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Several have suggested, in times past, that I view this film, for my edification. I now have both seen and own the film.
First off, the acting was superb on the negro soldiers' parts, and of course Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman are two of my favorite actors. Matthew Broderick of course plays himself as usual, the bewildered reluctant Shaw, (I think his name was, in real life)...
Matt usually gets those types of roles, and he does well with them.
The film was very well made and easy to look at, lighting-wise.
The Rebels winning in many of the scenes was also refreshing, even though they never actually get close enough to the cameras to warrant a session of voice-looping in post-production!
The storyline, I had to keep reminding myself, was from the viewpoint of the 54th, and not the viewpoint of any of the others alleged to make up the 186,000 USCT guys...
Thus, it was a little stifling, not seeing any more Rebels than we did, nor any more whites in the Southern towns of invasion... except the one woman who gets off the N WORD into the faces of the USCT and 54th guys, for effect.
To their credit, and the film-makers credit, none of the black actors even flinched!
That is authentic. The word was actually used in those days, and not yet been politically sanitized into oblivion.
And the director's little hidden message here; she says THE N WORD, and the whole town gets burned to the ground.
How fitting... if you think such things...
But here we begin to see the problems with this movie.
And as a piece of one-sided history, I thought I should add it to my collection, as such...
Even though all of the main characters, and most of the storyline cast, are wearing BLUE, the evil comes from former Southern slave owners, and people who speak with the Hollywood Southern Drawl... who are also wearing blue...
The yankee antagonists are mostly concerned with saving the shoes, and the money, which is also accurate... but
to have all the real bad guys being either Irish, or Southerners (again, the eternal jabs at the Celts by the superior Anglo-Saxons!), well, it is a bit much...
It happened, but other things happened as well... I suppose it is enough to show a blue uniform saying anything politically-incorrect, and I should be satisfied with that. And so, I was...
It is a ranking yankee Southerner who gives the command to fire the town. An Alexander Stephens Pro-Unionist
Cotton Whig in a real 'massa' hat (so regulation army, those hats!) who is a Southerner...
...and of course, his 'True Southern Self' was the man who fired the shot at the black soldier, probably for hitting the 'white woman'. Gotta keep protocol, you know?
Note that his Southern slave-ownerness has nought to do with the Jeffersonian Southern Confederacy at this point! But, I digress...
But we get it. Really. We do. The Southerners are 'bringing all of this on themselves...
As Ron White says, HEARD YA!
In the almost-fight sequence, with the passing white soldiers, the placating yankee has a rather contrived
New England accent, and the message of love and
brotherhood I get comes from these Matthew Broderick-
esque styled actors in the film... the obviously peaceful Northern
types...
The man who challenges Denzel's character is of course a mouthy Southern boy, again in blue...
I guess those Southern Celts are just trouble, no matter what side they are on! At least, that's the attitude I was given from the movie...
Again, Southerners make the best bad guys! Always have!
A couple other things...
The reading of the Confederate Congress' decree, and not one of the Emancipation Proclamation?
I guess, if you ever read the EP, you would know it would take more time to explain it than anyone actually had...
And then all those Yankee walk-outs one would have to explain...
Not a good piece of movie prop!
As for the Confederate decree, seeing it from this side, I was actually impressed with the impact such a statement made on the enemy...
Lincoln's EP propaganda had no such teeth!
And the money differences between the segregated colored troops and those negroes fighting for the South in the regular same-pay Confederate Army...
They never did say whether they got equal pay (they didn't), they accepted no pay (That would not do for long), or they took the ten dollars a month and shut up about it, because, hey, look! Nice new uniforms!
I think that was the message here, with the line: "Ten dollar a lot of money!"
I enjoyed them talking about Lincoln as if they were praying to an unseen god, and how he would fix all things, whether he did so, or not...
Never seeing the black Northerners looking down the barrels at any black Southerners was a disappointment.
That would have provided some great dialogue later in the tents, if anyone cared about the actual Civil War dialogues which must have transpired when blacks of opposite sides actually did confront each other in combat......
But this movie has all Confederate Southerners as lilly-white, to avoid any confusion...
The Negro SCV of the Nathan Bedford Forrest Camp would like a word with them...
And of course, the Contraband soldiers, who seem to be well adjusted and not in the least bit 'forced' to leave their homes and families, because they all understand that
distance is relative, even though many white people in the South did not ever venture more than fifty miles away from home, and certainly not their slaves!
And besides, these are the yankees! Our protectors!
We will follow father Abraham anywhere!
No refugee lines, no lifting of pontoon bridges, and abandoning of bewildered negroes... no forced conscriptions... and the only deserter was a misunderstanding...
Yeah...
Here's where the movie basically collapses in on itself.
Here it gives into propaganda, and with what crowds know about the Civil War today, I was surprised to see this playing in Gettysburg during the 144th...
I wonder if they have any disclaimer flyers to hand out in the lobby, saying how quaintly 'period' this movie becomes in places... back when they didn't 'teach' any better...
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
No, actually, I was never bored with it... Although I did get tired of seeing everything through the main characters' limited viewpoints. And some Lincoln level brass would have
been nice, I think...
A bit of break-away into some omniscience would have been
nice, at times, but not once did I yawn, the entire film...
"Alleged" USCT... your bias and agenda is showing through again.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
That is authentic. The [N] word was actually used in those days, and not yet been politically sanitized into oblivion.
It was more commonly used by Northerners.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beowulf
Even though all of the main characters, and most of the storyline cast, are wearing BLUE, the evil comes from former Southern slave owners, and people who speak with the Hollywood Southern Drawl... who are also wearing blue...
Yes, this is quite common with Hollywood...even with movies with 'good' and 'bad' Southerners...it is only the bad ones that have a drawl
Quote:
Originally Posted by beowulf
A couple other things...
The reading of the Confederate Congress' decree
As for the Confederate decree, seeing it from this side, I was actually impressed with the impact such a statement made on the enemy...
...but it is inaccurately quoted.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
"Alleged" USCT... your bias and agenda is showing through again.
You are accusing someone of bias?
You?
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
"No refugee lines, no lifting of pontoon bridges, and abandoning of bewildered negroes... no forced conscriptions... and the only deserter was a misunderstanding..."
That's for another movie. This one was about the 54th Mass.
---
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
"Alleged" USCT... your bias and agenda is showing through again.
No, their's is... as in, they showed no hostile 'draftees', but had the nerve to mention them as CONTRABANDS with all the sweet zipping glory of SONG OF THE SOUTH, except without the WHITE SOUTH anywhere to be SEEN...
Unless you count that one woman...
I guess this image of the South is how the yankees saw it. A utopia of well-fed and well dressed blacks, who were just panting to serve Lincoln and his purposes, and ask no questions, and no white people other than these transplants, looking at those empty mansions with a bad intent... (not to burn them down, but to (gasp!) ... to move into them....
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