Posted on 02/25/2003 1:03:04 AM PST by JohnHuang2
After three and a half hours, you will stagger out of Gods and Generals, Ronald F. Maxwell’s prequel to Gettysburg, stupefied with pathos. From the start, it offers the full Ken Burns treatment of the Civil War, with weepy violins and catch-in-the-throat personal commentary of a highly authentic character, and it never lets up. As Oscar Wilde said of the death of Dickens’s Little Nell, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it. For where Burnsian schmalz was endurable for an hour, with a week to recover before the next dose, it is quite intolerable spun out to this length and administered in one sitting. The whole movie takes place on an emotional fortissimo that becomes merely wearisome where it is not laughable.
Even more disastrously, Maxwell and Jeff Shaara, author of the novel he adapted, seem to labor (and boy do they labor!) under the misapprehension that the soldiers of the Civil War were a species of preachers, their minds ever fixed on higher things and inclined to drone on about the higher things in embarrassingly poetic speeches. The love, for instance, of General Robert E. Lee (Robert Duvall) for his homeland — meaning Virginia — is "something these Yankees do not understand." What to them are just "markings on a map" are to Marse Robert "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 are. All that we are."
That portentous repetition of the final phrase becomes something of a tic. "It’s not yet our time, gentlemen; it’s not yet our time." More than once, someone says: "Hail, Caesar. We who are about to die salute you." Not that there is any actual Caesar present, apart from Julius, crossing the Rubicon in one of the more tedious voiceover ruminations by Col. Josiah Lawrence Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels). As for the eponymous "Gods," we have only the firm Christian faith of several of the soldiers — most notably General Thomas, "Stonewall," Jackson (Stephen Lang), the film’s real hero — to go on. One can only imagine what Old Blue Light would have made of the plural.
True, the speechifying and the poetry are livened up with a few clumsy and obvious ironies, such as having two Irish brigades, one Union and one Confederate, blazing away at each other as someone shouts: "You left Ireland to escape tyranny. . .and now you’re shootin’ each other in the land of the free!" Well fancy that. You might think that the Irish would be well used to shooting at each other, but I guess it makes a better story this way. Likewise, General Jackson, is both savagely bloodthirsty ("Only the black flag will bring them to their senses") and mawkishly tender-hearted towards a Little Nell of his own who suffers, no one will be surprised to learn, Little Nell’s fate.
The personnel for the battle scenes come from societies of Civil War re-enactors and it is very much a re-enactors’ movie — which is to say that it has an antiseptic, educational quality in which truth-to-life is sacrificed to "authenticity." The result is an inert, lifeless product in which the soldiers look like waxworks, the image of battle without the soul. And even the authenticity is dubious at times. The generals on both sides, for example, always seem to know who is opposite them and the disposition of his troops. There is no hint of whence comes this excellent intelligence, which makes for economy of narrative but not nearly enough of the fog of war that ultimately costs General Jackson his life.
One wants to be as generous as possible to this film because in some ways it is very daring. For one thing, it has the boldness to represent Confederate soldiers as human and sympathetic; for another it offers a welcome contrast to the war movies of the past two or three decades, which generally start from the premiss that all the shooting makes no sense at all and is undertaken either by drug-crazed psychopaths (most Vietnam movies) or by decent men with obscure private motivations of their own (The Patriot, Saving Private Ryan). But here we go to the opposite extreme, where all the characters speak and act like monumental statuary. Clearly some kind of balance ought to be struck. I’m as susceptible to the lapidary epitaph and the high and respectful language of the eulogy as any man, but they should be employed very sparingly in the movies.
Going by the first week box office returns, this movie has already died in obscurity.
BUMP
I've been to many Civil War battlefields also. Chancellorsville made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
If my history is correct, I believe Hood commanded the Confederates at Franklin.
Sung by the survivors of the Army of Tennessee during the retreat after the battles of Franklin and Nashville (to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas").
The fighting in Franklin ended for the most part in the taking of the town.
I believe he lost an arm and a leg when the war was over. No man could give more except with his life.
Nonsense. Northern generals were every bit as committed to their faith and their understanding of the principles of the Constitution as the southern generals were. Oliver Howard was but one example.
The fighting at Franklin ended for the most part with Hood's army dead on the field. They never took Franklin.
Nashville destroyed what was left.
Pretty much sums up the war for the Army of Tennessee.
Southerners were more committed to their faith by fighting to keep other humans in bondage?
They were more faithful to the Constitution by trying to destroy the country?
Bull hockey!
Can't stand what? That Hood threw away his army in a senseless frontal assault on the entrenched Union lines? That he caused the deaths of 6 confederate generals including Patrick Cleburne? That Franklin cemented Hood's reputation as one of the worst army commanders on either side? What?
Hood then moved towards Nashville... with the Union ahead of him.
I know it's been around, but it's worth repeating in light of the comment above.
July the 14th, 1861 Washington D.C.
My very dear Sarah:
The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days -- perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure -- and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine O God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing -- perfectly willing -- to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows -- when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children -- is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.
I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and "the name of honor that I love more than I fear death" have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me -- perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar -- that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night -- amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours -- always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
Sullivan
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