Year: 1939
Director: John Ford
Country: US
Language: English
Like many of John Ford's best films, Young Mr.Lincoln dissects the point where politics and narrative (factual, fictional and mythical) intersect. It anticipates Ford's later masterpiece The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Ford gives us a precise portrait of a person’s physical and cultural evolution. If you though Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln (2012) was an enticing picture, this should prove even more impressive.
A fictionalized account of the early life of the American president as a young lawyer (Henry Fonda) facing his greatest court case.
Ford relies freely on anecdote, rumor, and imaginative reconstruction to fill out his portrait of Lincoln. He subverts myth by presenting a hero who has not yet become himself, though throughout the run-time shows the potential to become the great leader that he would become. The weight of a hero's destiny slowly drives Lincoln, yet Ford goes to great efforts to create a multi-dimensional character.
At the time, movies like Triumph of the Will sought to indulge itself in political myth. During the same year Gone With the Wind romanticized the American South & Wizard of Oz sought to take us into an entirely different fantasy reality. In relation to these, Young Mr. Lincoln is fairly grounded in reality. The picture depicts the best and worst of America, attempting to avoid easy sentimentalism and easy moral messages.
Henry Fonda's portrayal of Lincoln is quite remarkable. The cinematography is also quite good, although the writing suffers from feeling too fragmented and episodic. Young Mr. Lincoln also suffers from age, as I personally think it's one of his least accessible pictures. Compared to the majority of his filmography, this certainly feels tedious at times.
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