When we think of Civil War battlegrounds, the majestic river valleys of Shenandoah or the windswept plains of Gettysburg come to mind. Gods and Generals, a new Civil War epic, tries to convince us that the Civil War was fought on desolate, emotionless battlefields and involved a struggle between mind-numbingly clichéd dialogue and cloying, patronizing patriotism. Adapted from Jeff Shaara’s novel by director and producer Ronald Maxwell, Gods and Generals, a prequel to Maxwell’s 1994 Gettysburg will be followed by The Last Full Measure, the final installment in the trilogy. Instead of providing a realistic and resonant depiction of the Civil War, the three hour and forty-five minute monstrosity known as Gods and Generals ignores the chance to present emotional complexity in favor of dusting off musty war stereotypes.
A cacophony of historical figures clad in blue and gray (which become increasingly harder to tell apart as the film limps on … and on) dramatize chapters from a high school U.S. History textbook. Robert Duvall, Jeff Daniels and Stephen Lang head up a hopelessly lost cast that seems to have escaped from a wax museum. This film could only possibly be enjoyed by Civil War reenactors, who incidentally made up much of the audience at the preview screening. However, if Gods and Generals proves anything, it’s that not even actors should be reenacting the Civil War.
Gods and Generals starts off with a secretary in the Lincoln administration offering command of the Union Army to General Robert E. Lee (Duvall). The old Southern gentleman then lets forth the first of many monologues of fierce Virginia loyalty; the music swells, and we’re off and left wondering why the filmmakers would pull out the musical crescendo halfway through the first scene. This incident marks only the beginning of overdramatic swells, though. The film is bloated with audio climaxes, but, really, how could one not bring out the lilting violins and rolling snares under lines such as: ‘Mother, I know that we are not the only women saying goodbye to brothers and sons on this day … but I still feel this to be the saddest moment of my life’? Gods and Generals is a disaster in a four-star, Wilderness campaign kind of way.
The film follows the exploits of Gen. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson (Lang), the legendary Confederate leader, and Col. Joshua Chamberlain (Daniels), a Maine college professor-turned-Union army hero. Jackson was known as a devout Christian and the film depicts him as such. For every pious prayer of Jackson’s, Chamberlain is on the other side, speechifying with academic comparisons to the Trojan War (see belabored title). Lang brings a good deal of zeal to his performance (a bad thing in a film this cardboard). While Daniels works in a lower key, the insincerity of the dialogue smothers him.
Between the four major battles depicted, the film presents snippets of the lives of civilians affected by the war. These bits are some of the bleakest and corniest moments. The involvement of African-Americans is reduced to non-confrontational footnotes in the form of Jackson’s cook and personal valet, Jim Lewis (Frankie Faison) and slave-turned-housekeeper, Martha (Donzaleigh Abernathy). Wives and mothers gush and dote in equal parts: Jackson’s saintly wife Mary (Kali Rocha) contrasts with the northern sass of Chamberlain’s Fanny (Mira Sorvino, who uses a British accent that only shows up half the time). Most puzzling is the inclusion of the story of a five-year-old girl whom Jackson befriends, which adds a bewildering touch of breakfast-cereal-commercial-sentimentality as a break from that pesky war business.
As Duvall’s Robert E. Lee says, ‘It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.’ Gods and Generals takes on this attitude. It is a film that takes itself too seriously, while not considering its subject matter seriously enough. This quote is the beginning and end of the film’s acknowledgment of the complex horrors of the Civil War. In the end, it still shows a nostalgic, sepia-toned war that melodramatic and tenacious high-profile heroes have to worry about growing too fond of.
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