Great moviemaking. Really bad history.

Rating: 4/10 (13 November 1998)

Once again, Hollywood has taken an actual historical event and tried to improve on it. To its credit, this is one of the most beautifully shot and scored films you are likely to see. But the makers of Gettysburg were not about to let this film be confused with the facts. Jeff Daniels makes an impassioned speech that the actual Joshua Chamberlain never made. It's not even a good speech. He says that his men form an army like no other army in history...an army fighting for an idea. This would come as an enormous surprise to members of the Continental Army of the American Revolution who also fought for an idea. General James Longstreet continually argues with Robert E. Lee about which strategy to adopt. Longstreet did favor a different stategy, but there is no evidence to support the fact that he didn't accept Lee's plan. He is shown so wracked with doubt that he can't give the order for Pickett's charge. Witnesses say Longstreet was overcome by emotion, not doubt. He states in one scene, "I don't think about the cause much anymore," while the Federal soldiers are depicted as being swept up in some kind of noble cause. In actual fact, by 1863, the north was so sick of the war there was strong sentiment to just allow the Confederacy to leave the Union without further violence. But with the exception of a few men from Maine who are unhappy with their enlistment deal, the Union soliders are depicted as a happy lot on a holy crusade. The death of Stonewall Jackson just two months prior to Gettysburg gets no treatment in this film. If there is one single historical event that altered the outcome of the battle it was Jackson's death at Chancellorsville...something that is completely overlooked. Lee is depicted as a starry-eyed old man; George Meade, the Union commander barely puts in an appearance; John Bell Hood whines his way through the film; JEB Stuart's absence is never accurately explained-you're left to believe he was out joyriding; Corps Commander Hancock utters such ridiculous statements under fire as, "There are times when a corps commander's life doesn't count;" General Armistead is a blubbering, sentimental old fool; Chamberlain is almost comic in his stammering attempts at conversation. George Pickett is a fopish baffoon, and on and on and on. It's a wonder the war went on as long as it did with such a collection of officers. Revisionist history at its worst. Skip it.