It's a very powerful narrative of what must be one of the most significant and momentous legislative acts of all time. Not just the liberation of millions of slaves in the South, but also ensuring the freedom of many millions more not yet born; as Lincoln says in the film, in a surely Oscar-winning performance by Daniel Day-Lewis.
Although two and a half hours long, and quite dry in places as it discusses almost exclusively the passage of this single Bill, this splendid piece of work is quite easy to sit through and does not seem such an onerous investment of time. Therein perhaps lies its true achievement: to dramatize an episode of history that while enormous, is really just detailed legislative negotiations and their context without much relief.
The content chosen for this biopic of Lincoln's life, versus perhaps the traditional formula of linear chronological narrative, is a near-perfect, as Kennedy would have said, "Portrait of Courage". Not only courage but also leadership and strength; and therefore the viewer can learn so much more from these 150 minutes than merely a history lesson from the American Civil War.
Without wishing to spoil it for those that have not yet seen it, the perfect storm that the movie portrays - the confluence of events from hell, in fact - is the horns of a severe moral dilemma that sees Lincoln forced to chose between Freedom and Peace. The naturally expedient option of Peace, suddenly tangible with a finally exhausted Confederacy, might see the opportunity to abolish slavery recede, perhaps forever. Ironic, since this is what the war was supposed to be about. (Early in the film, asked if abolition was desirable, a citizen replies that of course it was because that would end the war. However, the same (white) citizen admitted that were the war to end first, abolition would not be desirable at all.)
Moreover, abolition was set to make any peace negotiation - and the implied Confederate surrender - that much harder to secure because re-joining a Federal Union where Slavery had been abolished was considered a threat to the South's very economic existence, and therefore unconscionable.
Furthermore, were knowledge of a peace deal in the offing to go public, the vote on abolition was certain to be delayed as peace for a war-weary nation was a far more urgent priority. But with a new Congress about to take its seats after the 1864 election, the delicate numbers required to stack up the two-thirds majority required for an amendment to the constitution would be even more challenging a month or more later. But alongside the great importance and moral obligation of Abolition, Lincoln like everyone desperately yearned for Peace at the earliest possible hour.
So how to achieve peace AND Abolition? (I won't spoil anymore and urge you to see the film to find out if you haven't already.)
Lincoln's skillful leadership as he guides his nation through this critical moment is breathtaking and truly inspirational. That the character Daniel Day-Lewis tenderly portrays wears the burden with such grace, humour and patience provides yet more inspiration. It occurs to me that this movie, like Zero Dark Thirty, was something Barack Obama - abolition's greatest beneficiary to date - might have wished quicker through Hollywood's Machinery in time to assist his re-election campaign. (He has quite loudly modeled himself on Lincoln, for one announcing his election campaign from the same state legislature their respective careers share. )
Admittedly not directly comparable, Obama's Healthcare effort no doubt took some inspiration from Lincoln's example. Not quite as pivotal as the end of Slavery, Obamacare nevertheless will be seen - once it is up and running - as a turning point in US social history and it's passing seemed just as impossible. Many great leaders before him had tried and failed to achieve the same and it's tremendous sapping of Obama's unprecedented political capital after the 2008 election was surely painful.
It is sad though when you think that some 150 years later, Mr Obama is still striving - probably in vain - for those same ideals that Lincoln fought for, and of which Emancipation was only a first step. True equality under the law is still an aspiration in American - as in any - society. Universal suffrage remained a struggle for African Americans, as for women, in America for far too long a time, and equality of opportunity remains only a dream. Globally, the principles of fairness Lincoln espoused are as elusive as ever and he would be dismayed at the survival of municipal corruption and the ubiquity political cowardice in government today.
To see Lincoln as a history lesson is certainly a good reason to see it once; but it is perhaps also - despite its length - worth a second viewing for its lesson in leadership, courage and human character also. Not the greatest entertainment ever, and perhaps for that reason not a huge Oscar winner; but Speilberg's Lincoln is a quiet masterpiece nevertheless, if only for its poignant and faithful telling of the story in question.