Gettysburg

In 1863, Confederate Generals Lee (Martin Sheen) and Longstreet (Tom Berenger) prepare for a decisive battle with the Union at Gettysburg PA. Meanwhile, Northern Col. Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), an academic by profession, must guard a mutinous troop while also moving his own men into position. Union Gen. Buford (Sam Elliott) traps a Southern unit along a narrow road and attacks before they can move to higher ground. Later in the day, however, the South gets an edge, and Lee, unlike Longstreet, wants to charge to seize hold of several key hills. Aided by flamboyant strategist Gen. Pickett (Stephen Lang), Lee plans his attack. Chamberlain's men, including almost all of the mutineers, who have a change of heart, hold a vulnerable flank on a crucial hill and, though outnumbered, defend their position and even take prisoners.

After a brief lull, North and South steel themselves for the final and largest skirmish. The South sets up an impressive cover of artillery fire so that its forces can cross a field and take the center of battle--exactly the spot where Chamberlain's exhausted troops have been placed, in the thought that the center will see little action. Despite this miscalculation by the North, the charge is too long and exposed for the South to succeed, and Lee belatedly realizes his mistake. Only three days have passed, and the Civil War will continue for another two years, but the Battle of Gettysburg has claimed 53,000 lives.

Director Ronald F. Maxwell, whose previous credits include LITTLE DARLINGS and THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN GEORGIA, is undeniably a filmmaker of talent. He labored on GETTYSBURG for years and, though his respect for the enormity of his task shows up harmfully in his screenplay, it works onscreen. The vistas are impressive, the pacing carefully measured, the acting firm. Endless tracking shots of cannons firing seem a bit too designed to impress with their scale, but the combat scenes are handled with a functional directness which suggests less a lack of imagination than a deliberate attempt to emphasize the gritty chaos of battle. Maxwell is also probably most responsible for the finest sequence of the film, the exciting charge on Little Round Top which ends Part I, with Chamberlain's incredible defense of the hill including even a successful sweep by his ammunition-starved troops upon the attackers below.

The acting is uniformly well-crafted but, because the gifted cast is given little to work with, few memorable characters emerge from this panorama. C. Thomas Howell is good as Chamberlain's brother Thomas, unable to address his commander sibling properly until he sees the older man in battle, and an extremely (indeed, overly) restrained Sheen has some brief flashes of fire as Lee. But only two actors from the huge cast really manage to make an impression as human beings in GETTYSBURG. The splendid Daniels, although his character has as many platitudes to utter as the next, was actually permitted to stutter as the idealistic college professor turned unlikely war hero. And Richard Jordan, who died soon after filming his role (the film is dedicated to him and to source author Michael Shaara), is deeply moving as Virginia's General Armistead, crying at the thought of his best friend, a Northerner, perishing in combat.

Ultimately, however, the contributions of director, cast and crew pale beside that of Ted Turner (who plays a cameo role) and that of the medium of TV itself. Aiming to present itself as history rather than a representation of it, GETTYSBURG is a film entirely without a point of view. It dispenses with social critique and, for that matter, irony. Turner presents a Civil War which reveals only the slightest amount of fear and no really malicious intentions. Since the film is focused so intently on the battle alone, the only woman is an onlooker and the only African-American a wounded slave too exhausted to speak. The extras consisted largely of Civil War hobbyists who owned actual uniforms and other paraphernalia; this of course does make them more than ordinary extras, but the insistence of the film's publicity on calling them "historical re-enactors" is unfortunately emblematic of the production's pomposity. The dialogue, meanwhile, is crammed with admiring exchanges like "The boys are puttin' up a hell of a fight"/"They are indeed." Later on Lee even says, "Does it matter after all who wins?" As with most TV, GETTYSBURG aims not to offend any possible viewing sector of the public, and in that respect it succeeds admirably. After all, this is a Civil War in which everyone can only live or die a hero and, equally importantly, which no one really loses. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment