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By JOE BUTKIEWICZ; Times Leader Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 1993 Page:
These days, people generally prefer their wars as they prefer their movies;
short, concise and decisive. “Gettysburg” — both the battle and the movie —
marches to a different drummer.
The Civil War confrontation in the summer of 1863 lasted three days,
shifted balance and was followed by almost two more years of conflict.
For people who watch laser-guided bombs on CNN, the monstrous carnage of
“Gettysburg” and horrible irony of friend fighting friend, may be difficult to
fathom.
As far as movie duration is concerned, most contemporary audiences blanch
at the prospect of sitting beyond two hours. “Gettysburg” asks people to
volunteer almost four hours and 30 minutes, including a 15 minute
intermission.
Yet “Gettysburg” fulfills the promise of a movie epic. This adaptation of
Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Killer Angels,” was
originally intended to be a television mini-series, but was scaled up for a
theatrical release. It makes the transition fairly well, even though regular
movie audiences are likely to view differences as failings.
The cinematography of “Gettysburg” is flatter, and not as immediate as
similar movie epics. Some vistas are obviously paintings. Dolly shots shake.
It’s wordy.
But Maxwell’s concern is story telling and character relations. If his
script is wordy, the words are often well chosen. The writer/director is also
faithful to the imposing scale of the battle and historical consequence. Drama
is heightened, not by explosion or torn flesh, but broken spirits and torn
souls.
Shaking camera included, that’s remarkable in contemporary movies.
Using an episodic style, writer/director Ronald Maxwell (TV’s “Verna:
U.S.O. Girl” and “Little Darlings”) captures the sweeping tactics and
machinations of 19th century warfare as well as the twists of personal
politics and the significance to battle.
Maxwell gives equal time to both sides. For the Confederate story, he
focuses on Gen. Robert E. Lee (Martin Sheen) and Lt. Gen. James Longstreet
(Tom Berenger) and the careful dynamics of that pinnacle of Confederate
leadership.
Sheen portrays the Lee — who was treated as a deity — with a subdued
command and mystical contemplation, sort of like a leader named Kurtz that the
actor faced in a movie called “Apocalypse Now.”
Since the Federal army was often devoid of dynamic leadership on high,
Maxwell focuses first on the Brig. Gen. John Buford (chiseled Sam Elliott), a
cavalry officer and then Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), the volunteer
who had been a professor at Bowdoin College in Maine.
A remarkable leader, Chamberlain treated his men with unorthodox
consideration and was able to rally their decimated ranks in fierce defense of
the heavily wooded knoll called Little Round Top. Like Chamberlain, the
reserved Daniels proves himself well.
The most arresting portrayal is of Confederate Gen. Lewis Armistead who is
tortured by his impending confrontation with Union Gen. Hancock, an old and
good friend, a ridge away. Their fateful reunion embodies one of the great
horrors of the entire war. In another time, Armistead would have been played
by Henry Fonda. Richard Jordan does just fine here.
Certainly an appeal of this movie are the 5,000 uniformed Civil War
re-enactors, shouldering thickets of musket and firing withering cannonade. In
mass, the sight is impressive. That their number, times almost 10, were
casualties at Gettysburg, is sobering.
“We are adrift here in a sea of blood,” Lee orders, “and I want it to end.
I want this to be the last battle.”
It was not. And “Gettysburg” is a painful reminder of the cost of war.