“To get a richer sense of Spielberg’s contribution to the small collection of movies about Lincoln, I want to zero in on a couple of specific moments in the two I mentioned earlier. Young Mr Lincoln famously concludes with Abe (Henry Fonda) in silhouette, walking away from the camera and towards a storm. Spielberg echoes this iconic image of a silhouetted, lonely man approaching his destiny.

“What is most interesting about Abe Lincoln in Illinois, starring Raymond Massey, is how it presents the president’s well-known oratorial skills. It shows his affinity for the funny story and also his capacity for soaring rhetoric, something that really shines through in a scene towards the end of the film where he debates with presidential candidate Stephen Douglas (played by Gene Lockhart). One shot repeatedly frames Abe with the flame of a streetlight illuminating the platform on which he stands. Intended or not, this serves as a powerful image of him striving to illuminate a collective consciousness.

“In Spielberg’s film, this association between Lincoln and an illuminating flame is emphatically deployed in a beautifully rendered shot during the film’s concluding moments. We see Abe on his deathbed and then a close-up on a candle flame in which we see him addressing an audience. This delicate visual effect segues into a wide shot recreating the famous black-and-white photograph of Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address on 4 March 1865. (We might see an echo of another Spielberg drama about the traumas of war, Schindler’s List, a film that also makes much use of a candlelight motif.)”

UK critic James Clarke compares Lincoln to previous Lincoln films in his great review of Spielberg’s movie.

Tony Kushner discussed his work on Lincoln with the New York Historical Society in January. Sadly I can’t embed the video, but the session can be viewed in three parts at the following links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

“Now, after the disappointment of the Kushner-Spielberg Lincoln, we get its unfortunate sequel–actually a coda. A coda ought to reinforce a work’s preceding revelations but it’s become apparent that after his previous great films showed the humane aspect of the human experience, Spielberg has taken up the partisan view. Now that Spielberg shows us what Lincoln actually meant, one can really, rightfully rue it.”

Armond White analyses Spielberg/Obama’s ‘Obama’ gag in this long criticism.

There are many holes to pick at in White’s piece, but to focus on the film itself (Lincoln, that is, not Obama), I’ll say simply that White seems to have misunderstood the film’s point.

Lincoln is not about favouring one party over the other, it’s about fighting for equality. Equality does not have political colour, and the only way it can be achieved, the film says, is if people put ideology aside, reach out for human principles and compromise.

That humane element is in evidence throughout all of Spielberg’s films, and etched particularly eloquently in Lincoln.