Not Perfect, But Excellent. I Recommend it.

Rating: 9/10 (29 October 2001)

Over the last twenty to thirty years, movie studios have been reluctant to make history-based large epic films because they cost so much but are rarely successful financially. In spite of this trend, in 1993 Turner Movie released "Gettysburg," a large-scale epic film depicting the decisive 1863 Civil War battle. When I saw this film for the first time back in 1993, I thought that it is an excellent film although not perfect.

The cast members were generally excellent. Although some professional critics gave negative comments about Martin Sheen's portrayal of Gen. Robert E. Lee, I felt that Sheen did a great job of depicting this Civil War general. I still clearly remember the nobility of Sheen's Lee when he answered his soldiers' cheer of `Lee! Lee! Lee!' Tom Berenger, who is really at home playing gung-ho characters, superbly played Gen. Long-street, a large, tacit man. Sam Shepherd played the forgotten hero of Gettysburg, Brigadier Gen. John Buford, quietly and convincingly. Jeff Bridges was excellent as the dauntless scholar-soldier, Col. (later Major General) Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who won the skirmish on the Big Round Top which, some historians say, changed the entire course of the Battle of Gettysburg and ultimately the Civil War. Bridges played this quiet ex-college professor, who immediately went back to teaching after the Civil War, so ef-fectively that I could feel this scholar-soldier's courage and strength through his performance. I was glad to see Buck Taylor, whom I have not seen for a long time. (He was Newly O'Brien in the TV series "Gun-smoke.") Thanks to the great performance of the cast members, I was not once bored during the entire 4-hour duration of this very long film.

The battle scenes were staged competently. Unlike many other films, this movie was not myopic in its portrayal of battle scenes. Many other war movies look awfully myopic because the directors have to make a limited number of extras to look like tens of thousands of soldiers; therefore, they can rarely use the panoramic long shot. However, for this film, the director assembled thousands of Civil War re-enacters and, therefore, could use many panoramic long shots. For example, Pickett's charge (estimated to be 15,000 strong historically) absolutely came to life in this film. I knew about this ill-fated charge since I was only about eight; nevertheless, until I saw this film, it was merely a vague description in pages of history books. It was re-enacted magnificently in this film with approximately 5000 Civil-War re-enacters.
There are many good points about the script. I am happy to see that the creative minds behind this film cared about historical accuracies unlike many other Hollywood screenwriters. This film was relatively faithful to the history and the book "Killer Angels." (Although Michael Schaara's "Killer Angels" is relatively accurate historically, the author did take some liberties with history--including some of the positions of the Union troops during the battle.) Even though this movie was depicted largely from the point of view of some famous historical figures like Gen. Lee and Longstreet, many parts of this film was seen through the eyes of Col. Joshua Chamberlain, a historical character and a regular Joe who turned into a tiger when confronted by hundreds of screaming Confederates. He is a sympathetic but heroic character whom an average moviegoer can easily relate to. No screenwriter could have created a more ideal movie character than Col. Chamberlain, but he is a real human being who lived until just before World War I. (This is a good lesson for many Hollywood writers who are known to frequently add unnecessary and boring fictional characters to historical epics. By adding fictional characters, the historical epic loses authenticity. Moreover, there are usually no need to add fictional characters to history-based dramas. Many of the historical figures--including Col. Chamberlain--are fascinating people, much more interesting than most of Hollywood's fictional characters.)

Unfortunately, the script also has some Achilles' heels. For some inexplicable reason, the screenwriters made many of the lines of the film's characters seem sermon-like and unnatural. Take for instance, the conversation between Gen. Armistead and Lt. Colonel Freemantle just before Pickett's charge. Armistead's lines were so stilted and unnatural. He sounded more like a politician making a speech to a large audience or a preacher making a big Sunday sermon. Because of the time constraint of a theatrical movie, many interesting subplots and story lines of the novel "Killer Angels" were deleted from the film. (For example, the meeting between Longstreet and a shadowy pro-Confederate spy or the scene in which Gen. Meade and his staff were having a sumptuous meal oblivious to his starving men.) To portray many of these interesting story lines, Turner Movie should have made `Gettysburg' into a ten-hour TV mini-series.

Although not perfect, "Gettysburg" is a fine historical epic film. I highly recommend this film.