Films gain relevance through context. For decades, Ford’s Young Lincoln might have seemed outdated, irrelevant, a throwback to another North American era, one that had little to do with the present. However, watching it at this point in history, its lessons about what might truly represent US values is a sharp corrective. The quintessential American hero, Lincoln is homespun and folksy. He knows how to speak to the common people, successfully thwarting a lynching through the power of his oratory alone. He also has a clear idea that there is a difference between right and wrong. When two brothers are accused of murdering a local, Lincoln offers to defend them, convinced they are innocent in large part by his relationship with their mother, who reminds him of his own mother. Obviously, in this America, he is right, and he gets them off. The last third of the film is given over to events in the courtroom. The incohate values of the mob are thwarted and order is restored. It’s the beginning of the leader’s rise to greatness.
There’s something hokey about the film, in spite of Henry Fonda’s subtle performance, a performance which constructs Lincoln as an outsider, seeking to find his place in society. After seeing his son getting lost in the maze of his mind in The Trip, this is a complete counterpoint, with Henry Fonda’s Lincoln sure of his own judgement, confident in the innate rightness of his actions. There appears to be no place for Ford and Fonda’s Lincoln in today’s United States.
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