Gods and Generals (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since December 2006. (help, talk)
For other uses, see Gods and Generals (disambiguation).
Gods and Generals

Gods and Generals movie poster
Directed by Ronald F. Maxwell
Starring Jeff Daniels
Robert Duvall
Kevin Conway
Mark Aldrich
Stephen Lang
Keith Allison
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) February 21, 2003
Running time 231 min.
Language English
IMDb profile

Gods and Generals is a 2003 film based on the novel of the same name by Jeffrey Shaara. It is considered a prequel to the 1993 film Gettysburg, which was based on The Killer Angels, a novel by Michael Shaara, Jeff Shaara's father.

The film stars Jeff Daniels as Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and Robert Duvall as Robert E. Lee. While many of the actors from Gettysburg reprised their roles for this film, Stephen Lang is one of a few to play a different character: George Pickett in Gettysburg and Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals.

It was directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, who had also previously adapted Gettysburg in 1993. After the box office failure of Gettysburg, Maxwell was unable to get the prequel greenlit until media mogul Ted Turner provided the entire $60 million budget.


Contents

[edit] Summary

The film prominently features the Battles of First Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. A lengthy scene depicting the Battle of Antietam was also shot, but cut from the theatrical release.

[edit] Criticism

The film was a critical and box office failure. It was criticized for its slow pace and awkward screenwriting; in particular, critics disliked the way the characters tend to deliver highly rhetorical speeches at each other instead of speaking conversationally.[1] However, many critics such as Leonard Maltin praised the film's impressively staged battle sequences.

Civil War historians and aficionados also criticized the film's radical departures from the novel, a significant change from the film Gettysburg, which remained exceptionally true to its novel. These differences include the omission of Winfield Hancock as a major character; the deletion of Stonewall Jackson's less savory characteristics and eccentricities; the introduction of scenes and characters not in the original novel (primarily during the battle and destruction of Fredericksburg); and the complete expulsion of the actions of Darius N. Couch, John F. Reynolds, and George G. Meade, which led to the successful preservation of the Army of the Potomac after the defeat at Chancellorsville.

In addition, the first third of the book that deals primarily with the events leading up to the Civil War and gave important background information of the characters was also entirely deleted, particularly the unrest in Southern California, which was put down peaceably by Hancock and Armistead; John Brown's seizure of Harpers Ferry and the recapture of the arsenal by marines led by Lee and Stuart; the final farewell in California between Hancock and Armistead discussed in Gettysburg; Texas Governor Sam Houston's refusal to support secession; Lee's contempt for David E. Twiggs's surrender of the Department of Texas to the rebels as well as Lee's refusal of Winfield Scott's offer to command the federal forces organized to put down the rebellion. Similarly, critics claimed the film skirted the issue of slavery by having several Southern generals, particularly Stonewall Jackson, give ahistorical anti-slavery speeches.[2]. (The real Jackson had ambiguous views on slavery. He believed that slavery had been imposed by God and therefore did not oppose it openly. His family also owned six slaves. However, the slaves of Lexington, Virginia, generally held Jackson in high esteem for his kind treatment and his flouting of Virginia laws to teach African Americans to read in Sunday school classes. The widely criticized scene in which a slave expresses enthusiasm for working for Jackson as a cook has some historic basis—two of his real slaves, Albert and Amy, requested that Jackson purchase them in the 1850s because of the treatment they expected from him.)

The film also was seen by some as leaning towards the Confederate opinion about the war. The Confederates are seen as the good guys throughout the film while most of the main characters are on the Confederate side. This is very different from "Gettysburg" where both sides are presented equally.

Those in favor of the film claim to the contrary. The film claims that many generals and common soldiers were fighting the war for the "protection" of their home and the rights of the states, not of slavery. It is pointed out that Robert E. Lee was (somewhat quietly) anti-slavery.

[edit] Director's Cut

The full-length version of Gods and Generals runs almost six hours in length. For the theatrical release, almost two-and-a-half hours of footage was removed to get the length down to approximately 3 hours, 39 minutes. Among the footage edited includes a sub-plot which follows John Wilkes Booth, the famous actor who would eventually become the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. One scene towards the end of the extended cut of the film features Chamberlain and his wife Fanny attend a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which Booth plays Judas. Chamberlain and his wife have a conversation with Booth and his fellow actors after the end of the play.

Another scene cut from the film features a performance of Macbeth in Washington, D.C. (Referred to in the film as Washington City). Booth plays the role of Macbeth, which is being seen by President Lincoln. When he gives the famous "Dagger of the mind" soliloquy, he looks directly at Lincoln while reciting it. Later, when Booth is offered the chance to meet with Lincoln, he refuses.

Possibly the one scene that historians were sad to see removed from the film was the sequence dealing with the Battle of Antietam. The battle was seen mostly from the perspectives of Jackson and Chamberlain, whose brigade was held in reserve. A few minutes of footage from this scene was made available to view online for a time, but appears to have been removed.

When Ron Maxwell showed the Director's Cut of the film in a very early pre-screening, it recieved a standing ovation at the end. However, there are apparently no plans being made by Warner Bros. to release the extended version of the film on DVD. At one point, Dennis Frye, who served as associate producer and helped organize the units of reenactors used in the film, supposedly said that the film was intended for release in the fall of 2005. However, this did not occur. As of right now, the wait for the Ron Maxwell's extended version of Gods and Generals will continue.

[edit] Cast

Robert Duvall as Robert E. Lee
Enlarge
Robert Duvall as Robert E. Lee

[edit] Quotes

General Lee: "The rest is in God's hands."

General Lee: "It is well that war is so horrible. For we should grow too fond of it."

General Jackson: "I regard the crime of desertion as a sin against the Army of the Lord. Duty is ours, the consequences are God's."

[edit] Trivia

  • Some scenes in the movie were filmed at Robert Duvall's estate in Virginia. The estate was the scene of several skirmishes in the Civil War.
  • Most of the extras were Civil War reenactors, who provided their own equipment and worked without pay. In exchange, Ted Turner agreed to donate $500,000 to Civil War battlefield preservation.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Film review by Roger Ebert
  2. ^ Film review in the Village Voice
  3. ^ Interview on CNN, February 15, 2003.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../g/o/d/Gods_and_Generals_%28film%29_49fe.html"
In other languages