accepted “truth”.  The Lincoln story, over the years, has usually covered his life set against the tumult and backdrop of the Civil War, with over 600,000 dead as its legacy, and its many assassination conspiracy theories as plot sources for books, plays, and movies.      

    

To his credit, screenwriter Kushner eschews the obvious pathway and together with director Spielberg, have fashioned a brilliant and insightful script, illuminating the rough and tumble of 1860 politics, which eerily reflects the gridlock and entrenched positions of 2012 America.  It appears we haven’t learned very much over the last one hundred and fifty years about governance (except for a timeout during WW II).

    

The story covers only a short period in Lincoln’s presidency – the last four months of his life.  In Spielberg’s “Lincoln” the Great Emancipator, is brilliantly and intelligently played by English actor Daniel Day Lewis, who delivers one of the most poignant, and understated performances, practically guaranteeing a Best Actor Oscar nomination in the process (if not a win).  He morphs into the role of Lincoln with such ease and credibility one forgets we’re watching an actor playing a very familiar historical figure.  Lewis delivers a constant series of sublime cinema moments adding up to a stunning performance.

    

The core story issue of slavery and it’s abolition via the passage of the U.S. Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment, is the stuff of great drama, and the focus of Kushner’s script.  Also, he had quality help, in the form of Pulitzer Prize winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin, when it came time for background research on his Lincoln story.  Despite the controversy and seriousness of the issues.  Kushner still makes room for a little humor, allowing the politicians (all white males) to bluster and posture; generally making fools of themselves, in the process.  The film is blessed with a plethora of talented actors not the least of which is, America’s favorite flying nun Sally Field, who renders a fully developed political First Lady as Mary Todd Lincoln.  She may be a classic study of a woman struggling with depression, but she still remembers how to cut off the legs of a political opponent at a state ball.  Just ask Tommy Lee Jones, the target in her crosshairs, as congressman Thaddeus Stevens, the champion of the abolitionist cause.  His craggy countenance and irascible portrayal as Stevens just may bring him another Best Support Oscar nomination.

     

The film has over 145 speaking roles and the entire cast is filled with journeyman actors, stars, and newcomers who deliver very winning and indelible impressions.  David Strathairn as Secretary of State Seward brings a strong and intelligent performance to the president’s cause.  It’s practically a co-starring role.  Hal Holbrook also renders a lasting impression as Preston Blair, a champion for a peace treaty between the warring factions.  James Spader, John Hawkes (who stars with Helen Hunt in the newly released film “The Sessions”), and Jackie Earle Haley have featured roles as the “gang of three”.  They’re charged with rounding up the necessary congressional votes in order to pass the president’s plan to end slavery via the Thirteenth Amendment.  And they are pretty creative and inventive in the way they go about their work.   And you thought the 2012 election was “rough and tumble, and down and dirty”.  Their shenanigans, in part, are sort of the on-going comic-relief element in an otherwise somber and life altering period in the country’s history.  Also, Gloria Reuben brings a quiet dignity and grace to her performance as Elizabeth Keckley, a friend of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

     

Enough, however, cannot be said about the performance of Daniel Day Lewis.  His Lincoln portrayal will change your impressions of Abraham Lincoln, the man you thought you knew.  No matter one’s politics, the Spielberg/Kushner film continues to burnish the Lincoln legend and the mystique surrounding the Great Emancipator is still intact.  “Honest Abe” will still be “a man for the ages”.

    

“Lincoln” opened in southern California on Friday, November 16, 2012.  I attended the screening at the Regal Stadium Nine Theatre, in Palm Springs, CA.  The historical film is going to be a very formidable Oscar contending movie in many categories, come January 2013.  Don’t wait.  See it now.   

 

      

    

QUIRKY INDIE FILMMAKER HENRY JAGLOM MOVIE HITS SCREENS

Writer/Directors of films, over the last fifty years, have championed and promoted the phrase “personal vision” and/or “auteur”.  Other creative art forms like painting, music, and writing usually are created alone.  Film, however, is a collaborative art form.  Instead of paint, clay, or musical notes, movies are the stuff of dreams accompanied by a story. And, stories have words and images about people or things that move.

   

Henry Jaglom is an American actor, and a writer/director of sometime quirky and idiosyncratic films that often deal with women’s issues, or subject matter that main- stream writer/directors often eschew.  Jaglom relishes the filmic road less traveled.

   

He epitomizes the “indie filmmaker”, and often uses his family and friends as actors in his films, occasionally joining the cast himself in order to tell his stories of ordinary people, with not so ordinary problems.  His films are character driven, and entertaining, if one can get on his wavelength.  If not, then a Jaglom film may leave you scratching your head and asking yourself what was it that I just sat through?

    

“ Just 45 Minutes From Broadway”, now booking into art houses across the country, is a typical Jaglom movie. For starters, Jaglom introduces us to a dysfunctional family of unconventional actors.  A family gathering is the rationale to introduce a new, staid, fiancé (Judd Nelson) of Betsy (Julie Davis) the acting family’s traditionally minded “non pro” older sister, to her show biz family and relatives.  They all gather, over a weekend, at her parents George and Vivien Isaacs’ (Jack Heller and Diane Louise Salinger) crumbling and aging-without-grace, home in a sylvan woodland setting outside New York City.

    

George is a Chekovian devotee who views and lives his life through the literary lens of Anton Chekov.  Vivien is a larger than life red headed actor/drama queen who is more Auntie Mame-like than a traditional homebound mother.   In the Isaacs’ world the theatre comes first.

    

Crashing this “announcement party” comes Pandora Isaacs (Tanna Frederick), the younger sister of Betsy who is just getting over a recent breakup, and is now seeking solace and attention.  The sisters have been distant toward one another for some time.  “Pandy”, as the family calls her, is also an actor along the lines of her expansive and over-the-top mother.  Betsy views her family as people who can’t get in touch with reality. 

    

The weekend provides lots of time for talk, and lots of opportunities to drink lots of wine.  Various family members and relatives, chime in from time to time, occasionally roiling the waters.  Subtly is not always foremost in Jaglom films, so one awaits the obligatory scenes of new fiancé James coming under the spell of Pandy.  Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy weekend once Betsy catches wind of the shenanigans.

    

Jaglom claims writer credit on the comedy and rightly so, but he also allows his actors, from time to time, to indulge in improv dialogue.  The actors love it.  The audience sometimes finds itself wondering if they missed something along the way.

    

For all its ennui (very Chekovian, by the way), “Just 45 Seconds From Broadway” has vividly lush photography and richly textured sets and lighting, thanks to cinematographers Hanania Baer and Nancy Schbeiber who ease the pain of some of that ennui.