Staff Picks: Lincoln
Stories that cannot escape history.
Feature Presentation’s Staff Picks is not a best-of list. How do you even craft a list of the best of something as subjective as film? This is a list designed to highlight films (and occasionally television shows or other mediums of entertainment) of a certain theme or topic. It’s a watchlist, they are suggestions. Movies on this list will very in quality, length, genre, and home video or streaming availability.
This list’s theme: Lincoln
Lincoln (2012)
The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.
We should start with the obvious pick. Stephen Spielberg's movie is very good because every Spielberg movie is good. Daniel Day-Lewis is President Lincoln, Janusz Kamiński's cinematography is top-notch, the design elements incredibly worthy of the acclaim they received (or should have received if they didn’t), and Tony Kushner was the perfect choice for the screenplay.
It's also a fantastic movie for a game of “Name that actor!” every few minutes - throw a dart and you'll hit Colman Domingo, Adam Driver, Jeremy Strong, Lee Pace, or Stephen McKinley Henderson, not to mention the then-A-list names like Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones, and James Spader.
But despite all this, I just find it dull, clocking in at two-and-a-half hours. Slow and methodical, yes. Too much so that the drama feels pulled out? Probably. We all know how all three of the major events in this film will end up, so to crawl to them feels dragged. The amendment will be ratified, we will win the war, and Lincoln will be assassinated. It’s all just so inevitable. But if you want a star-studded history lesson, look no further.
Oh, Mary! (Broadway, 2024)
Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy starring Cole Escola as a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism and suppressed desires abound in this one act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot. (Playbill)
Let's follow up with a Broadway show that doesn't give a shit about historical accuracy.
A few months ago, a documentary called Lover of Men had a brief theatrical run (it's now available on VOD) and quickly became an easy joke on Film Twitter. As the title suggests, the film posits that Abraham Lincoln lived much of his life as a gay man. The folks behind the movie hooked me up with a screener link because I was traveling during its only theatrical weekend and while I considered it for this piece, I didn't end up reviewing it now or then because I thought the research was spotty and the assumptions aplenty, all true or not.
There's a huge, full-page ad for Lover of Men in the Playbill for Oh, Mary!, a genius bit of marketing that reads HEAR ABE'S SIDE OF THE STORY. That's because, in Oh, Mary!, the character known as Mary's Husband (played by Conrad Ricamora of last year's Here Lies Love) is a pent-up and sexually starved homosexual. The play, written by Cole Escola (who also stars in the title role), is a ridiculous romp where Mary Todd Lincoln is a drunk, Lincoln is gay, and the president's office is a Grand Central of (oral) sex, drugs (booze), and rock n' roll (the musical stylings of cabaret medleys).
The play is a Broadway smash because Escola's script is consistently funny and always shocking - they've made quite the breakthrough with this show.
Mister Lincoln (Ford’s Theatre, 2024)
From his personal perspective, first as a prairie lawyer and anti-slavery advocate in Illinois, to later in Washington as president of the United States, when he signs the Emancipation Proclamation and becomes the liberator, this insightful play leans on Lincoln’s own brilliant language to reveal surprising aspects of the life of one of our nation’s greatest president. (Ford’s Theatre)
After the press night for Mister Lincoln at Washington, D.C.'s Ford's Theatre (which closed last month), a fellow critic friend of mine sent me the text, "Got to our seats just as the lights went down. It was like seeing a ghost when the lights came up. I had goosebumps!"
The play, a one-man biography of Lincoln performed at the theatre where he was assassinated almost eightscore ago, started with a moment of silence. Scott Bakula, performing the title role, stood center stage, quietly, knowingly, before he began to speak. It was ghostly. Bearing a striking resemblance to the sixteenth president, Bakula not only donned the distinctive facial hair and silhouette-completing top hat, he fully embodied the emancipator. From his days as a schoolboy, to his law business, his failures and successes as a politician, and his time as commander-in-chief, Bakula monologued through it all with Lincoln's soft-spoken wit and thoughtful ponderings. It was, if only for ninety minutes each fall evening in 2024, this shocking election year, as if Lincoln had briefly returned to lead by example.
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
In this dramatized account of his early law career in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln is born into a modest log cabin, where he is encouraged by his first love, Ann Rutledge, to pursue law. Following her tragic death, Lincoln establishes a law practice in Springfield, where he meets a young Mary Todd. Lincoln’s law skills are put to the test when he takes on the difficult task of defending two brothers who have been accused of murder.
Both sides of the aisles like to claim Abraham Lincoln. He's easy fodder for political recruitment, a universally loved leader who stood up for his beliefs and made bold, sometimes dangerous, decisions.
The president-elect, a man who previously served as commander-in-chief, often compares himself to Lincoln. He says that he has higher polling numbers (there were no polls back then), that he could've easily solved the Civil War, and that he is, obviously, equally as honest. But, of course, that is not true. He is a pretty notorious liar, cheat, criminal, conman, fraudster, huckster, and convicted felon - and the 70 million-plus who voted for him either don't believe that or don't care.
Young Mr. Lincoln is not the biography of a young Abraham Lincoln I hoped it would be, doing that for a while but eventually shifting to a made-up story about lawyer Lincoln defending two men on trial for murder. But what it misses in historical accuracy, it makes up for in thematic clarity. Directed by the great John Ford and starring an uncanny Henry Fonda, Lincoln is depicted as a virtuous man, educated, humble, self-deprecating, compassionate, comforting, sincere, contemplative, and, naturally, honest. I would not use any of those words to describe the president-elect and I feel like those superlatives are where we should at least start with our elected officials.
Credit: Each plot synopsis comes from Letterboxd via TMDb unless noted otherwise.