Sunday, November 21, 2010

Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln?

I can see it.  He's quite the chameleon actor.  So I can see him being Lincoln in Spielberg's long awaited biopic on Lincoln, which is based on the book Team of Rivals.  It will be interesting what Spielberg does to the book.  Spielberg has been known to turn books upside down.  Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton's Frankensteinish cautionary tale about giving scientists too much of a blank check since they are often wrong, was turned into a cinematic celebration of the infallible perfection of knowledge shared by scientists from around the world. 

The big question will be does Spielberg take the post-American liberal interpretation of Lincoln. That, like most post-American liberal interpretations, involves eliminating any positive influence of religion, judging without mercy anything our modern tastes consider to be racist, and separating Lincoln from any positive results of his administration, unless those results can be interpreted as having been somehow linked to a modern progressive, secular ideal or agenda. 

Of course the temptation to focus on Lincoln as ruthless warmonger, crushing civil liberties and plunging us into a costly war will also be there, and many biographers nowadays, mostly from the post-American liberal movement, prefer that angle.

We'll see. Liberal though his is, Spielberg has always given the impression of having a sliver of more traditional values and world views.  A more classical liberalism that should be somewhat uncomfortable with where the post-liberal Left is heading.  We'll see if those traditional notions have faded along with the color of his hair, or if they are more part of his being than the passage of time can eliminate.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Let me know your thoughts