A new film from writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson is always a cause for celebration among film buffs. Apart from his underwhelming 1996 debut Hard Eight and 2014's messy Inherent Vice (which I still enjoyed despite the constant head-scratching), Anderson's output is always something to savour with repeat viewings. But his latest, a sumptuous and idiosyncratic love story set in 1950's London, is not only noteworthy for being the work of the one of the finest filmmakers of recent times, but for the announcement that this will be the final big screen appearance of Daniel Day-Lewis, an actor whose frequent returns to cinema after long periods away always mark a reason to sit up and get excited.
Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a famous fashion designer who creates the most wonderful and elegant dresses for the ladies of high society, who clearly pay top dollar for his services. He is charismatic and handsome, but also impulsive and quick-tempered. Woodcock is a man of routine who insists on starting the day with a large breakfast and, most importantly, quiet. We first meet him sharing the breakfast table with his latest squeeze, and he scowls at the sight of a pastry offered by her. His sister Cyril (Lesley Manville), who he shares his large residence with, has witnessed her brother's cycle of excitement and boredom with attractive ladies many times before, and quickly sets up plans to remove the poor girl from their home and his life. He talks of his late mother and a growing sense of unease. It's clear he's in dire need of a new muse to keep the creative juices flowing.
His mood quickly improves when he has breakfast at a nearby hotel and has his attention grabbed by the clumsy yet beautiful Alma (Vicky Krieps). He invites her to dinner and does most of the talking, telling stories of his past and his fondness for sowing hidden messages within the dresses he creates. In his own suit jacket, he keeps a lock of his mother's hair. Alma is swept away by this charming man, and agrees to a dress fitting despite the intimidating presence of Cyril. Soon enough, she notices a gradual change in Woodcock's mood, and Cyril braces herself for the inevitable. But Alma loves and feels that she understands the mysterious and exciting genius, and concocts a plan to keep a hold of him forever. Indeed, Phantom Thread is possibly the oddest and most mesmerising love story since Punch-Drunk Love, Anderson's 2002 dark comedy and still his greatest film to date.
The director has always worn his influences on his sleeve, and Phantom Thread is infused with an aura of Kubrick, and a heavy lashing of Hitchcock. It's probably his most straight-forward film, but there is an obliqueness to the story also. The narrative veers off into almost fairy-tale territory, as Alma sets in motion her grand scheme. It all moves along at a dazzling, hypnotic pace with the assistance of Johnny Greenwood's classical score and Anderson's constantly gliding camera. If this is truly the final performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, he is certainly ending in a high note with one of the finest performances of his career and further cements his place as one of, if not the, finest actor to ever grace our screens. Manville is also fantastic as the cold and shrewd Cyril, a woman who has seemingly dedicated her life to her mummy's-boy sibling, with whom she shares a relationship that often feels incestuous. Krieps is radiant, simmering with intensity as she refuses to become yet another muse to be shown a quick exit. Phantom Thread is not for everyone, but Anderson's films never are. Despite the period setting, this is a truly modern love story, and one with the power to both warm the heart and genuinely horrify.
The focus of screenwriter Tony Kushner and director Steven Spielberg's Lincoln biopic is very specific, following the presidents administration for a short period of around two months in early 1865. It is a significant moment in Lincoln's term as president, not just for the passing of the 13th amendment to the United States constitution, that would free the thousands of black slaves, but for a change in Lincoln's opinion of the black population. It is also a significant period for American culture as a whole. Lincoln's image and reputation are wholly constructed from this short time. In the opening scene, Daniel Day-Lewis' Abraham Lincoln, discusses the black experience, and a previous speech he conducted, with two black soldiers on the front line in the civil war, still raging five years since it began. This opening is critical to the change that he experienced when he saw young black men fighting for the Union against the Confederate army. Before this face-to-face encounter, Lincoln had been involved in the Emancipation Proclamation (passed in 1863), but actually had plans to deport the blacks out of the United States, if slavery were abolished, as he felt that blacks and whites could not co-exist.
It is typical of all adaptations of Lincoln, "The Great Emancipator," is that the 16th president has been mythologised even by many history scholars since his death in April 1865. Spielberg is no stranger to revisionist historical cinema, of course (Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) instantly come to mind), as the director tends to hold onto an idealised sense of sentimentality, a heightened range of emotions. It's often a cheap trick in Spielberg's cinema, but in Lincoln, the screenplay does hint at a man who is a little ambiguous on the subject of race. Day-Lewis, in a scene on a porch with his wife's ex-slave confidante, Elizabeth Keckley (Gloria Reuben), he plays Lincoln with an awkwardness. He asks her what he thinks will happen to the black population if slavery was abolished. Is he uncomfortable because of his views on deportation, or is he exploring the idea of absolute freedom? This is another scene that leads me to believe that Kushner and Spielberg were aware of the more dubious history concerning Lincoln's possible racism before 1865. That is not to say he wasn't against slavery, he was, but as a lawyer, it appears he approached it totally pragmatically.
Lincoln focuses it's attentions on the debates both in congress and behind the scenes within the seemingly cavernous rooms of the White House. The arguments and anecdotes about the meaning of freedom, and the race differences. The film attempts to show the bureaucratic and labyrinthine nature of policy change, let alone the grievances of changing the constitution written out in 1776. Tommy Lee Jones plays Thaddeus Stevens, a staunch opponent of slavery, and advocate of total freedom for blacks. As his story unfolds in congress, his secret personal life reveals itself almost revelatory in its conclusion. Small moments of comic vignette are provided by James Spader's Lobbyist W. N. Bilbo, and his crew, as they attempt to persuade democrats and republicans to vote for the passing of the 13th Amendment. Bilbo is seen in congress, sitting in the public seat mezzanine, providing character exposition, commentary and funny observations with his cohorts, like the two old men, Statler and Waldorf, in The Muppet Show. However, these escapades offer nothing more tangible than a little relief from the seriousness of the politics. Of course, with Spielberg attached to this project, the politics is also backed up with the emotional core of the Lincoln family. Sally Field plays the grief stricken wife, Mary, who is struggling after the death of a son.
Lincoln shows an ambiguous family, whose inner conflict juxtaposes the husband and the politician. In scenes with Mary, Lincoln is defensive, conflicting with the emotional stability of his wife. He has emotional detachments from his youngest son, whilst the visiting Robert Lincoln (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), battles with his father to join the civil war, a path that the president does not want for him. The American civil war was a brutal war, mechanised by the rise of the industrial revolution, leading to hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Whilst the scenes between son and wife are well scripted and acted, their presence seems secondary to what will, in part, contribute to awards heavy adulation of the Day-Lewis performance. Not only does he portray a president adored throughout history, but the script gives the actor a series of hyperbolic and anecdotal monologues. In practically all of Day-Lewis's performances, he has a moment in which he orates a lengthy, passionate speech, bringing stories to their emotional peek. In Lincoln, he almost explicitly has one of these fervent, impassioned moments, in every scene in which he is sitting. They are often humorous, but after a while, the obvious pleas for Oscar recognition, and fundamentally, to over emphasis the man as a great orator, and a man of complete honour and tolerance.
Undeniably, the film is sumptuously beautiful to look at. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski conjures up a dark, candle-lit and fire-lit image when photographing inside. The minimal light, and contemporary decor, produces a palate of ochre's and earthy colours. When shooting outside, the grey of January winter bleeds from the sky into the skin of the characters, and the spacious clutter of buildings. The film juxtaposes these primitive images of the mid-ninetieth century surroundings with the very modern debates of morality and enslavement. There is a clear reason why Lincoln has been made in 2012. Lincoln's status as the emancipator of the black population, his image (still exploited for financial gain today in America), and his outstanding myth, were used during current president, Barack Obama's, presidential campaign in 2008. His myth is enduring (his Washington D.C. monument being the sight in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke publicly about the failure of the Emancipation Proclamation to truly free black people in America), but his (and Day-Lewis's) performance as a saviour and saint, would always win over a nation of people whose emotional attachment to their history can be easily manipulated and perpetuated through mass communication (newspaper, film, television, Internet), and fact and fiction merge to create an acceptable narrative.
Lincoln is an interesting film. The machinations of politics are a subject that should be relevant to most people in this period where nefarious politics are happening in plain sight, but whose unknown activities are most likely darker and fundamentally scarier than is possible to imagine. This Lincoln has very slight moments of enigma, his character is at times inscrutable, but the film doesn't offer insight into these confusions of intention or social outlook. However, when these ambiguities present themselves, they are soon reversed by ever-present adoration of the historical figure, this is perfectly illustrated in the closing moments. The film uncomfortably and unnecessarily attaches Lincoln's death scene at the end (which occurred two or three months after the time period the film is set). A tactic that opens the film into stomach churning celebration and lionising, where his famous speech lingers over the ghost on Lincoln, the generic emotional music of John Williams echoing into the credits. It's a shame the filmmakers perpetuated the myth instead of penetrating a character whose true identity is clouded in over a century of storytelling, and pseudo-religious worship. A missed opportunity perhaps, but Lincoln seems to have been made at this time to simply highlight to the world the social and political progress that has been made in America, from the passing of the 13th amendment, to the inaugaration of Barack Obama in 2008: Well done America, you're so enlightened (sic)!
After seeing his father 'Priest' (Liam Neeson) murdered at the hands of rival gang leader Bill 'the Butcher' Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) 16 years before, Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns to the Five Points in New York seeking revenge. Not much has changed since he fled, as tension remains between the 'Natives', the Irish immigrants, the Chinese and the blacks, only Bill now rules over with an iron fist, helping corrupt politician William 'Boss' Tweed (Jim Broadbent) gain votes. With the help of old friend Johnny (Henry Thomas), Amsterdam finds himself working his way up Bill's ranks, and after thwarting an assassination attempt on Bill, Amsterdam wonders if he did it out of his desire to kill Bill himself, or a growing loyalty to his new employer.
Following a lengthy book-to-screen adaptation, Scorsese's historical epic reached the cinema screens 23 years after he bought the rights to Herbert Asbury's book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld,amongst stories of studio fall-outs and arguments over final cut. It seems all those years of pondering did not allow Scorsese to fine-tune his vision, and although the film looks absolutely astonishing, the result is a bit of a mess, albeit one that never gets boring. Telling such a detailed historical account of America's fist-fights for power amongst mass immigration and racial tension could not have come at a more suitable time, as the 9/11 attacks occurred during production. But Scorsese chooses to cram this in with sub-plots of political corruption, a love-story between Amsterdam and thief Jenny (Cameron Diaz), the New York Draft Riots, and the central revenge story.
Of course, the film's ultimate saving grace is Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives a theatrical, sledgehammer performance as the one eyed-monster, and his scene where he sits talking to Amsterdam with an American flag draped over his shoulders is worth a thousand Academy Awards alone. Among the wave of dodgy Oirish accents, DiCaprio's isn't that bad, pulling of a credible performance which would jump-start his close relationship with Scorsese in the years after. Amsterdam is no regular hero, he's just as violent as the next thug, and one of the most interesting aspects of the film is how Scorsese tends not to show any race or group in a particularly good light. This is America's dirty beginnings after all, and boy is it bloody - heads are bludgeoned, cheeks are torn from their face - it's probably Scorsese's most gruesome since Casino (1995).
Second time around, Gangs of New York did seem admittedly better paced and more fleshed out (I thought I might even be watching a director's cut), with the political goings-on and the various sub-plots making much more sense. But the film is still a mess, and it progresses with a taste for almost glamorising the violence. The opening scene depicting the bloody fight between the Butcher's natives and the Priest's Dead Rabbits comes with slow-motion and electric guitar music, and this punk-ish approach causes it to clash with its historical setting. However, it looks staggering. The costumes, the huge sets, and the dirt and grit, has an epic David Lean quality, almost old-fashioned in a way. Yet this is a very modern film, and perhaps a more classical approach may have benefited the film which is ultimately unfocused, but effortlessly thrilling.
Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a famous fashion designer who creates the most wonderful and elegant dresses for the ladies of high society, who clearly pay top dollar for his services. He is charismatic and handsome, but also impulsive and quick-tempered. Woodcock is a man of routine who insists on starting the day with a large breakfast and, most importantly, quiet. We first meet him sharing the breakfast table with his latest squeeze, and he scowls at the sight of a pastry offered by her. His sister Cyril (Lesley Manville), who he shares his large residence with, has witnessed her brother's cycle of excitement and boredom with attractive ladies many times before, and quickly sets up plans to remove the poor girl from their home and his life. He talks of his late mother and a growing sense of unease. It's clear he's in dire need of a new muse to keep the creative juices flowing.
