Vapnartak?

Is it time? No.

Instead, I'm going to talk about 'Lincoln' which I saw this afternoon. It jumps the queue because the American Civil War often features in wargames and it's therefore relevant. [Hang on says the rhetorical pedant, one couldn't get more relevant to wargaming than Vapnartak; what with it being a wargames show and all.]

Anyway, brushing RP to one side Daniel Day-Lewis is as magnificent as one would expect and the film overall is exceptionally good. Sally Fields deserves a mention as does Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens. Our old friend Robert E. Lee pops up - what a gift to popular culture that man is - albeit he doesn't say very much, or indeed anything. The opening sequence is the only battle scene, and it is shot as a fight; a lethal fight, but a fight nonetheless. This is an interesting way of stressing that war is nothing more than men trying to dominate, hurt and kill other men.

There is also a scene where Lincoln tours a battlefield in the aftermath of victory. Although the sprawling corpses are another powerful vision of the huge cost even of being on the right side, they just didn't look very real to me. Obviously I've never seen the immediate aftermath of any battle (*) let alone an ACW one, but it just all looked very, er, Hollywood to me. Despite that one small caveat it's a marvellous film and you should see it.

(*) I was actually at the battle of Bradford, but that is firstly a story for another day and secondly not actually that much of a basis for criticising Stephen Spielberg's portrayal of mid 19th century death and destruction.