The ‘Lincoln’ Trailer is Here, and It’s Two and a Half Minutes of Moving Patriotism

I have very little to say about this trailer, but if this is any indication of the movie’s quality it appears to be the best Steven Spielberg film since… Saving Private Ryan?  Spielberg inherited the “patriotic” movie crown from Frank Capra and John Ford (who directed his own Lincoln movie, Young Mr. Lincoln), and he pulls out all the tricks here, including his ace-in-the-hole, composer John Williams.

All I have to say is a big THANK YOU to Daniel Day-Lewis and Spielberg for something that has never been done right in a Abraham Lincoln movie before: the voice.  We always hear Lincoln in movies with a rich baritone, but all contemporary accounts note that Lincoln’s voice was much higher.  Naturally, Day-Lewis has seemed to find a more appropriate voice.  I’m sure people will complain that Day-Lewis “doesn’t sound like Honest Abe” — but being that no one alive has ever heard him speak, they’re just thinking about what they’ve heard in movies.

In addition to Day-Lewis, the film stars Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln), Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stevens), David Strathairn (William H. Seward), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Robert Todd Lincoln), among many others.  It opens in theaters on November 16.