A miraculous and brilliant movie-- ALL the history must be considered, however!!!

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2002)

Director Zwick set out for a really tough task when he decided to make "Glory." Think about it--- he wants to combine solid entertainment with accurate history. PLUS--- he wants to capture one of the core values of the American psyche, our Civil war, and do justice to all of it in a couple of hours. First, all those who carp and nitpick upon the film's possible lack of "divine perfection" should be ashamed! Given all those goals, Zwick, his technical crews, and the superb cast all did a magnificent job. The movie is brilliant. Second, a better understanding of the history might help appreciate this marvelous achievement.
Some have knocked the Col. Robert Gould Shaw character as whimpy and pale, too young to be a proper colonel. Hey--- this is the history part: The actor Matthew Broderick actually looks exactly like actual photos of Shaw. Shaw WAS young, and he was the pampered son of a rich family. Can't help that now-- that's what happened. And regardless of his whimpiness, note that he DID willingly go off to battle with the 54th, losing his life in the process. Letters from members of the 54th recount how much Shaw was devoted to his men and the whole social evolutionary process the 54th experiment was engaged in. Evidently Shaw was genuinely loved and respected by his men. Eyewitnesses in the midst of the battle itself report that Shaw was indeed a brave and inspirational officer right up to the end.
History can never be effectively understood through the values of the present. Any historian or historician will tell you that. Historical events must be understood in terms of the times in which they occurred. Slavery is an evil and horrible thing on any continent, in any culture, and in any century. Given the circumstances that it did exist, however, one must view the recovery process from slavery realistically. To recover from slavery--- as a slave or a slave-holder--- could not have been an easy or quick process. It was probably extremely difficult, and probably required an heroic amount of strength, endurance, and courage. Certainly many folks of those times undoubtedly never made the transition, and suffered for the rest of their lives in one way or the other.
The heroism of those who took the steps that they could take in those times should not be sullied or unvaunted merely because we modern people find the whole episode embarrassing or unbefitting our modern self-righteous self-important notions of how people are "supposed to act."
The marvelous actor Morgan Freeman, a real hero of mine, says on the "Glory" DVD commentary that President Lincoln was not interested in freeing the slaves, and was not interested in black freedoms, as evidenced by the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation (the decree that "freed the slaves") was not issued until 1863, two years after the Civil War started. Perhaps-- but I have heard history professors and "Lincoln experts" lecture that Lincoln's interest in abolishing slavery was genuine and a guiding force of his political and public life for many years before he became president. These Lincoln historians said that Lincoln was also a consummate politician and realist--- i.e., he knew that to agitate for emancipation before the Union forces began to win battles was futile. In fact, his realistic appraisal of the times in which he lived was such that he knew that to emancipate the slaves any earlier would have shattered the Union, split all of his support, and lost the war. In effect, bad timing in the political realities of the day would have established the Confederacy and its slave economy forever. Thus, Lincoln the realist timed his actions in the only way he could have and still achieved his goals of ending the horrors of slavery.
Lest our British cousins feel any degree of superiority about this bit of "dirty laundry" in our American past, recall that Britain only outlawed slavery in 1850--- a scant 13 years before Lincoln. AND, the British government tried to enter the American Civil War on the side of the Confederates, in exchange for which the British would have access to the largest cotton supply in the world at that time, along with the cheap slave labor (Shocked? Look it up!). The American Southerners would have received inclusion in the British aristocracy--- dukes, earls, knights, and what-nots. What ultimately prevented this 3rd British invasion of America was the British working-class mill-workers. They protested and rioted by the tens-of-thousands, and threatened to revolt if Britain went ahead with their new war plans. Did the British Poor riot to defend the rights of the American slaves? Or to protect their own jobs? Doesn't matter. Maybe both reasons--- but their stubborness did save the Union and effectively insure the freedom of the slaves here.
Sorry for the speech-- the point is that any historical decade in a country such as ours is a VERY complicated affair. The wonderful movie "Glory" does a miraculous job--- not telling every story, of course, but of telling SOME of the stories, some of the truth, and conveying a vibe that was historically and spiritually consistent with all the stories. And to the millions of Afro-Americans who stayed away from this movie, perhaps because it is too painful to watch--- be proud, be brave, and celebrate what your great-great-great-grandfathers did. It is an amazing story, and "Glory" tells it well.