A truly long film about a battle that lasted three days.

Rating: 8/10 (14 June 2020)

There are epic films and there are huge films. This manages to be both. It is an epic war film, and an immensely long film, four and a half hours long.
There is no point in telling the script. Anyone who knows a minimum of US history, even without being an American, knows the Battle of Gettysburg (1863) and all its relevance to the course of the Civil War. It was the decisive battle, which not only stopped the succession of military victories that the Confederates had been collecting but also destroyed the main body of their army, leaving the South, virtually, at the mercy of the Yankees. The film does a good job of focusing not only on the battle itself, but on the people who took part in it, on the small personal dramas, on the way the war separated people who even had close relationships before. The film manages to show us that human side of the conflict and to give it a face. Less well accomplished, at times, were the dialogues. If most of the time they work reasonably well, they sometimes sound theatrical, clearly false and unlikely in that time and context. But okay, I handled it well. More difficult to deal with was the slight feeling that this film, far from being neutral, has a clear sympathy for the Confederate cause, expressed in the enormous visibility given to the Confederates.
The cast is very vast, full of big names that give their best here but it is not possible to pay attention to all and not everyone had the same opportunity to shine. Personally, I would highlight the good performances of Tom Berenger and Martin Sheen, in the role of Confederate generals Longstreet and Lee, the faces of the Confederate military command, as well as Sam Elliott and Richard Anderson, in the role of Brigadier John Buford and General Meade, the leaders of the Unionist army in this battle. The four actors do an excellent job in their roles. The same can be said of Jeff Daniels and George Lazenby, in the role of two Confederate officers, as well as a number of other actors such as Stephen Lang, Richard Jordan, Cooper Huckabee, Patrick Gorman and Andrew Prine.
At a technical level, the film is a colossal show with a lot of money involved. It was done the old fashioned way, with hundreds of extras dressed to the letter and special effects to recreate the battles. Cinematography is quite good and manages to capture the action and the fights well, at the same time that it is well suited to the most still scenes. In terms of historical rigour, the film seems to me to comply with the minimum requirements. What I was most surprised about were the unnatural-looking beards and moustaches, the impeccable uniforms, without dirt or a single patch, the clean equipments and props. It looks like they started the war yesterday. And yes, there is no doubt about it: although the film is very well made and has immense value, there are at least 45 minutes that are expendable and that could have been edited to make the film shorter and palatable. Four and a half hours is too long for a feature film. But given that the battle lasted three days, I even think they summed it up pretty well.