Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #21: Gods and Generals (2003) part 2 of 2

 

Here is the second part of my Gods and Generals review, going through the film to look at the battles as well as a few other points I wanted to discuss.

First Bull Run

The movie begins with Lee meeting Francis Preston Blair, a major political figure at the time, to discuss an offer to command the Union Army. Lee refuses, citing that his primary loyalty is to Virginia and the if it secedes he will join it. It’s funny how all these Civil War films and shows always have Lee starting the war with his gray hair and beard. Actually, he had dark hair and just a mustache, and was even considered handsome for a man in his fifties. The stress of the war is what changed his look into the one familiar to us today.

Most of the first act focuses on Jackson, and outside of the Lee and Booth scenes this could have been the first part of a Jackson biopic. Now, I hadn’t seen Gods and Generals in ten years, so I was hit with a few fresh observations, and one is that there is actual no explanation for what exactly is going on militarily. Jackson’s brigade does a little training and then marches off for a battle. We don’t get any exposition about why the armies are clashing at Manassas Junction because everyone is too busy delivering speeches. They just go to a battle and start fighting.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #21: Gods and Generals (2003) part 1 of 2

General Intro

I’m finally into the Civil War proper, my favorite era of history. Because of my enthusiasm for the subject, a couple review are going to be long. That’s why the first movie for the war, Gods and Generals, is going to get a multi-part review.

Before the movie Gods and Generals was the prequel to Gettysburg, the novel it was based was written as a prequel to Gettysburg’s source Killer Angels. The author Jeff Shaara, was following the success of his father’s historical novel in that he takes a few important officers on each side of a conflict and then tries to get into their minds. Unlike Killer Angels, which focuses only on a few days in 1863, Gods and Generals covers entire Civil War up to the death of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson in May 1863. Naturally, one may imagine a screen adaptation would take the form of a mini-series (Jeff Shaara has said this), but Ron Maxwell, who had a bit hit with Gettysburg, seemed to think it would be fine as an actual theatrical release.

Between the large scope of history the film covers and some poor filmmaking choices, Gods and Generals was such an uneven slog that it became a big flop. Critical events and important figures have to be cut to make room, but at the same time Maxwell spends an inordinate amount of time on fluff, unnecessary side characters, and long speeches that worked in the more condensed timeline of Gettysburg, but kill the pacing here.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #20: Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)

 

Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest figures in American history, no matter what your opinion of him is. He was an instrumental player in one of America’s great transition points. Abe Lincoln in Illinois is an adaptation of the play of the same name, which in turn was heavily derived from Carl Sandburg’s Prairie Years volume of his Lincoln biography. Thus it charts Lincoln’s life from the 1830s up until the 1860 election. Running at a little under two hours, it commits one of the common sins of biopics, which is trying to cover too much of a person’s life. Thus I was surprised to not only enjoy the film, but be legitimately invested in much of it, especially towards the end.

Raymond Massey was famous for playing Lincoln in the stage version, and he reprises his role here for an Academy Award nomination. Massey was well into his forties, so the earlier scenes seem a bit off. For example, we first see him being sent off by his mother to make something of himself in the world. Massey’s aged face makes the scene somewhat comical. As the film progresses, though, I do get more comfortable with him in the role, and his age definitely fits in the last act.

Massey’s Lincoln is a good-natured, self-deprecating county boy who wins the hearts of almost everyone around him. He goes from taking odd frontier jobs to becoming a lawyer. He’s also consistently reluctant to get involved with politics, first being pressured into becoming a local politician, then a congressman, and finally running for the presidency despite his self-doubts. While this does humanize him much more than some rather hagiographic depictions, I’m going to have to call foul on its accuracy. Lincoln may have had humble origins, but he definitely had an ambitious streak and I don’t think he needed everyone to keep prodding him towards his destiny. Because of time’s sake, the movie also skips over his railroad lawyer career. The railroad industry in 19^th Century America was notoriously corrupt, so it’s possible Lincoln had to get dirty despite his “Honest Abe” appellation.