I felt a bit surprised this morning when I watched this Lincoln clip. Surprised because I don’t remember it….blank. Honestly? I don’t remember a single line or stand-out moment from Daniel Day Lewis‘s Oscar-winning performance. I know that DDL won, of course, and that his Lincoln voice sounded like Matthew Modine on his deathbed. But not much else. Okay, I remember a scene or two with Tommy Lee Jones.
I also recall being somewhat disappointed that Lincoln doesn’t include a single establishing shot of the 1863 White House or U.S. Capitol building.
Plus: President Lincoln was the first to take a hot bath with piped-in water, and I was hoping that Spielberg would briefly acknowledge that…nope. Or show us that toilets were made of wood back then — porcelain toilets weren’t made until the 1880s.
I’m basically saying that Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln, which opened at the New York Film Festival 10 years and 25 days ago, has all but vaporized in our collective mind. Nobody talks about it or re-watches it or anything.
“Remember The Lincoln,” posted on 2.1.13: Every last Oscar hotshot predicting a Lincoln Best Picture win at the Oscars — Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, L.A. Times contributor Mark Olsen, Toronto Star‘s Pete Howell and MCN’s David Poland — will fold and turn tail after Argo‘s Ben Affleck wins the top Directors Guild award tomorrow night. This is an official HE prediction,.
Spielberg blew it with the Clinton endorsement at the Golden Globes. He overplayed his hand and exposed his hunger. That was what tore it.
“What Were The Lincoln people Thinking?‘, posted on 2.3.13: “The DGA Best Director award going last night to Argo‘s Ben Affleck makes it a 99% certainty that Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln won’t win the Best Picture Oscar.
“Now that we know the score, I’d like to openly ask all the Gurus of Gold and Gold Derby prognosticators who stuck with Lincoln all through December and especially January a simple question: why? What tea leaves told you that there was enough serious passion out there to push this well written, ploddingly paced, passionately performed grandfather clock of a movie into the winner’s circle?
“We now know that the passion was never there, not really. And yet for weeks Team Lincoln told us over and over again “it’s the likeliest winner, what other film has the stature?, it has to happen, it’s Spielberg’s best in years, it’s too good a film, it’s about a legendary U.S. President, it’s made well over $100 million” and so on.
“Even after those Argo wins at the BFCA, Golden Globes and the PGA and especially after Bill Clinton‘s Lincoln plug at the Golden Globes suggested to some of us that the hand had been overplayed, a lot of people still held fast. Why? What vibrations from what insect antennae told you to stick? I’m honestly curious.
“Yes, I had Lincoln down as my own Best Picture prediction for a while but I did so with resignation and depression. From the beginning I saw Lincoln as a lazy default choice. It was just sitting there like a lump of mashed potatoes. I couldn’t wait to dump it after sensing a change in the wind.
“My pet theory: The downfall of Zero Dark Thirty sealed Lincoln‘s fate. If ZD30 hadn’t been torpedoed by the Stalinists and had held on the strength it had in early December with all the critics awards, it would have taken a lot of support away from Argo, which after all is a more congenial and entertaining version of the same basic story (i.e., a brilliant CIA maverick bucks the bureaucratic tide in order to push through a secret, risky-seeming CIA operation in the Middle East that involves hoodwinking Islamic militants and which ends in delicious success). The Argo and ZD30 votes might have split the faction that is now voting entirely for Argo, and Lincoln might have inched ahead and become the favorite…maybe.”
“Lincoln Fades In The Mind,” posted on 7.6.19.
