史蒂文．斯皮尔伯格眼中的林肯

Abraham Lincoln as portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis in an Academy Award nominated performance in Spielberg's film about the last few months of the president's life. Overall the film has attracted 12 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director and ten BAFTA nominations. This is by no means the first screen representation of the 16th president of United States and I'll be discussing that later. But it does have particular political resonance now.

Spielberg's film is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's best-selling book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and in particular his struggle in 1865 to get the 13th Amendment to the Constitution through Congress, the amendment that outlaws slavery, the great achievement of Lincoln's second term in office.

The film was released in America a couple of days after the election that returned President Obama for a second term. It arrives here in Britain in the week that he was sworn in for that term on Lincoln's own bible. To get the reform he seeks, President Obama must bind in opposing factions. Abraham Lincoln had the added emergency of Civil War between north and south. In the film, Lincoln addresses those in his cabinet who are reluctant to push through the vote. Lincoln's own words there are incorporated into the screenplay by Tony Kushner.

The film is a study of the political manoeuvring necessary for this historic piece of legislation and it just assumes you've known about the context. Some years back Spielberg made a film Amistad about the slave trade from Africa. Lincoln shows the president in private too, as physically weary, worn-down by a testing marriage and bereavement. It's not a heroic portrait although John Williams' score nudges heavily from time to time.