Lincoln (2012)

Year: 2012

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Before I begin my review….

                It’s getting close! Less than two weeks to go till the 85^th Academy Awards! The countdown is on and I am getting to the point where I feel as though I can start to make informed predictions about who I believe will take home the big awards.

So we have our sixth nominated film to be reviewed, Lincoln. I think everyone, including me, knows that this film has at least one guaranteed Oscar.

Lincoln is nominated for a massive 12 Academy Awards. I can tell you with complete certainty that it will not be walking away with all 12. It is nominated for Best Picture as well as Best Director for Steven Spielberg. I’m not completely convinced that this is the year’s Best Picture winner. Following all the other award nights, I have an idea which film may be having its name engraved in one of the pillars lining the Dolby Theatre (once the Kodak Theatre)stairs, and Lincoln will be a major surprise if it leapfrogs over that film to take the big one.

However, Spielberg wouldn’t be completely out of line if he let it be known that he is preparing his acceptance speech. We all know he is a brilliant director, he has exhibited this numerous times. Lincoln once again exhibits how brilliant a director he really is. I believe he is the front runner in this category.

Tommy Lee Jones took home the Screen Actor’s Guild award for Best Supporting Actor and he is very deserving. However, he does have tough competition from Christoph Waltz. My personal opinion is that Waltz has just that little bit more than Jones and should be taking home the award. The Best Supporting Actor category is a tough category this year, there have been some fantastic performances this year.

Poor Sally Field (if you can say that, she’s had a pretty damn good career thus far). Anyone who is nominated for Best Supporting Actress this year is pretty much ruled out of the equation with Anne Hathaway the front runner. If Hathaway didn’t give the performance she had in Les Miserables, I believe Field would have been the front runner instead.

And then…we have Daniel Day-Lewis. Yes he is brilliant and yes, he will win his third Academy Award. Now this is a big thing. There are only five people who have won three acting Oscars in history, including Katharine Hepburn who has actually won four. It looks like Day-Lewis will be the sixth to join this coveted group.

Review

There is no doubt the Steven Spielberg is a great director. There is no doubt that Daniel Day-Lewis is an amazing actor. So there was really no doubt about whether Lincoln was going to be a success.

Lincoln is a film which is very well made and acted, but the fact remains, it is a film which will mean more to you if you are American. It is a great history lesson for those who only know the basics about Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War, but there is a lack of emotion which you really want to feel for this great man.

Lincoln focuses primarily on Abraham Lincoln’s (Daniel Day-Lewis) final presidential years when he was instrumental in abolishing slavery. The passing of the amendment in the House of Representatives is covered in depth and shows what went on behind closed doors in order to make sure the outcome that Lincoln strived for was achieved. Away from politics, Lincoln also shows how strained his private life was during these years. His wife, Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) struggles with their middle son’s death years before and their oldest son, Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) struggles with trying to win his father’s affection and at the same time, become his own person.

Spielberg once again proves that he is an amazing story teller. He goes through the passing of the amendment in such detail that if you didn’t know much about Lincoln and the civil war before, you will feel as if you know everything when you leave the cinema. He does go through it in such detail that it can make the film a bit slow and also make it a tad boring in certain parts. You can understand why Spielberg has tried to include all this as he wants you to exactly know step by step how and why this amendment was passed. It is part of Spielberg’s job as a storyteller to entertain as well as inform, and he ensures he gives you the best history lesson he possibly can.

The main thing missing from Lincoln is the emotion in the film. You come out of the film thinking about how you have just seen a good film, but you are not over-whelmed in the way you are when you have seen a great film. There are so many great things about Lincoln, but it lacks the ‘wow’ factor and the ability to make the audience connect on an emotional level. It is not for lack of wanting or trying either. Lincoln is such a heroic historical figure that you want nothing more than to cry at his successes and failures. however, thi

However, Americans may have a greater emotional connection to this film as it is part of their history and it is a film which they will be able to relate to. For those who are not American may not have this emotional connection for this reason.

Don’t be alarmed, there is plenty to marvel at in this film. Visually it is a brilliant recreation of Civil War torn America. There is some beautiful cinematography, such as the depiction of Lincoln’s dream and Lincoln’s final speech.

Yet, it is the acting in Lincoln that truly makes the film. It is impossible to see anyone ever playing Abraham Lincoln again and being quite as convincing as Daniel Day-Lewis. Day-Lewis, who is known for becoming his characters on and off screen when making a movie, is the great man. Lincoln is surely looking down from Heaven and smiling on Day-Lewis. He does him so much justice and from what we know about Lincoln that has been carried down through the years, he is the absolute embodiment of him.

Sally Field is also incredible. Her performance is so heartfelt and shows a wife and mother who has given everything to her family.

Tommy Lee Jones is also brilliant as Thaddeus Stevens. It’s a strong performance and one with so much charisma.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is not on screen for a tremendous amount of time, but for the time which he is, he is very good. He has one particular scene with Day-Lewis when he shows that he has it in him to become one of the greats in the years to come.

Lincoln is a wonderful history lesson, but misses that emotional chord that would make it a great.

7.5/10

Nine

Nine
Year: 2008
Director: Rob Marshall
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench

In My Own Words
I went into this movie with the lowest of expectations. I always see it as a bad thing if a film has a huge Oscar buzz about it and then doesn’t deliver come nomination time. It’s never a good sign. However, I enjoyed “Nine” a lot more than what I thought I would. I love feeling this way, there is such a buzz coming out of a film you thought would be a complete fail and knowing you were wrong. In saying that, I can understand why it has been panned by other critics and neglected from much of the Oscar nominations. In saying this, I believe that the academy even got the nominations “Nine” did get wrong.

One thing I will say is that Rob Marshall must be a huge Federico Fellini. Obviously “Nine” is based on the Broadway show of the same name, but the Broadway show is then based on the 1963 Italian film “8 ½” . “8 ½” is not a musical so it does not contain the breaks in the story for the musical numbers, and the story is different. The majority of the characters have the same names and certain scenes are recreated to the finest detail, such as Saraghina’s little beach number. There are even certain scenes, such as Claudia at the fountain, which reminds me of another Fellini masterpiece, “La Dolce Vita”. I honestly think that films like “8 ½” and “La Dolce Vita” work better in the style that they were initially filmed in rather than try to be redone mixing both the stage show and the film. I did like the film, but there were parts of the film that I didn’t like, and Rob Marshall trying to mix “Chicago” and “8 ½” was the main reason I didn’t like it.

These are my own words and here is my review.

Review
“Nine”, based on the Broadway play of the same name, can be described as an enjoyable mess. There are some amazing things about the film, yet there are some things that bring its buzz down. The unstoppable Daniel Day-Lewis plays Guido Contini, a film director who under pressure to write and direct a film in 10 days. It isn’t only the pressure of the film playing on his mental health, but also the relationships with the women in his life. His trials and tribulations with himself and his women are expressed through both the script and musical numbers. However, the two narrative forms collide in this film making the combination quite messy. The film could have been constructed in a way so that these two could have worked together to flow smoothly, but the way which director, Rob Marshall separates the script and the songs makes the film jerky and uneven. The jerkiness of the film makes the storyline seem weak. It is as though Marshall is trying to put what proved to be the winning formula of the musical numbers on the stage that was present in “Chicago” into “Nine”, as well as having the storyline carried off the stage. Unfortunately this is formula is not for this film.

In saying this, there are many good things about “Nine” that stop it from being a failure. Firstly, the scenery and visuals are stunning. The film is definitely a great tourist advertisement for Italy, even if we are no longer in the 1960’s when the film is set. The musical numbers are also outstanding and the songs are extremely catchy, especially “Take It All”, “Cinema Italiano” and “Be Italian”. The musical numbers, although disruptive to the storyline rather than enhancing it, are well choreographed and beautiful to watch.

The acting is also a stand out in this film. Daniel Day-Lewis is perfect as Guido and is perfectly cast. The star of the film is the consistently brilliant Marion Cotillard as Guido’s wife, Luisa. She gives a heartfelt performance in which the audience feels her emotion, especially in her number “My Husband Makes Movies”. She is extremely unlucky to have not received an Oscar nomination for her efforts in this film. There is great screen chemistry in between her and Day-Lewis, both in love and anger. Penelope Cruz is also a stand out as Guido’s mistress, Carla. She plays the role of the mistress well, being sexy as well as vulnerable and desperate for Guido’s affections. Dame Judi Dench is charming as per usual, and it is joyful to see her try her hand at a musical number throughout the film. Both Nicole Kidman and Kate Hudson have almost unnecessary roles, but both provide great songs for the film soundtrack.

“Nine” is a great musical, but not one of the great stories of the year. There are some extremely fun moments throughout the film and the players are far from bad, but the weakness of the storyline lets its good points down.
6.5/10