Gettysburg never strays into neo-Confederate territory, a rising idea in the 1990s, but there's a whiff of Lost Cause style romanticism to it. In the end, we think Gettysburg is too sentimental.
We will say this. That prelude to Pickett's Charge, where Lee rides into the assembly area, a sea of grey in tow, well, we had that damn emotional reaction again. And we're a blue belly!
This may be a movie, and those may be reenactors, and that might be Martin Sheen, but we tell you this, sir. For one, brief, existential moment, by god those were the men of the Army of Northern Virginia and that was Robert E. Lee. Watch that clip again and tell us they didn't feel it too. Gettysburg has flaws. It's too long, the score is schmaltzy, there's too much speechifying. But Robert F Maxwell and Ted Turner produced something with merit, with artistic value. A film that one can point to and declare, 'Hey, look what they pulled off there.'
In the Das Boot director's cut, there's a depth charge scene that goes on for over half an hour. At the 20 minute mark or so, we began rooting for the British Destroyer. There was no one to root for in Gettysburg's portrayal of The Battle of Little Roundtop. There's a faded montage that's unnecessary, and they needed to trim a few of these pushes up the hill. It becomes mind numbing after a while. Whatever the battle scene's merits, it's just too damn long. If we hear, 'Here they come again!' one more time... Moving on to Pickett's Charge, we were impressed by the massing of regiments, giving one a real sense of what things must have been like. Well done, sirs and reenactors. But for some reason, the actual charge just didn't work for us and we can't put our finger on it. The end of the charge is actually anti-climatic. One minute were up on the ridge, then next we see battered Confederates limping back to their lines. There's a hell of a lot of buildup toward a battle that just peters out at the end. And the Yankee lines don't look full enough. There's not enough men and guns, there's not enough going on. A strange failure for a film that does this right at every other stage. What director Robert Maxwell needed to do was have a scene where the Rebs are real close, about to surmount the wall, and then line after line of Yankee soldier pops up, and opens fire at point blank range while behind him the guns blaze. Ahistorical we know, but it would have worked.
Who cast this thing? Martin Sheen is a believable but scenery chewing Robert E Lee. Watching Tom Berenger as James Longstreet, his beard clearly glued on, we can't stop seeing Jake Taylor or Sgt. Barnes. C. His Longstreet has no base. Thomas Howell (WTF?) is not up to his role. Richard Jordan plays an interesting Lowell Armitage. Stephen Lang excels as the rakish Picket. The next year he would excel as the drunk, lethal and cowardly Ike Clanton in Tombstone. The man can act. At first we didn't like Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, but the performance quickly won us over. Daniels plays Chamberlain as a normal man, tired and weary, just trying to get by. It's a near Oscar worthy performance. Oscar Adjacent? In 1994 he'd star in Dumb and Dumber. What's up with that? Aside from the casting, hampering a these actors is the dialogue. Good lord, Laurence effing Olivier couldn't do anything with some of these lines. We understand that in 1860 the educated classes liked their rhetoric and spoke with dramatic flourish unknown today. Still, Ron Maxwell the director needed to tell Ron Maxwell the writer to tone it down a bit. By the many arms of Vishnu and the Lords of Kobol, speeches, bloody speeches.
As Gettysburg is four hours long* we haven't finished it yet. But we'll say this up front; the film looks good. It's visually splendid, it's the best looking war movie we've seen since A Bridge Two Far. We don't know how they did it, but the way Gettysburg is shot, it just pops off the screen, all those greens and yellows, grays and blue's of course. One can almost feel the morning and evening sun, smell the camp fires. For us, we had an uncanny valley effect, at first our brain didn't except we were seeing 1863, but gradually we settled in. Gettysburg has what we like to call scope. One sees troops marching in the background, wagons rolling past, guns unlimbering. The screen is full, but not overpacked George Lucas style. The troops, well, those professional and hobbyist reenactors, those enthusiasts really outdid themselves. *We'll get to that in another post.
