fullygoldy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fullygoldy) wrote2013-04-22 09:45 pm
fullygoldy) wrote2013-04-22 09:45 pm
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Read it to me again, my love
Just finished my first viewing of Lincoln. It's definitely going to take more than one viewing to take it all in. But my favorite bit has to be the evening of the successful vote, when Rep. Stephens (Tommy Lee Jones) returns home and presents the official Bill as a gift to his housekeeper. Then he retires to his bed, where they share a very ordinary kiss, discuss the events of the day, and revel in their success. It's a beautiful, intimate and utterly domestic moment.
I never saw it coming. Obviously, I didn't pay close enough attention to the political figures of the day. I've got a decent mental map of the military figures, but really didn't bother with the motivations of the guys who got to cast their votes before now (this is partly because this was not "my" war - I was always much more interested in the Revolution). I continue to be surprised that so much legislation that has been passed in this world has been swayed by wanting to do right by someone's beloved.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has finally appeared convincingly as an adult. He looked much to much the kid playing dress-up in Inception, but here, where he was a young man whose parents wanted to keep him from enlisting, he is much more mature *and* believable. Maybe it was the facial hair? JK, his angst, his pain over doing the right and honorable thing, so that he could live with himself after - well done.
Is the age disparity between Sally Field and Daniel Day Lewis weird to anyone else? And yet, onscreen, it was not apparent. Their portrayal of the Lincolns' grief, the gaping whole in their personal lives was palpable, these people who had to carry on, doing the right thing, the hard thing, because it needed doing and they were there to do it.
I'm impressed. The acting, the cinematography, the focus on such a short timespan. It's worth seeing. About halfway through, I also remarked that everyone in it, regardless of age, looked appropriately worn. They lived in hard times by our standards, even if they hadn't been at war for years. They lived in a time when life was short and hard and fairly desperate. I liked that none of them were all shiny, glamorous, smooth-skinned and young. We owe so much to our forefathers and foremothers. We forget too easily that our current lifestyle and society would be impossible without their legacy.
I never saw it coming. Obviously, I didn't pay close enough attention to the political figures of the day. I've got a decent mental map of the military figures, but really didn't bother with the motivations of the guys who got to cast their votes before now (this is partly because this was not "my" war - I was always much more interested in the Revolution). I continue to be surprised that so much legislation that has been passed in this world has been swayed by wanting to do right by someone's beloved.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has finally appeared convincingly as an adult. He looked much to much the kid playing dress-up in Inception, but here, where he was a young man whose parents wanted to keep him from enlisting, he is much more mature *and* believable. Maybe it was the facial hair? JK, his angst, his pain over doing the right and honorable thing, so that he could live with himself after - well done.
Is the age disparity between Sally Field and Daniel Day Lewis weird to anyone else? And yet, onscreen, it was not apparent. Their portrayal of the Lincolns' grief, the gaping whole in their personal lives was palpable, these people who had to carry on, doing the right thing, the hard thing, because it needed doing and they were there to do it.
I'm impressed. The acting, the cinematography, the focus on such a short timespan. It's worth seeing. About halfway through, I also remarked that everyone in it, regardless of age, looked appropriately worn. They lived in hard times by our standards, even if they hadn't been at war for years. They lived in a time when life was short and hard and fairly desperate. I liked that none of them were all shiny, glamorous, smooth-skinned and young. We owe so much to our forefathers and foremothers. We forget too easily that our current lifestyle and society would be impossible without their legacy.