I was brought into the movies by Spielberg. When I was too young to keep track, he was probably my favorite filmmaker. When he started making more adult films, I became a full-blown cinephile and went looking for my own favorites. Today I find myself returning to Spielberg, which works out because he’s currently on another run of creative greatness. This project has six directors who have six films, Scorsese has eight… Spielberg has fourteen!
I didn’t notice it until War Horse, but Spielberg is a student of John Ford. It’s made explicit in The Fabelmans, but you see it in every frame of this film. There are long stretches of Lincoln that come off like an adaptation of a play, but when there’s space to emphasize the visuals, the camera always knows just right where to be. There’s a scene where Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) must argue that he believes in “legal equality for all races” which is different from racial equality, a phrasing that would’ve doomed the Amendment. It’s a classic Spielberg moment for the music to swell and the emotions to soar, only the director – for maybe the first time ever – doesn’t tee up his shot. By going right to the heart of the moment, it doesn’t have the sentiment Spielberg is often accused of. Older, wiser.
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