Commentary on Gods and Generals

For Information on the movie from the Internet Movie Data Base, click here. For commentary from the director, click here.

I don't get to see many movies these days, with a two-year-old and a 40-minute commute to a theater, but I made an effort to see this one.   For those who don’t know (which is most of you, no doubt – what little press it got was bad), it is considered a prequel to the movie Gettysburg , focusing primarily on Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson .  It was rather long, and of principal interest to students of history.  This movie does not fit the standard Hollywood formula. There are long pauses and the pacing is quite uneven. Many "historical" movies are willing to discard facts in order to fit the "formula" (look at Braveheart, for example). This movie doesn't, and I really appreciate it. On the historical and societal points that I am familiar with, the details match; with all the reenactors and historians involved, I’d say the movie was pretty accurate all around. Yes, folks were long-winded back then. Yes, the educated aristocrats could quote Caesar and everybody could recite long passages of the Bible. If anything, the movie may have cut some verbage for the sake of moving things along.  There were many occasions where I nodded to myself as I recognized little “throwaway” bits of historical lore, facts that would have gone unnoticed by the average moviegoer.  Furthermore, I was willing to actually learn a thing or two from the movie, trusting in the historical accuracy more than I would most any film of that ilk (such as The Patriot). 

At first blush, the movie seems jingoistic and preachy for the Southern cause, and the reviews I have seen look no farther than this. But what I saw was not a director preaching nostalgia, it was a look into the Confederate point of view, with some sidebars on the Union point of view and overlain with the educated mid-1800’s point of view. There is much quoting from the Bible and Caesar. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a window into the past. I see praise for things like Smoke Signals, or Das Boot even Dances With Wolves, praise for showing the perspective of the "other side". Well, I've seen a lot of condemnation of G&G for daring to show the perspective of the defeated. In fact, the first national review I saw condemned it for being a celluloid hate crime while saying absolutely nothing about the movie itself (like acting, pacing, the usual things you find in reviews).  Others complain that both sides (as if there were only two) were not shown.  Certainly they weren't given equal time, but considering the movie was shot largely from the southerner's camps, that shouldn't surprise.  And anyway, how many movies, historical-based or otherwise, that give both protagonist and antagonist an equally sympathetic ear?

If you are comfortable with the shallow, one-sided view of history (and if you're reading this you probably aren't), you're unfortunately in good company. But if you want to better understand why the south fought so long and so hard, this is a good place to start. And isn't a new perspective worth four hours of your time?

The Good:

1. No one even mentioned the word midichlorians (sorry, I'm still bitter at George Lucas).

2. In his brief appearances, General Lee is played by Robert Duvall, not that nutcase Martin Sheen.

3. The movie, IMO, doesn’t whitewash the pertinent issues of states rights, slavery, etc.

The Bad:

1. While the battles were okay, the battlefield special effects were fairly old-school: grimace, throw arms up, fall down.  A few squibs would have been nice.  With a little CGI, things improved somewhat from the first movie, but I was hoping for a little more grisliness (not out of simple bloodlust, mind – if war is hell, I want them to prove it to my satisfaction).

2. It did drag a bit in places – this coming from someone who cut it quite a bit of slack.