Not a history lesson in the Civil War...but a history lesson in Film

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2003)

It's almost impossible to write a review for what is arguably the best known (if not greatest) and most watched, reviewed, critiqued, and studied film in the history of Hollywood. Without comparing it to any other of the landmark films in studio history, which like this one, almost always seem to be gloriously overblown quasi-historical romantic melodramatic epics (i.e. "Birth of a Nation" or eckkkk "Titanic"), as it is, this is a monstrously schizophrenic mess of a movie (which I suspect has to do with switching directors in mid-production). Everything is over the top and over reaching and over long, but I'll be damned if it isn't entertaining every bit of the way throughout its engaging four hours. This is the ultimate example of how powerful the studio machine was in the heyday of Hollywood, in that it could turn an overblown, overbudget heap of celluloid into an "event" that still stands the test of time as a testament to possibilities of movies as an art form.