GDG- RE: Movies

[Kathryn Sobottke]

GDG Members:
   
  I think the initial trouble with Gods and Generals as a film was that it attempted to encompass far too much of the war as its story, requiring the filmaker to leave out what is the key battle in the entire war in the East next to Gettysburg:  Antietam or Sharpsburg.  The impression left on the casual moviegoer is that the hated Yankees were beaten in every battle.  Ronald Maxwell would have been better off making another battle film and calling it Fredericksburg,and focusing all of the attention on that.  Or perhaps the film would have been better titled: STONEWALL.  But for all of Jackson's honest religiousity and eccentricity, except for an inner circle of family and staff who knew him well, and among whom he felt comfortable, Jackson really was not a likeable man or an easy one to know.  It took James Robertson Jr. to finally do him justice and make the man explicable to historians of the Civil War.
   
  The quality of the acting varied widely as well.  I wanted much more of Robert Duvall and especially the two guys in the Stonewall Brigade. Unfortunately, I took 55 students to see the film and noted that the audience was engaged only for the moments when a battle was in progress or our two Stonewall Brigaders were discussing their lack of a tent, sore feet, or trading tobacco for  coffee.  Some of the acting is as wooden as I have seen in film.  The makeup was awful, and some of our cast had added a lot of pounds since Gettysburg.  And my wife pointed out that Maxwell never uses contractions in dialouge in the script. She is fond of telling me like Fanny Chamberlain that she will aid me in all my "excelsior strivings."  So we have wooden language as well, even more formal than most people in casual conversation would have used in the 19th century.
   
  And finally, we do indeed have a film that reflects extremely faithfully the Southern point of view on the war, but except in one scene with the two Chamberlains, indeed makes us wonder why the Union was bothering to fight the South at all.  And while Jim Lewis was close and devoted to Jackson, it is indeed a stretch seeing Confederate generals suggesting to free blacks or slaves that the Southern high command favors an end to the peculiar institution in December 1862. The film is a "Lost Cause" film.  It does that very well.  If you live North of the Mason Dixon line or the Ohio, you come away feeling as if the North was in the wrong.  Events have since proven again and again, the wisdom of an end to slavery and a re-unified United States.     
   
  I like Ronald Maxwell and respect his work.  It is unfortunate he missed so badly on Gods and Generals.  
   
  I liked Gettysburg much more, even though it is somewhat sanitized and ignores the fighting around Cemetery and Culp's Hills, not to mention ignores the town.  I must think there is a real opportunity to do a feature length film from the perspective of the townspeople.  It would be very interesting to see what a filmaker might do with that.
   
  My favorite film continues to be Glory.  It continues to hold up as the years go by.
  And for a sleeper of a film how about Wicked Spring?  I was amazed what they did with that look at a half dozen men in the Wildnerness with so little money.  It's a little gem.
   
  Thomas Martin Sobottke
  329 Evergreen Lane
  Pewaukee, WI  53072
  262-691-2887
  ekttobos at sbcglobal.net