The film is so beholden to the moods and manners of Malick that even its more estimable
elements (the acting, the cinematography, the very conceit of making a movie about Abraham
Lincoln that focuses exclusively on what's ostensibly the least interesting part of his
life, sort of a Younger Mr.
Lincoln) are diffused into the ether.
Two wall sculptures, The Bird Who
Lived with
Lincoln (1988) and Testical Glide (1987), fuse seemingly disparate sculptural, photographic, and textural
elements to create strange and beautiful poetry out of the mundane.