First Word

A telling of the story of Lincoln’s War from Virginia secession through Chancellorsville, based on the historical novel by Jeff Shaara. Thematic coherence is sought by focusing on Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Joshua Chamberlain of Maine, though many of the other historical personages have their place as well. There are some searing beauties that will give this film an enduring greatness, but just because of this, I wish to exorcise its very serious defects first.

1. The first defect of the film is that it is not about anything. It lacks a dramatic crisis or a real point. Nothing resolved, nothing settled, as Patton said. Nor does it even leave us with a good question to ponder. On the other hand, it is too full of extrapolations to function as a good documentary. Thus, it is confused about its own genre. It is not fully a documentary, and not fully dramatic myth. Possibly, this defect could have been remedied by a different approach to the editing — perhaps by showing the end first then telling the rest of the story as flashback. I don’t know: a film expert could help here.

2. In its effort to be “fair,” the authors bend over backwards to develop sympathetic parallelism between Yankee and Confederate. This is done by dredging up Joshua Chamberlain again, just as in Gettysburg (1993). Chamberlain is about the only Yankee anyone can find that was at once interesting and morally compelling — while the Confederacy was veritably bursting at the seams with such characters. But despite being the best Yankee exemplar, Chamberlain was a schoolboyish moralist and robotic soldier, and hardly an equal match to the towering Jackson. Perhaps he could have been lined up with better parity against a Southron whose youth might compensate for his natural cultural superiority, say, Captain Pendleton, or any of a hundred other young officers of the South. But what could Shaara do to create a good compare-and-contrast within rank, given the actual historical stock of characters? Nothing. That is the point. The Confederacy trounces Yankeedom on this score: a different tack is needed.

3. Predictably, far too much time is spent on the slave question. To its credit, the film is honest enough to depict Southern slavery as a loving and Christian domestic arrangement, in which the Negroes (at least, the house servants) were incorporated intimately into family life. But it feels the need to portray the deepest desire of both Jim and Martha to be “freedom” — though apparently not the kind of freedom found in Africa — leading to irrelevant rabbit trails. The film had to do this, to avoid being shouted off the screen by the kikenpress. (But the kikenpress shouted them off the screen anyhow.) At the end of the day, this footage simply adds tedious minutes to an already-too-long film, and for no good purpose.

4. The battle scenes are long yet add little insight into the battle dynamics. Especially Fredericksburg: I suppose the authors wanted the electrifying scenes with the Irish Brigades — and they are indeed good — and thus were forced to add enough time to other facets of the battle to maintain proportion, to avoid conveying the idea that that face-off was what the battle was all about. As a result, it ended up too long.

5. The kind of trivia that is included betrays Shaara’s juvenile method of studying history. It is like a high school term paper in which the boy has to work in every detail culled from books and duly recorded in his stack of note cards. He has obviously combed through the books with an eye for the odd detail. Thus, inevitably, we need repeated exposure to Jackson’s love of lemons. The scene of the enemy soldiers trading ‘baccy and coffee at the river is charming, but what does it add to this story? Same with the beautiful but irrelevant Northern Lights. Jackson was a wooden pedagogue, and did indeed repeat a lesson “word for word” until it took, but again, is this important? He was born to be a hero of his people and humble man of God, not a college pedant. Shaara’s kind of history feeds the water-cooler bore that is filled with “ain’t that something?” little factoids about an historical epoch or personage, but has no insight into the real issue or man.

All of these observations support my belief that the film could have had a good hour cut from its three-and-a-half hour presentation, and would have been the gainer. Think Godfather. Every line, every scene of a great film contributes to the total effect. Less is more.

At least one of the stock criticisms of the film does not hold up: the elevated diction of several of the characters, they say, is stilted and unrealistic. First, such diction is not surprising from Southrons that were more formal in interaction, well-educated, and lovers and livers of poetry. Some of the speeches would have been thought-through in advance, like the farewell speech of the Fredericksburg mother. Second, even absent that, an elevated diction would be appropriate in a story that though historical is at once also mythic.

As to the lack of coherence that bloated the film, the invention of the DVD means we can do the editing ourselves now. And this leads to pointing out what is wonderful about the film. It is the detached scenes which, hanging by themselves like so many artistically-done family portraits in an album, project great sentiments and great moments of a great people. Here is a list of just some of them:

• Lee’s meeting with Blair, where he turns down the offer of commanding the Union Army
• The long-haired speech at the Virginia Assembly, explaining the circumstance that makes it imperative for the Citizen Army of Virginia to rise up
• Jackson’s Scripture and prayer with his wife after being summoned
• The piano and flag-knitting scene in the home of the Virginia family sending two of their sons into service
• The cry of the Irish brigade
• Lee’s explanation to his adjutants of how the Southron’s motivation differs from that of the Yankee
• The Christmas party in the fine Virginia household
• The Bonnie Blue Flag rendition in outdoor assembly
• The flanking attack at Chancellorsville
• The funeral procession back at VMI

These scenes, and a few others, are powerful. They ratify and deepen our appreciation of the greatness of the Old South, and through her, of what human society is capable of becoming by the grace of God. Despite its many weaknesses, the force of the film does make it clear that Lincoln’s War was a battle waged by pagans and apostates against Christendom.  As in Augustine’s City of God, the story is told concretely, not just as an abstraction. The title is apt: generals serving different gods. Or, as Augustine would put it, the demons, versus the living and true God.

Do acquire this DVD — renting it will not suffice — and regularly cherry-pick it as a rich and nourishing album. With that understanding, I give it a BIx 6.