Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln"

While I may not be the giant movie nerd that I once was, I still keep up on the Oscar race, and ever since The Beard (Spielberg...for those wondering) said he was going to direct Lincoln, an adaptation of Doris Kerns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, I have been ready for it.

I've always been a fan of Spielberg's dramas, though I sat out of War Horse - I really want to see the play.  I loved Schindler's List, and AI is one of those movies I can only watch when I'm terribly depressed.  I knew that he could do something special with this material.  Until...

I saw the trailer.  The direction looks great, Daniel Day Lewis looks the part, but I just cannot get past Lewis' intonation for Lincoln.  Granted, I don't believe any of us can really, truly know what Lincoln sounded like, though I suppose there is some description of it somewhere, but Lewis' voice sounds way too high pitched for the part.  In my mind, Lincoln always had a commanding voice - a certain gravitas, one that could silence crowds with a mere, "Four score and seven years ago..."   However, this is not working for me, and it is making me not want to see the movie.

Maybe I am stuck in a "What Might Have Been" scenario.  For many years while Spielberg was off making other movies, Liam Neeson was attached to play Lincoln.  Now there is a voice more in tune with what I imagined.  It might be that I am totally off base, and this is indeed what Lincoln sounded like.  I know Lewis is pretty much a cerebral, method actor, and it wouldn't surprise me if he researched it throuroughly. I am sure he'll be nominated for Best Actor, but I think that will be more out of habit than anything else...

Anyway, here is the latest commercial.  What should send chills (see Les Miserables and Cloud Atlas) is just producing consternation.