Gods and Generals, directed by Ronald F. Maxwell. Warner Bros., 2003, 216 minutes.

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A War Too Civil

by Jo Ann Skousen

After reading "The Killer Angels," Michael Shaara's wonderful, fictionalized history of the battle of Gettysburg, I hungrily anticipated the release of "Gods and Generals," a film based on the book written by his son, Jeff Shaara. But I was disappointed by the reviews of the film, and even more disappointed by the movie. So what went wrong?

For one thing, it is stilted. The writers carefully compiled a script based on the actual writings of these military leaders. But people don't speak the way they write — especially the way they wrote in the 19th century, with soaring, flowery, poetic grandeur. Ordinary conversation, spoken at an ordinary pace, or better yet, at the quickened pace of battle, would have helped tremendously. Even the music was ponderous — somber choirboys oohing not just after the battle scenes, when a reverent contemplative mood would be appropriate, but during the battle scenes, when a sense of quickening pace and urgency are needed.

And, at 216 minutes, it is ponderously long. The first hour and twenty minutes were devoted to merely introducing the major players: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Joshua Chamberlain, A. P. Hill and others. I glanced at my watch 80 minutes into the movie, thinking that I could have arrived right then without missing a thing. And in reality, the introductions were almost useless because the names were mentioned so fleetingly that if I hadn't just read a book on the Civil War, I wouldn't have remembered who was who. Moreover, their faces were covered with such bushy brown (and ridiculously fake) beards that it was hard to see any distinguishing features. I had to focus on the eyes to recognize the character (except Lee, of course, whose beard was gray). It was difficult to keep the battles straight too, because both armies wore such similar uniforms and expressed the same concerns. It was often difficult to know who was attacking and who was defending, particularly when two Irish regiments faced off against each other, shooting and crying and shooting some more until both sides were mostly dead. I kept wanting to ask someone, what are the Irish doing there, and how did they decide on which side to fight? What is their cause?

Near the beginning of the second act, after a much-needed intermission, the scriptwriters blatantly stole a moving, and true, story from World War I. It's Christmas, and soldiers from opposing armies rest across the river from each other. A Southern boy (or was he a Northerner?) plays "Silent Night" on his harmonica. You can guess the rest. A Northerner listens, calls out for a truce, and they share coffee and a smoke in the middle of the river. Might have been moving if it hadn't been borrowed from another war and another time, making a completely different point — World War I was fought by young men who had no personal stake in the conflict; they were just following orders. But the Civil War was an intensely personal war, pitting brother against brother. They knew why they were there. And they cared about the outcome.

And that leads us to the most egregious error of this movie, and the real reason that it is so hard to endure: it lacks any dramatic conflict. How can a film about the Civil War lack conflict, you might well ask. Well, there are no good guys or bad guys, only ponderously, pitifully noble guys. There is never any satisfactory dialogue regarding what was at stake. To hear these generals talk, you would think both sides were fighting for the same goal.

I laughed out loud when Stonewall Jackson and his trusty black cook/groom/aid/confidante prayed together, asking "Why, God? Why? Why do men put chains on other men? When will this terrible curse of slavery end? Please bless our legislators that they will change this law, blah blah blah." This was Jackson. The Southern general. If the South wanted to end slavery, and the North wanted to end slavery, then what in the world were they fighting about? Such blatant rewriting of history was insulting.

Instead of getting into the sticky issue of slavery (and pretending that the South was against it) the filmmakers could have made a strong case for states' rights by creating some dialogue focusing on the North's invasion of Virginia, with equally compelling dialogue by the Northerners about the importance of preserving the Union. Such a conflict would have allowed the audience to become engaged in the drama. But there was never any discussion of goal, or purpose, beyond Lee's original decision to resign his commission and fight for Virginia.

The generals and their families are constantly praying and quoting scripture, and at first, I was moved by their piety. But the constant prayers become overbearing after a while. I couldn't help wondering, as I watched scene after scene of bodies being blown to nearly-bloodless smithereens (this is, after all, a family show): what point did the filmmakers want to make by all this praying? That war is God's way of solving conflicts? That it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you pray about it first? That God was on the side of the pious? Then why didn't the praying Southerners win? If they were truly pious, shouldn't they have been able to hear God telling them, "You aren't going to win this one unless you first open your eyes and realize that Africans are humans with the same inalienable rights as you have. So give them their freedom, and then we'll talk about states' rights!"

Was there anything good about this movie? Yes. The second act was much more interesting, faster paced, and tightly written than the first. Its music was appropriate to battle, creating suspense and elevating my heartbeat. A sweet relationship is developed between General Jackson and a little Southern girl, and between Jackson and his wife, although it constantly borders on the melodramatic (and often crosses over that border). I think that if the first hour had been eliminated, the second hour cut in half, and the anachronistic Christmas scene removed from the third hour, with a clear focus on what they were fighting for, the movie would have been a manageable representation of the battle of Jackson's last stand.

And then perhaps the announcement in the final screen would not have been met with a groan: This film is a Trilogy, to be followed by "Gettysburg" and "The Last Full Measure." Heaven help us!

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