Posted on 02/06/2003 3:08:50 AM PST by JohnHuang2
(Emphasis mine ~c'08)
I personally am waiting with the proverbial baited breath.
Living near Gettysburg should be interesting in the next few years as the focus of the battlefield is "recreated". For years, tourists have trusted that the presentations done by guides are factual. I would hope that you would monitor these "productions" too and challenge their "correctness".
GWTW is probably the greatest movie ever made, and it's been seen by far more people than any other movie. The book was translated into a number of languages.
Walt
BILL KAUFFMAN is associate editor for American Enterprise Magazine. This article originally appeared in the March 2003 edition of the magazine.
"Hurray for "Gods and Generals"
WASHINGTON--Mr. Lincoln said he liked his speeches short and sweet, so here it is: The new Warner Brothers picture "Gods and Generals" is not only the finest movie ever made about the Civil War, it is also the best American historical film. Period.
Writer-director Ron Maxwell's prequel to his epic "Gettysburg" (1993) is so free of cant, of false notes, of the politically conformist genuflections that we expect in our historical movies, that one watches it as if in a trance, wondering if he hasn't stumbled into a movie theater in an alternative America wherein talented independents like Maxwell get $80 million from Ted Turner to make complex and beautiful films about what Gore Vidal has called "the great single tragic event that continues to give resonance to our Republic."
Come Friday, "Gods and Generals" will invade the nation's theaters in a commercial gamble by Warner Brothers that could be a masterstroke, à la Lincoln's maneuvering at Fort Sumter, or a disaster on the order of Pickett's Charge. The four-hour-plus "Gettysburg" was a commercial and critical success, but that and six dollars will buy Maxwell a cup of coffee in Hollywood.
Over eggs and toast in Charlotte, N.C., I spoke with the writer-director on the morning after his film was screened for one of those putatively Middle American "test audiences" that corporations solicit to grade shampoo, new flavors of M&M's, and big-budget movies.
"They operate from fear and loathing and a complete lack of understanding of what this film is about," says Maxwell of studio executives. "They might as well be looking at hieroglyphics." In test markets like Charlotte, the film scored spectacularly high with men over the age of 35 and not so well with teenage girls.
I asked Maxwell why so few films are made about American history. "There's a feeling in Hollywood that the audience doesn't care," he answered. "I think that's because those who make the decisions don't care about history. Their field of view is contemporary. Many studio executives, because they aren't interested in looking beyond their own lifetimes, draw the conclusion that no one else is interested, either. They don't understand that an audience is out there. Of course, they haven't catered to that audience for decades."
An intelligent look at Dixie
The epigraph to "Gods and Generals" is from George Eliot: "A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship.The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead." Maxwell thus tips us off even before the first strains of the powerful John Frizzell-Randy Edelman score that what we are about to see is not the Hollywood-squared version of the Civil War, in which Father Abraham and the purehearts vanquish blackguard slaveowners and the drooling proto-Klansmen who fight for them. Continue
What? Shed a little too much light on your god did it? Gangs of New York was a good movie and Gods & Generals will be better. Face it, Walt. The lie of lincoln is over. Within 30 years so many of the citizens of the respective states will know the truth, we may actually be able to turn this nation back into a Republic
I have a problem with any actor portraying Robert E. Lee with a deep Alabama or Georgia accent. His home was in Arlington, VA for goodness' sake. Arlington is further north than Monticello, VA (Thomas Jefferson) or Mount Vernon, VA (George Washington), and neither Washington nor Jefferson are ever portrayed with deep southern accents. He at most should have a light tidewater kind of accent. The circle he moved in was sophisticated and refined, and he should not sound like he just fell off the back of a wagonload of watermelons.
Hollywood however, thinks that all southerners speak with one accent -- hick (think Cletus on the Simpsons).
I've been looking forward to this movie, however, I just started the book and I have to say that Mr. Shaara has already imagined this very improbable conversation between Jackson and Dr. William White (Jackson's Presbyterian Pastor):[Background: Jackson is greiving the loss of his second child having already lost a child and his first wife]
Jackson sat without moving, stared at White's desk, then looked up into his eyes. "I have heard...that God punishes us for loving each other too much. There are those...who have come to visit...friends...I suppose. They offer kind words, advise. I have been told..." He stopped, tried again to form the words.
"I have been told that if we do not suppress our love for human things, and give more to God, He...makes up pay with great pain. I...am not sure I believe that. And yet...I am finding harder to keep the pain away."
"It's an interesting doctrine, but I must say, not a very comforting one. Do you feel you and Anna have been punished?"
Jackson thought, glanced at the ceiling, then around the room. "I well, no. God has his reasons...Anna has suffered a great deal. I have told her we must try harder to please Him, That He has given us a lesson. It does not seem to help her. The path I chose, marrying Anna, was the correct one. I truly believe that. But I may love her too much. It it possible...God has given us a warning?"
White put his hands together, under his chin, and looked down.
Jackson continued . "If it is wrong for me to love anyone but God... if I have to, I can do that."
White looked up, said "You have made a great leap of interpretation there, I must say. You are accepting what has happened in you life as a direct result of an act of God. Step away Major, back away from your own pain, and look around you. Your loss is not yours alone. What of your family? What of the people in your life, who share the pain of your loss? And, excuse me, Major, but what of the baby?"
"The baby?" Jackson stiffened, did not want to think about the baby.
<"Was the baby punished because you gave it love? Major, I do not know why God does the things He does, but I believe you have the same duty to God as you have always had: to follow the right path, to live your life with a clear conscience. If God decides to inform you why He is doing whatever it is He chooses to do, then please come and tell me. But I suspect, Major, that you may only learn the Great Answers when He calls you away from this life."
Jackson pondered again, absorbed the words, began to feel a release, a load removed. He had assumed an awful guild for the baby's death, had assumed it was his fault. He sat silently, scolded himself for his ego, his presumptions.
AFter a long quiet pause, White said, "Major, do you miss your mother?"
The question caught Jackson by surprise. He looked at White, puzzled, thought about his mother. "I suppose...well, I try not to. It serves no purpose. She died when I was very young. God would not want me to dwell on that...the pain."
"Well, maybe. But do you miss her? Do you ever talk to her, pray to her?. If we believe that all our departed loved ones sit with God, then maybe it is she who watches over you, who might provide you some guidance."
Jackson stared at White, fought, pushed away the image of his mother. "I...don't think I can do that. It seems odd to pray...not to God."
"Don't look for answers, Major, look for guidance, for comfort. And do not fear love. I believe that God would be happy if you sought out the guiding hand of someone who loves you as much as your mother loves you."
BARF!!!! This conversation would be abominable heresy to any Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, Calvinist Presbyterian much less a minister. It is beyond the pale in so many ways. I hope the whole book/movie is not like this crap, no matter how much "sincere" or "heartfelt" Shaara injected B.S. is in it.
If you lked "Gangs" that is fine with me and I know it has been nominated for best picture and all that. For me, the character relationships were vague, there were too -many- main characters - the movie lacked focus. The movie played the audience for fools. I always hate that. Daniel Day Lewis' character throws a knife directly into Leo DiCaprio's belly, which seems buried to the hilt. That type wound was ALWAYS fatal in the 1860's. You study the ACW, you should know that. After some unspecified time, Leo is good to go.
His new gang just spontaneously springs to life by the hundred, there was no background laid in the story for that. The one guy elected sheriff turns his back on D.D. Lewis' character -- that was way too convenient. It was all very lame.
Lincoln is hardly mentioned.
The sets and costumes was players were all very well done; D.D.Lewis was a great bad guy. It was a whole lot of ado about nothing. You liked it, fine.
Walt
"It's something these Yankees do not understand, will never understand. Rivers, hills, valleys, fields, even towns: To those people they're just markings on a map from the war office in Washington. To us, they're birthplaces and burial grounds, they're battlefields where our ancestors fought. They're places where we learned to walk, to talk, to pray. They're places where we made friendships and fell in love.They're the incarnation of all our memories and all that we love."
I think that is likely why Wade Hampton loathed Sherman after his people burned Lexington, part of Columbia, and as a direct insult, turned his cannon on the Statehouse. And then marched his troops north where his bummers burned my great, great grandfather's farm.
Michael Medved strongly opposes boycotts such as Disney and Turner. He says that we should reward the good stuff and diss the bad stuff. Otherwise, why make the good stuff at all? I agree. I will support good, clean and well made movies, regardless of who makes them. I want them to see that there is a reward for making them. 'Nuff said.
All of Jeff Shaara's books are great.
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