Replies

That was the best part of the movie Gettysburg. That whole Little Round Top scene was just epic film making at it's best, and Jeff Daniels did a great job.

The movie Gettysburg should have been:

1) Renamed "Little Round Top", last 2 hours, and just have an expanded version of that portion of the battle.

2) Been a Joshua Chamberlain biopic including the Little Round Top scenes from Gettysburg.

It was so much better than the rest of the movie it was embarassing.

It was so much better than the rest of the movie it was embarassing.

Now now ... the whole stuff at the beginning with Sam Elliot as General Buford was great. So was Tom Berrenger's portrayal of General Longstreet. Martin Sheen was miscast as Robert E. Lee, but he had a wonderful scene where he dressed down J.E.B. Stuart. The only part of the movie that really didn't work for me was the Richard Jordan's portrayal of Gen. Armistead and his moaning over his friendship with Gen. Hancock. They could've reduced that stuff considerably, because it got pretty annoying the second or third time he went into it.

There were numerous embarrasments regarding 'Gettysburg'...and I speak as one of the reenactors who had the pleasure of being there (great job,btw, of finding a site near Gettysburg which had the requisite road, slope, and clump of trees...)I know that modern day reenactors can't be expected to starve themselves to look the part, but neither did the movie have to focus on so much of their corpulence. Secondly, for a film pretending to accuracy, the beards and clothing were remarkably hokey (Longstreet/Berenger's whiskers, topped in ridiculousness only by his hat.) And I thought J.E.B.'s beard would drop off during his dressdown. The Father Corby scene, General Heth, General Garnett...all marvelously badly acted. And the worst part in the whole production, the absolute bilge award winner...as mentioned already, Armistead/Jordan's over the top mawkish sorrow at having to oppose 'Ol Winny'...I can't bear the scene in Longstreet's tent anymore.
However, I was not bothered at all by the speechifying, because if anything it was underplayed, and thankfully so. In reality, an address to a regiment by its commander could run upwards of two hours, more an oration than anything else, and these were fairly typical. I know for a fact the 93rd Pa, being force-marched up from Maryland along with the rest of the Sixth Corps, found time to listen to fiery two hour speech from its chaplain before beginning the march, when time was of a critical essence...