Glory

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2012)

There are two kinds of war movie: those that field warriors who are compelled to fight by orders handed down to them from superiors who may or not have internalized the cause—thus reducing the cause to a localized mission of group survival (e.g., Black Hawk Down) or dissolving it into chaotic meaninglessness (e.g., Full Metal Jacket)—and those in which the fighters themselves have internalized the cause, thus heightening its significance and strengthening their resolve. I tend to prefer the latter kind, and Glory is one of the best of that kind. Narrated through the actual letters of Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) and beginning at the bloody Battle of Antietam, Glory tells the courageous, moving, true story of the first group of black soldiers enlisted to fight during the American Civil War—a war fought, in part, over the issue of slavery. Not every member of Shaw's unit is a slave. His friend since childhood, Thomas Searles (Andre Braugher), is an educated, free man, who speaks as though he walked out of a Charles Dickens novel. For the most part, Thomas's tent mates—who include a wise, respectful father-figure, John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman) and a stuttering, wide-eyed optimist, Jupiter Sharts (Jihmi Kennedy)—are agreeable and loyal, fully committed to the cause and eager to fight for freedom and glory. Of course, agreeableness and consensus make for dull drama. Enter Trip, played by Denzel Washington, who introduces dissension, first by referring to Thomas as "Snowflake," and then by stressing irreconcilable differences between whites and blacks, breaking ranks to retrieve better shoes, refusing to accept "slave wages," and eventually picking a fight with a whole regiment of white Union soldiers. One layer out from Trip's quarrel with the world, Shaw confronts a Union army that denigrates his regiment, refusing them necessary supplies and the opportunity to fight. Real battle with the Confederacy seems like a faraway notion. But it will come soon enough, after a bit of effective blackmail by Shaw and another of his boyhood friends, Major Cabot Forbes (Cary Elwes), and the quelling of Trip's unproductive rebelliousness by Rawlins, as he points out that these white men Trip wants to brush aside are fighting, and dying, for him—that it's time for he and the rest of the 54th to "ante up" and fight for themselves, now that they've been given the chance. Glory relies on a series of overlapping setups followed by payoffs, most of which work beautifully. The opening staging of Antietam drives home the close-range brutality of warfare with rifle and bayonet, so that Shaw's harsh, pedantic treatment of the sharpshooting Sharts seems warranted after Shaw witnesses his men laughing and playacting a battle with their newly issued weapons. The presentation of Shaw's timidity, even through his own admission, sets up his first moment of glory, when he finally confronts the Quartermaster and obtains much-needed shoes for his men. Shaw's firm treatment of Sharts sets up Sharts' moment of glory in the first battle, where he proves his ability to load and discharge his weapon to Shaw's standard. Thomas's degradation, by both Trip and the sharp-tongued Mulcahy (and, to a subtler extent, by Shaw), finds redemption in this same first battle, when he saves Trip from certain death. Finally, after twice refusing to carry the flag, Trip picks it up in the ending battle, upon Shaw's fall, and attempts to lead the final charge. Although our heroes perish in their failed attempt to take the fort, the true victory is written in the afterword: 180,000 black troops volunteered after learning of the bravery of the 54th. Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning performance in this movie is consistently, outstandingly brilliant, both from the perspective of character detail and emotional impact. In the scene in which Trip is whipped for "deserting" the regiment, Washington summons the resiliency, defiance, pain, futility, and sorrow of generations of enslaved brothers and sisters, and expresses the anguish of their considerable plight against the frivolity of the "punishment" at hand. And he does this without saying a word. James Horner's music, for this scene especially, as well as for the final battle scene, is magnificent. Edward Zwick's direction of the final battle and his handling, throughout the film, of camera, conflict, and character, is glorious. Why this movie wasn't nominated for Best Picture is beyond my comprehension. What is within my comprehension is my opinion that Glory was the best picture of 1989.