The world Steven Spielberg creates in Lincoln (2012) truly does not seem far removed from the one in which no one saw slavery as a moral issue:  the world of colonial America, for example.  It’s the nineteenth century, however, and President Lincoln insists on the passage of the slavery-extirpating 13th Amendment—the subject of  Spielberg’s and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s film.

I don’t care for the director’s sentimental hyperbole, but Lincoln is a quite good historical drama (however much license it takes).  Though the theme lacks profundity, the writing is intelligent, and by saying this, I am obliged to point out what the theme is:  that dishonest actions are sometimes needed for producing perfectly just and noble political ends.  Nothing profound, or original, about that; although fortunately there is much more going on in the picture than this element.

The talk is clever, the debate exciting.  Costumes, production design and Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography are remarkable and captivating.  Kushner is a homosexual, but Abe Lincoln here is not gay.  Not openly, anyway, and probably not at all.  Period.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays him appealingly, although other actors, such as Sally Field and the poised David Strathairn are more memorable.  Outstanding.

Lincoln is no John Adams, but it is one of Spielberg’s best films.

Abraham Lincoln (Photo credit: George Eastman House)

It was a funny comic strip, Peanuts was, even if it relied too heavily on eccentric Snoopy for its humor.

The first of all the Peanuts TV specials, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965) was so painstakingly written by Charles Schulz that it ended up being a comic masterpiece which didn’t need any heavy reliance on Snoopy.  It  just needed a lot of imagination and some top-notch jokes.  To Schulz it needed to be meaningful too, and with Linus quoting the Gospel of Luke (and the singing of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” at the end) it did become meaningful in a way other Christmas cartoons on TV never did.

Vince Guaraldi’s music is famous now, with its hooks and charm, and the voices—Peter Robbins as Charlie Brown, Kathy Steinberg as Sally, etc.—are unbeatable.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the John Updike short story, “Made in Heaven,” written in the Eighties (and from the collection titled Trust Me), something important is concentrated on.  The piece chronicles the years of marriage between Brad and Jeanette Schaeffer, and it begins with the words, “Brad Schaeffer was attracted to Jeanette Henderson by her Christianity . . .”  Christianity, or something like it, is there, to be sure, but it doesn’t last.  The “something important” which happens is that unbelief masquerades as belief, for a long time.  It’s an unbelief afflicting both Brad and Jeanette, who seem unable to do anything about it, and I myself certainly suspect they can’t.  Can it not be said their minds are being blinded—yes, blinded—to the light of the gospel?  (See II Cor. 4:4.)  To me it can, notwithstanding this is hardly a point Updike is making.

What is doubtless true is that “Made in Heaven” reflects the erosion of Updike’s own recognized faith in orthodox Protestant doctrine.

It’s in a story such as “Augustine’s Concubine” that Updike introduces us to true believers, converts.  A 1970s work included in the collection, Problems and Other Stories, “Concubine” revolves around the love life of Augustine and of his married lover before Augustine’s conversion in the fourth century.  And before hers.  Updike makes it seem inevitable that Augustine will surrender to God, but not that she will.  Yet she enters a cenobium.

What comes about after all the illicit sex is not only chastity but also asceticism (“She, too, could taste the dry joy of lightness, of renunciation”).  A tribute to the former concubine concludes the story:  “She was a saint, whose name we do not know.  For a thousand years, men would endeavor to hate the flesh, because of her.”  What comes about, then, is a history of (Catholic) chastity and asceticism, something Updike, with his understanding of people’s faith in orthodox doctrine, sympathetically presents.

Cover of Problems and Other Stories

I saw about an hour and 50 minutes of the Robert Zemeckis film, Flight (2012), before the projector’s audio went down and the theater crew was unable to fix it.  It’s okay, though; by that time I was tired of the movie anyway.  It’s yet another film about a serious alcoholic (this time a pilot) and it’s a bit draggy.  Its most powerful and suspenseful shot-series comes rather early, after which the movie is often good but not that good.  It’s good in the sense of not being utterly routine—and there is superb acting aplenty.  Denzel Washington is masterly as the pilot.

Another thing:  Parents, pay attention to the R rating.

Denzel Washington (Photo credit: Dalboz17)

Abbie Cornish is an intelligent actress playing an intelligent but non-cerebral woman in Bright Star (2009), written and directed by Jane Campion.  Her, Cornish’s, Fanny Brawne is dignified, passionate, agonized; in short, the performance is magnificent.  Ben Whishaw, who enacts the English poet John Keats—Brawne’s real-life lover—is unerring, and the film is a gem.  It centers on the John-and-Fanny romance and suggests that amatory love, when it isn’t painful, is as beautiful as a Keatsian poem.

Cover of Bright Star