Nobody’s much surprised that movie critics resented the content of Ron Maxwell’s new film, “Gods & Generals.” Since the film faithfully and accurately depicts the motivations of both sides at the outset of the American Civil War, it necessarily rejects the party line history as transmitted through most history books and films about the war. The characters are moved not by passionate attachment to or revulsion at the evil institution of slavery, but rather by conflicting modes of patriotism; Northerners cleaved to the Federal Union, which they saw “rebels” trying to shatter, while Southerners adhered to their home states, which they saw as oppressed by an imperialistic government. A newly hatched Southern nationalism, warts and slaves and all, drove the Confederates to a long string of victories over their much more numerous, better-armed opponents, right up until the Battle of Gettysburg, which turned the tide – in large part because it killed off so many promising junior officers, which the South could not afford to lose. This film shows the South reaching its high tide, riding in the heroic wake of the complex, paradoxical figure of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, brilliantly portrayed here by Stephen Lang. Most critics, even those who savaged the film, have praised his gripping performance, which infused the 19th century, biblical dialogue with feeling and fury.
What was a little surprising to me was the coruscating critical barrage the film suffered on aesthetic grounds. The New York Times, which barely mentioned the movie before, devoted half a page to reproducing just the negative reviews, and tried to lump “Gods & Generals” in with “Battlefield Earth” and Kevin Costner’s ill-famed ode to government workers, “The Postman.” (I always wondered if that film was funded by my dad’s old labor union, the National Association of Letter Carriers… .) This made me suspicious, and led me to think that there’s an ideological agenda underlying the chorus of critical disdain the movie is getting. That was my first thought, and there’s certainly something to it. Simply displaying the Confederate flag – except on the Web site of the Southern Poverty Law Center, amidst various SS regalia and neo-Nazi tattoos – takes nerve these days, given people’s Pavlovian response to it: Racist, Klansman, Skinhead… .
Another element which rattles reviewers is the omnipresence of Christian faith throughout the film. Almost all the major characters – with the poignant exception of a single Confederate general, who on his deathbed confesses his atheism to a grieving Stonewall Jackson – are seen to pray, invoke God’s blessing on their cause, and commend the results of their efforts to the judgment of Providence. This has led the less sophisticated reviewers, who resent the past because it has past, to accuse the film of sanctimoniousness. No doubt, they would prefer movies such as 2000’s loathsome “The Messenger,” which attempts to read religion out of the life of St. Joan of Arc, and remakes her story as the “Terminator” with cleavage. Suspicion is indeed justified, in reviewing this movie’s reviewers.
That said, are they onto something? Is there something aesthetically wrong with “Gods & Generals,” which leftists and PC parrots latch onto, and pro-southerners overlook? Did the filmmaker unwittingly make it easy for his film to be dismissed, by committing cinematic mistakes? Let me try to rate this movie as drama, to give as dispassionate a view as I can of the film’s virtues and vices. At the end, I think you will see that the movie is undoubtedly worth seeing, more than once – and not just because one wants to support a sympathetic film-maker, or to buck the liberal critics, but because it’s a powerful and virtually unique piece of cinema.
The Flaws
That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. “Gods & Generals” is long at 3:37 plus a 12 minute intermission, which tests the attention span and endurance of most movie-goers. It also reduces the number of times a theater can show the film each day to twice or thrice, making the movie much less commercially viable. For strictly business reasons, it might have been wiser to cut the film into two different features, as was considered at one point in post-production. There is something a little grueling about watching the three long battles the film depicts (the important conflict at Antietam had to banished to the DVD version), and the long character sequences interspersed among them. No doubt, that length made some reviewers doubly impatient with the lengthy speeches delivered by some of the characters – however worthy, historically accurate, or intrinsically interesting they are. The language in the film is beautiful, and true to the 19th century, when educated Americans made regular reference to Roman orators, the Old and New Testaments, and the speeches of the Founders. But in the context of a four-hour film, they come across to the unsophisticated viewer as fat that an editor should have cut.
The battle scenes are remarkably unbloody. In one of his few compromises with commercialism – to obtain a PG-13 rating – Maxwell drained away most of the gore that must have accompanied the battles; this is no “Saving Private Ryan.” Had he done otherwise, no father could take his young sons to see this heroic drama about America’s past, as thousands countless will. But the film does not sanitize the horrors of war; instead of the visceral impact of flying flesh and gushing blood, it focuses on the tragic ending of human lives, the death of countless brave and idealistic young men in the service of their countries. There is something re-humanizing about this approach, which emphasizes the transcendent value of each man’s life, rather than the animal fragility upon which it rests. The fields of the dead, the cutting down of row after row of men we’ve come to respect, even love, the destruction of home and farm – all portrayed with moving, skillful cinematography – serve amply to show the sheer hell that war brings on, without any close-up shots of the piles of severed limbs or dismembered corpses.
The most legitimate criticism which I think could be raised about the film – although most of the hostile reviewers missed it – was a certain static quality in some of the scenes. Here I speak as a screenwriter, who regularly employs a classic script-doctor’s trick while writing scenes. Here’s how it goes:
When you have to give exposition, make sure to accompany it with conflict. In other words, try never simply to allow General Jackson to express his Christian faith. Instead, if you must put it across, place it in the context of an argument. Have him debate his faith with an unbeliever, or clash about a point of theology with a non-Calvinist. If he must pray, let him do it in a voice-over, while you show something more interesting happening on screen – preferably a battle or a chase. Always employ conflict among the characters – even those on the same side – to keep scenes interesting as you move the plot along. You use it as sugar, to help the medicine go down.
It’s a simple trick, used all the time on television and in most movies you’ve seen. It explains why the cops on Law and Order always bicker in their squad car on the way to a crime scene. It’s heavily overused – because it works, and helps keep viewers’ attention. I think Maxwell could have used it more than he did, taking advantage of the real conflicts between Gen. Jackson, say, and Gen. A.P. Hill – whom Jackson once had arrested and imprisoned for insubordination. More use of this convention would have helped the modern moviegoer. Why didn’t Maxwell employ it very much? Probably because he was focused on conveying the bigger picture – and riveted on the overarching, powerfully moving clash between the North and South. That large-scale conflict, and its inbuilt situational ironies, are more than enough to make the movie exciting for the literate, attentive viewer. But they don’t keep the peanut gallery as happy.
A few other minor details bothered me; some of the CGI graphics and scale models of 19th century towns could have been more convincing. A few scenes could have been cut without much loss. One or two of the minor actors are less convincing in spots, and detract from the overpoweringly good work of most of the players. A sub-plot depicting Jackson’s close relationship to a small girl who dies of scarlet fever, while it nicely humanizes Jackson, could easily have been saved for the DVD. Finally, the sequence in which Jackson is wounded and gradually dies, then is mourned in what one critic aptly called a “Viking funeral,” could certainly be shorter, without any loss to the film’s emotional impact or truthfulness. But these are petty cavils, little grains of sand that fleck a beautifully painted canvas.
Two Thumbs Up
So that’s my candid opinion – my sharpest critical appraisal of a film that has been praised by enthusiasts, and torn to shreds by those who are hostile to the world it depicts, and the ideas that motivated the men who lived in it. If you care about popular culture in America, and the direction it takes, you will pile the kids (8 years and up) into the car, and drag your friends to the nearest multiplex where “Gods & Generals” is showing. It will take 4 hours, and tire you out. You won’t emerge whistling “Dixie,” or even “The Bonnie Blue Flag.” But you’ll come out of with a profound sense of respect for the men who built America, and those who tried and died to build another country – one that has indeed blown away, and is gone with the wind.
March 13, 2003
Dr. Zmirak is author of Wilhelm Röpke: Swiss Localist, Global Economist. He writes frequently on economics, politics, popular culture and theology. Visit his blog.
