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Where cinema is concerned, the thought process of “print the legend” is the de facto modus operandi. Young Mr. Lincoln is a piece of democratic mythology, more in tuned to iconography and hagiography than detailing what little is truly known about Abraham Lincoln’s early years. It is with this in mind that John Ford has sought not to explore the reality of Lincoln’s formative years, but to hammer home the tall tales that have built up around him, changing him into a walking/talking symbol for homespun politics and common sense intelligence.
Casting the right star in a role can add a definitive layer of symbolic weight to the part, and Ford was smart enough to cast Henry Fonda as Lincoln. Fonda is practically a walking monument to Americana itself, think of his iconic roles in films like The Grapes of Wrath or 12 Angry Men. He seemed to excel in roles that put him in the shoes of men who spoke little but it meant something when they did, men who had a strong conscience and moral convictions. Young Mr. Lincoln seems custom-made for these intrinsic qualities that Fonda brought to any role. He and Ford work in harmony to make this Lincoln feel real enough in the context of the film, and Fonda holds his own against Ford’s poetic vistas.
While Young Mr. Lincoln may not hold as much weight for me as other films like The Searchers or Red River, it does possess a certain charm. A little bit old-fashioned with gorgeous scenery and Ford’s particular way of shooting a scene that immediately turns it into a symbolic moment of humanity being tamed. It’s a gorgeous looking movie, and one that manages to juggle courtroom drama, sentimentality, and folksy charm and humor to spin out a myth of Lincoln in wait. But much of it is almost too cutesy, too folksy for me to fully embrace. One cannot fault it’s form, nor the potent beauty of many of its images, but Young Mr. Lincoln never feels as immediate or great as other films in Ford’s career. Yet Young Mr. Lincoln does alternately feel like one of Ford’s more personal films, one filled with his patriotism and various obsessions that routinely popped up in his work.
