A.O. Scott just out
with his review, which might calm those who compared Daniel Day-Lewis's vocal impersonation as, well, a little to Pee Wee Hermanish (I have to admit, it will be hard to get that out of my mind now). Here's an excerpt:
The question facing Lincoln is stark: Should he abolish slavery, once
and for all, even if it means prolonging the war? The full weight and
scale of this dilemma are the central lesson “Lincoln” asks us to grasp.
The film places slavery at the center of the story, emphatically
countering the revisionist tendency to see some other, more abstract
thing — states’ rights, Southern culture, industrial capitalism — as the
real cause of the Civil War. Though most of the characters are white
(two notable and vital exceptions are Stephen Henderson and Gloria
Reuben, as the Lincolns’ household servants), this is finally a movie
about how difficult and costly it has been for the United States to
recognize the full and equal humanity of black people.
1 comment:
I remember seeing a documentary on PBS that featured sound-footage of Joseph Stalin giving a speech. He sounded like Wally Cox after inhaling helium. That's apparently why audio of Stalin is so hard to find, while Adolph Hitler orations are enough to keep the History Channel, and then History 2.0 going for years.
Post a Comment