Gettysburg (1993)

***This movie review is part of our month of May celebration of the military of the United States and the soldiers in it.***

There are war movies, and then there are war movies, and then there are war movies like Gettysburg. I love this movie a lot.  But I am sure that is because I have a love of history, military history, and military combat in the 18^th and 19^th century (That would be the 1700’s and 1800’s,) specifically the periods of the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, and the American Civil War.  It is because I am a fan of this period of history that I am a fan of this movie.  I believe that while this movie is an excellent portrayal of how the Battle of Gettysburg happened, with the necessary Hollywood dramatism, this movie is not for everyone.  Indeed I would say it is for a small percentage of people, who are like me, and like this period of history and this specific kind of history.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought between the Union and Confederate Armies outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from July 1^st to July 3^rd 1863.  The movie Gettysburg attempts to recreate the story and the battle that took place emphasizing key moments in each day that had an effect on the overall outcome of the battle.  The movie focuses on the Union Armies Calvary soldier defense of the town of Gettysburg on the first day by General Buford, played by Sam Elliot (The Contender,) the attack by the Confederate forces led by General Longstreet, played by Tom Berenger, (Major League,) on the Union Army at the Little Round Top defended by Colonial Chamberlin, played by Jeff Daniels (Speed) on the second day, and on the third and final day, the attack ordered by General Robert E Lee, played by Martin Sheen (Wall Street,) by General Pickett, played by Stephan Lang (Avatar,) which historically became known as Pickett’s Charge, and the center of the Union Army defended by General Hancock, played by Brian Mallon, (Gangs of New York.)

First of all this movie is a throwback to the epic war movies of the 1960’s and 1970’s that were made about World War II.  In those movies, and this one, many well-known Hollywood actors would be cast in an ensemble with each character telling a different part of the story with maybe one or two actors considered focal points of the story.  Comparisons to this film would be the old films, The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, Tora, Tora, Tora, and Midway.  For this film the focal point or points are General Lee played by Sheen and General Longstreet, played by Berenger.  This film was produced by Ted Turner and based on the book The Killer Angels.  Since I have not read the book I don’t know if the telling of the story from the Confederate side is due to the book or Ted Turner, my guess is Ted Turner, but even though it is told with a larger base in the Confederate side of the battle, the movie does give great attention to the Union Army with the Calvary defense of the town and the fight at Little Round Top.  But essentially this film does give us the view of the losers of the battle.

Other than the accuracy of the battle the movie tried to portray, the movie touched on the conundrum that officers and soldiers of both sides had in that, especially with the Generals of the opposing armies, these men were doing battle against others that four years earlier they were not only comrades in arms but friends.    The story takes particular note to mention the friendship between Union General Hancock and Confederate General Lewis Armistad, played by Richard Jordan (The Hunt for Red October.)  There are two different scenes between General Armistad and General Longstreet that talk about the years and days before the Civil War and the friendships they had with the men on the other side.  The movie does have General Hancock talk to General Chamberlin briefly about the same friendship but nowhere near the time that is spent on the Confederate side.  The movie also talks about other issues facing the Confederacy in terms of why the war was started and what the Confederacy should have done differently and who how the men who fought for the Confederacy loved the country as much as the Union soldiers did.  The movie breaks up the fighting with quite a lot of back story and character development of these historical figures.

The military battles portrayed in the film are where it’s at for me.  It starts with the fact that when I was a teenager and during the age where the only video game consuls were the Atari and Activision, sorry Nintendo hadn’t come out yet, I played a game called Napoleonics that required you to have a large basement floor and some artist skill because in order to build your army you had to put your army together by painting tiny lead figures in the appropriate clothing of the soldiers and then put them on stands.  You would then use percentile dice and lengthy directions in order to reenact actually battles.  If you have seen the James Bond film Living Daylights, one of the bad guys in the last scene was playing in a room that had diorama’s that are very similar to what I am talking about.  Anyway my point of this is that the instructions tried to make the game as close to battle as possible.  I remember reading that in order for an infantry unit to have max effect at inflicting casualties on the other soldiers the max range the soldiers had to be from each other was 60 feet or 20 yards.  So imagine being a soldier on one side and you have to march within 20 yards of a defensive position before your shooting a rifle have a real affect.  Hundreds and hundreds of men are killed even before they get to a point where they can do some damage.  The movie does an excellent job of showing what happened in these styles of battles. In this three day battle the lowest estimate of killed, wounded, or missing on both sides is 46,000 men.  By comparison on D-Day in World War II, the U.S. lost 29,000 men, and during the Iraq War the U.S. lost 4,600 men.  I mention this not to trivialize the loss of men during WWII or the Iraq War, but to point out how bloody and costly the Civil War was and how this movie does a great job in showing the style of fighting back then.

As I said this movie isn’t for everyone.  The downtime between battles that involve the men talking I am sure are slow and at some times tedious.  In fact the entire movie may seem like that for some people because the film is over 3 and half hours long, and that’s just the theatrical version.  The extended version that is on BluRay is over 4 hours long.  I love every minute of it. But I imagine that unless you are a hardcore military history man like me this is a film that will be skipped by most people which is a shame.  The results of this battle lead to one of the greatest speeches in American History, the Gettysburg Address by President Lincoln.  Unfortunately people don’t care about that kind of history anymore and many teachers and college professors are trying to eliminate it all together. Anyway, take a July afternoon off one day, especially if it’s rainy, and watch this movie.  You might like it.

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