Gods and Generals

Gods and Generals is rated PG-13: for sustained battle sequences.

If you rarely invest in the super sized popcorn, you might want to reconsider. After sitting through this film’s nearly four-hour runtime, you’ll likely have long finished your bag and your neighbor’s too.

Gods and Generals is an epic (in this case read long) film from Ronald Maxwell, who also directed the 1993 sequel (and even longer) movie, Gettysburg. Focusing on historical events involving several key battles in the early months of the Civil War, it follows the movement of General Thomas ?Stonewall? Jackson (Stephan Lang) and his heroic brigade.

Jackson, a hardnosed and dutiful instructor at a military school, is called to serve under the newly appointed Confederate leader, General Robert E. Lee (Robert Duvall). Leaving his young wife (Kali Roche), the bearded officer begins training his assortment of enlistees to defend Virginia’s border from Yankee soldiers. Under orders from President Abraham Lincoln, the Northerners are planning a march on the Southern States to quell the secession uprising.

On the other side of the war lines, Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels) is a professor at Maine’s Bowdoin College. While attempting to broaden the minds of young men, his view of philosophy is questioned by a student who sees a discrepancy between professed ideals and the plight of the slave. Feeling a duty to fight for truth as he sees it, Chamberlain is offered a position as a Lt. Colonel in the Union Army. Kissing his wife (Mira Sorvino) and children good-bye, he too heads for the heated battlegrounds.

As cannons boom across the open fields and bullets scream through the choking smoke, boys, brothers and former countrymen square up on the front lines. Lifting their weapons to their shoulders, they open fire on one another in a war where both sides invoke the blessings of heaven.

While the battle sequences are sustained and often repetitive, the true horror of the gruesome activity is underplayed, giving only occasional glimpses of bloody, mutilated bodies and devastated homes. But war violence isn’t all the filmmakers left out. Other than a black housemaid born into slavery and an army cook who longs for the freedom of his family, the subject of slavery is usually skirted. Instead the Virginians fight to protect their newly established homeland from invasion.

The script often resorts to long monologues rather than shared conversations. These speeches drag out the already slow pace of the film and leave little opportunity for interaction between characters.

For those captivated by the civil war period, this reenactment, enhanced by a huge number of volunteer cast members, brings to life a dark period in American history when the scourge of slavery led to war between countrymen. Whether fighting under the Confederate or Union flag, these brave soldiers called upon God to preserve their lives and win their cause…in a bloody conflict piloted by human generals.

Visit the official movie site.

Questionable stratagem can lead to unnecessary deaths in battle. How could the carnage at the Battle of Fredericksburg have been lessened? What responsibilities do officers in charge have to protect their fighting soldiers from needless danger? For more historical information on this battle go to: www.collectorsnet.com/cwtimes/frederic.htm

In the Smithsonian Magazine, Ted Turner is quoted as saying, 0x201CWe are making a war movie to try and get people not to like war.0x201D At the same time an officially licensed PC game of Gods and Generals is being released where the player assumes the role of a company captain on the front lines as a first player shooter. Do you feel there a conflict between Turner’s statement and the promotion of a war game? What lessons would you like society to learn from the reenacted events of the Civil War?

Visit www.ronmaxwell.com/beyondmyths.html to get Director Ronald Maxwell’s comments on the making of Gods and Generals.

The mini-series Roots (which has been released to the home video market) looks at the slavery issue that lead to the American Civil War.