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| Poster for the original movie release. |
As Craig talked, I remembered my own experience of seeing the movie when it was originally released. At that time, I was living in Tennessee and traveling throughout the South for work. I don't remember specifically where I was when I saw the movie but it was definitely in the South (may have been Atlanta).
Craig's enthusiasm and anticipation of visiting the battlefield motivated me to seek a copy of the movie from the public library. And so, over a period of two weeks, my evenings and weekends were involved with a video study of this battle via the movie DVD and extra features.
The library's only copy was a two-fer that included the prequel, Gods and Generals (by the same team with many of the same actors).
Gettysburg (1993) is a long movie at 254 minutes (i.e., 4 hours-14 minutes) with no intermission. I watched the movie over a three day period (inadvertently corresponding to the same number of days of the battle).
At the start, I watched one of the special features, a 30-minute documentary from 1955, The Battle of Gettysburg. That provided something of a road map for me about how the battle unfolded.
The acting in the movie was uneven. Some scenes were painful to watch as it seemed that the actors were mouthing their lines rather than perform. Since the movie was so long and with so many characters, it is easy to overlook this flaw. However, I recalled that the uneven acting was a criticism during the original release. Another drawback was the miscasting of Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee. I like Martin Sheen but he is too short to play a giant. It just didn't work here. The producers apparently learned from their mistake and cast Robert Duval as Lee in the G&G.
I spent another three or so evenings going through the commentary track. This was different from most movie commentary tracks in that it was essentially a series of audio interviews essentially disconnected from the video portions of the film. To add to the bizarreness, the commentary track was shorter than the movie, so that segments ended abruptly, sometimes in the start of a new scene. Horrible editing.
There were lots of extras/special features including a long "making of" feature that was narrated by Martin Sheen (he is good at this). Also interviews with key actors, some behind the scenes stuff, and a short narrated summary of the battle with maps of the battle.
The carnage displayed in the battle scenes made me wonder why anyone would fight after one battle let alone years. I wonder how many soldiers survived the entire war. Tremendous sadness was displayed by alternating scenes showing opposing officers lamenting former friendships with officers they were to face in battle the next day. There was a sense that War had swept them up into opposing forces over which they had no control.
While the movie seemed pro-North, there was a strong sense of the essential futility of war as a means of resolving differences. Surprisingly, movie seemed to underplay the role of slavery as a cause of the war. Instead, the issue of states rights and the consent of the people were emphasized. The slant toward the North (Federalists) was probably due to the increasing power of political correctness. Sympathy toward the South was likely influenced by participation of media mogul Ted Turner (of Atlanta).
After nearly two weeks of Gettysburg, the soberness of so many fallen souls left me in no mood to watch the prequel, Gods & Generals, and see more of the same (with increased PC regarding slavery). There is a lot of food for thought after watching this movie.
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Links:
https://www.nps.gov/gett/index.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_(1993_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gettysburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Gettysburg_(1955_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Turner
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Written Sunday 12 March 2017
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