I saw the film when it played in the theater last year and was riveted to my seat. Even nature calling me to visit the rest room had to wait. It was Daniel Day Lewis's presence, Tony Kushner's words and , Steven Spielberg's direction that kept me there for nearly 2 ½ hours. This film is in my opinion a masterpiece and, like Spielberg's earlier film "Schindler's List", this film will serve for years (even generations) in teaching student about an important moment in history. But there are already 155 reviews of the film posted here (and I don't want to repeat what others have said.) I'll concentrate on the DVD and Bluray releases of the film.Amazon has a general policy of grouping ALL the reviews of a film together and displaying them under all the formats. Reviews start when a fil plays in theaters and then often goes to the Amazon Instant (streaming version). So I often recommend when posting my reviews that you sort by "most recent" first and then look to see which version the reviewer is discussing. This is a review of the 4-disc Blu-ray+ DVD+Digital Copy, but it should guide you in your purchase, I hope.
Disney (the distributor of the home video) is issuing it in three different "formats". The single DVD contains the film and 9-minute "featurette" titled "The Journey to Lincoln" with the major "players". The 2-Disc Blueray+DVD just adds another (4-minute) featurette this one on how they filmed in Richmond Virginia. The only advantage to this version is that you will get higher resolution image. The FOUR-disc version adds a digital copy but more importantly adds a "Bonus Disc) with four more featurettes which add still another 53 minutes of background to the film. The longest (at 27 minutes) is "Living With Lincoln" where we follow the filming from beginning to end with interviews from every one of the major actors plus the producer and Spielberg. "Crafting The Past" (10 minutes) covers production design and makeup) while "In Lincoln's Footsteps" (!6 minutes) all too-briefly covers the score but have a great section on how the sound designer located just the right pocket watch to record for the sound of the ticking in the film (I won't spoil the surprise by revealing the answer. These featurettes tend to overlap, slightly, and though each plays as a separate "feature" as a whole they provide lots of great info after you have seen the film. And I highly suggest that after watching them on the separate Bonus Disc, you click on the last "option" called "Credits". You see the credits but the visuals on the screen are a nice extra bonus.
So, If you just want to see DDL's Academy Award-winning performance, you can just get the single-disc DVD but if you want to delve deeper into the film, you'll want the 4 Disc "Combo Pack Super Set" (Disney's words; not mine).
I hope you found this review both informative and helpful!
Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"
"You might need to have spent some of your youth celebrating Lincoln's birthday, or noticing Lincoln's picture on the penny, or reading some of the pop boys' books about the War. You might need to have read Walt Whitman's Civil War poetry, especially "When Lilacs Last etc", and more than once. Lincoln is a powerful shamanic totemic figure in the American mind, and seeing him made human by DDL is like being told yes, there is a heaven for pets or yes any child can become president. But the film handles the assassination with the greatest cinematic subtlety. Of course I've know about the assassination in great detail all my reading life. Of course I know the Gettysburg Address by heart (though generations younger than I am probably don't). Well, there came that moment in the film when the capstone had been placed, when the passage of the 13th Amendment had been achieved -and any blathering fool who still argues that "the War was not about slavery" should have his mouth taped shut as teachers used to do in the USA in 'the good old days' -that moment when in effect Lincoln had become immortal morally, and at that moment I sat in the theater agonized by foreknowledge, horrified by anticipating the next scene, which could only be the assassination. Oh no! No! Not now! let the Glory wave a short while! I'm not a guy who cries in cinemas, but I couldn't stop myself from bawling as if a close friend or sib were dying in my arms. Lincoln's death became a personal tragedy for me, for the first brief time, at that moment in the film. My dry historical awareness of the tragedy will never be merely intellectual again. Wait! Not yet! Spare me the scene of his death! I WANT HIM TO LIVE!
And the film did spare us. The indirect treatment of the assassination was superb, humane, decent film-making. Proof, I'd argue, that "less" is sometimes "more", that dispassion can be more poignant than blaring cinemascopic 3-D amped-up violence.
Perhaps not everyone in the audience was as affected as I was. There are people who quibble with DDL's portrayal of Lincoln as insufficiently awesome. There are people who ardently despise Lincoln as a tyrant and desecrator of "our" Constitution. My response to the film was personal and private, linked to my own life experience in the Civil Rights movement. But that response was more intense than I expected when I bought my ticket. More intense than at any film I've seen in many years."
Buy Lincoln (Four Disc Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) (2012) Now
Historians will enjoy. Fictional portrayal as real as it can get. Lincoln, the man & his troubles in the last days. Spielberg sprays his magic wand glitter over every aspect of this film.Cast is outstanding;
cinematography is spellbinding in itself,
the music period precision,
costuming exacting right down to the sweat and body odor.
Story is compelling and edgy.
However, I found myself laughing heartily during strange moments at very funny lines mixed into the dialogue of late Civil War days. It points to just how much of the black prejudice story has remained constant. Congress fights with words and actions, with little based on ethic . . . sound familiar. I don't know if the screen play/book writers deserve that credit or did Spielberg touch those aspects too?
I'll refrain from reviewing the book here. This is the film/DVD listing. This film adaptation will be a blockbuster.
DVD SUBTITLES in English, Spanish, and French.
Much will be said of the near perfection in stature and acting of Daniel Day-Lewis's portrayal of Lincoln. He plays the statesman, the angry husband, Christian, a manipulator, and a heart-wrenching depiction of loving father. Crawling on the floor to his sleeping son before the fire hearth brings a near tear.
Sally Fields gives what surely will be a nominated performance as Lincoln's wife, elevating her acting career to another new height.
The list of stars and significant performance highlights is endless. It's impossible to cover all that happens in this 2 ½ hour film that moves with such suspense and action that it seems less than half that length. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll beg for more when the credits roll.
Set in 1865, almost 150 years ago, but this film puts you right there in Lincolns chair, his office, his boots and hat, most convincingly. Lincoln will win you over, even if he has to pay for your support. He's obsessed, just like I am at now wanting to OWN this production, even though I watched it just yesterday in the opening theater matinee. It's that good.
If you liked WAR HORSE, you'll like LINCOLN.
Different wars, same director/producer. This historical drama is a heart drama, and regardless of age, your heart will be touched in some way.
Read Best Reviews of Lincoln (Four Disc Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) (2012) Here
Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner made some interesting and difficult choices in Lincoln that I think have succeeded in making a brilliant film about one of the most written about historical figures ever, and certainly the most written about and familiar American historical figure. And yet despite a billion words written about this man he still somehow remains an enigma with something withheld and unrevealable about the man. No doubt that is his continuing fascination to us and I have no doubt many more millions of words will be written, again vainly trying to get at the essence of the man. It is far easier to gaze in wonderous respect at the marble statue in his unmatched Memorial than to try to find the human being within the marble.Spielberg and Kushner have done their best to try to find the man with the inestimable assistance of Daniel Day Lewis' genius. If they haven't succeeded completely, well they are in good company with a thousand other biographers. I liked the closeness and intimacy of the film. I liked the quiet. I liked the touching, beautiful and subtle small details: Lincoln lying down on the floor next to his sleeping son, the ever present shawl on his shoulders, the often stooped gait, Lincoln's ready reach for the illustrative yet sometimes illusive joke or story told with great good humor, Lincoln holding hands with Stimson as the war news comes in, Lincoln's fondness for and engagement with his young aides and soldiers, his gentle touches and the incredible mastery of his emotions, his rectitude and subtle manipulation of the obstreperous, passionate, often obtuse political allies and foes.
Throughout, Day Lewis is masterful in his delivery, conveying the homeliness of the man and yet the incredible strength and the sorrow that was with him every day of his Presidency that brought many of his detractors, especially Seward and others in the "team of rivals" to come to respect and love the man. He's got not just the look, the voice, the walk and movements of the man down, he has the gentleness, and the innate dignity of the man as well. This is Lincoln at the end of the war and his soul-aching weariness coupled with his steely resolution is evident in every frame. He's superb. The rest of the characters in the drama have been cast carefully with wonderful actors who actually often resemble the real men they're playing. I could single out Tommy Lee Jones, David Straithairn, James Spader etc., but frankly everyone is marvelous in this cast down to every one of the maddening and quarrelsome Congressmen.
And I thought Sally Fields was a fine Mary Lincoln. Their scenes together played very well and conveyed in a few brief lines the struggles, regrets, tragic losses and difficulties that divide and also unite a long married couple who have weathered many travails. I found it convincing.
And finally, I am glad the focus of the film was the struggle to pass the 13th Amendment. Unless you're a history buff, I imagine this will come as some surprise to many and I found their handling of the politics and personalities at play both fascinating and engaging. I was absorbed and I imagine others will find revelatory the difficulty of passing this crucial legislation. And why not focus on this often overlooked struggle? As the film carefully explains, the whole moral purpose of the war, abolition, could have been undone postwar without it.
Some may find this narrowing of the events of the film to the last 6 months of Lincoln's life and the struggle to legislate a disappointment. Not me. As mentioned, we have had millions of words and many films and documentaries covering the overview of Lincoln's life. I applaud Spielberg and Kushner making an intimate film closeup and intense and, yes, full of dialogue and argument as the framework to illustrate an exceptional man in unimaginably difficult and tragic times, and finding within this closeup a glimpse of the man and his relations with wife, children, and friends and foes. It is a brilliantly acted and directed illustration of democracy being tested to its limits, ornery and contentious even within the midst of Civil War, and human beings at their most venal and at their most noble.
Many insights and much of this history is conveyed in dialogue (Lincoln's admission of his assumption of powers not necessarily granted him and ignoring of the law when he deemed it necessary is a prime example) and a potent line here and there speaks volumes about the war, the law, the Presidency, his marriage, his sorrow, his guile, and his steadfastness. Nicely done and will promote repeated viewing.
As expected from Spielberg, the production values are marvelous. Well done in all departments.
Want Lincoln (Four Disc Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) (2012) Discount?
Lincoln isn't a perfect movie (what is?) but it is extremely impressive. It only suffers in comparison to what a "perfect" movie about Lincoln would be. In comparison to mere mortal movies, it gets 5 stars. I can't believe that it would get any competition for a Best Picture Oscar from silly films like Django Unchained. Argo was good, but not nearly as good as this one. Lincoln will enthrall those who are interested in this dramatic, amazing time in US history. Yet it's not a war movie, it's a look at Lincoln the Man and how he navigates his role as US President, masterfully.Daniel Day Lewis is wonderful as Lincoln. For an Englishman to play Lincoln so masterfully, he deserves the Oscar for Best Actor. The look and feel of the movie is amazing. You believe that you're in a time machine and that you're really THERE, in Washington, in 1865. The portrayal of Lincoln's political infighting with an entrenched and arrogant Congress to get the 13th Amendment passed, is intriguing and intelligent. Day inspires as Lincoln throughout. One really gets the feeling of a storm of swirling voices in a desperate time of war, crying to be heard and followed, while Lincoln is the Man of his time, calmly staying strong and resolute in the midst of this chaos and grinding out his policies. If Lincoln hadn't show great Leadership and pushed the 13th Amendment at the time he did, who knows when the country would have gotten up the courage to abolish slavery again?
The secondary performances are great, including Sally Fields as Mary Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as the Abolitionist Congressman Stevens, James Spader as a shifty Republican operative, David Strathairn as Secretary of State Seward, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln. Fields in particular played a very difficult role (of the suffering and neurotic Mary Todd) very well. ALL the performances were so well played -like I said -you think that you're really there in 1865.
Lincoln, the movie, doesn't pull punches. I hope that the producers made sure that they researched their material well and stayed true to the facts, because it makes SUCH an impact. Film-goers who always thought that the Democrats were for freeing the slaves will be surprised to find this truth out: Demos in those days were absolutely for slavery and it fell to the Republicans (split into two camps: the Abolitionists and the Conservatives) to push the 13th Amendment through. The sentiments of the anti-13th-Amendment crowd in those days is also portrayed with shocking candor. Racial fear and hatred is expressed openly in the movie. It's hard to swallow at times: was this really the mood of the people, or was this played up by Spielberg artificially? Let the viewer watch it and decide! I'm personally going to read more first-person accounts of that time of history.
I have a few "small" criticisms of the movie: some of the scenes where citizens seem to me to be insolent in front of the President were hard to take. (An opening scene with some soldiers talking to Lincoln in a very familiar and non-respectful way; a scene where Lincoln bursts in upon a lobbyist who exclaims, "Well I'll be F****ed!") I would think that coming before the President would cause 99.9% to be utterly respectfull if not petrified! Also, the opening scene of black Union soldiers hand-fighting & killing Confederates up close & personnal, is disturbing for those not thick-skinned. I'm really not sure that that scene needed to be in there as it was. But if the viewer can suffer these small annoyances and look at the overall magnificence of this film, I believe that he/she will be impressed with Lincoln's intelligence, power, realism and emotional impact.
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