Movie: Cold Mountain

pattyjo

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Abbottstown, PA
Has anyone else seen the movie Cold Mountain? I read the book which was great and I have the movie, I think the battle scenes are great What do you think?
 
Has anyone else seen the movie Cold Mountain? I read the book which was great and I have the movie, I think the battle scenes are great What do you think?

I've seen it a couple of times. I thought it was a good movie. That doesn't mean that I think everything in it happened as portrayed.
 
Good in some parts. Especially liked the way some of the accents were portrayed, not that they were authentic to the area, but still good for Hollywood.
 
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Definitely one of my favorite Civil War era movies, mainly because the uniforms, battle scenes, and time period in general look a lot more historically accurate compare to movies like Gettysburg or Gods and Generals. As for the story, its not the type of movie I'd be watching if it wasn't Civil War era. It would be great to see a new ACW film with the same historical accuracy seen in Cold Mountain but focusing on a true historical figure or incident.
 
I watched the opening sequence because my ancestor was in the Battle of the Crater, but beyond that the movie didn't hold my interest and I never finished it.
 
I watched the opening sequence because my ancestor was in the Battle of the Crater, but beyond that the movie didn't hold my interest and I never finished it.

The depiction of the Crater was awful - one of the worst things about this turgid, soap-opera potboiler! IF Mahone's Confederates had stood on the rim of the Crater perfectly sillohetted against the sky for any time like depicted, it wolud've been THEY who were shot to pieces, NOT the Yanks. And the Crater tunnel was a crawl-space, about 3 feet square, size determined strictly by the size opening necessary to get the powder kegs through - NOT big enough to stand upright in, by any means.

And of course there HAD to be a brutal redneck villian! Not that this was impossible by any means, but just another excuse for a little PC "South-bashing". The most ridiculous aspect of this was in him DELIBERATELY killing the Jude Law character - bounties were only paid for LIVE prisoners, and you can bet Bubba knew THAT. The absolutely best thing about the entire script was depicting a non-solid South, rife with problems like hunger, desertion and draft evasion.

Of course, the "necessity" of filming this mostly in Romania is mystifying; at least the company "imported" Brian Pohanka and another reenactor ( Dale Fetzer? ) to do what they could to correct the most grevious blunders, but it obviously wasn't enough. As far as I'm aware, only the hospital from which Jude Law's character deserts was actually filmed in the U.S., Va. or N.C. as I remember. I see NO reason this couldn'tve actually been filmed ENTIRELY in the U.S. using reenactors and an all-American cast - Texan Renee Zellwieger was the best thing about it anyway!
 
Being a movie about the Civil War( War of Seperation) and it's people,
I thought it was very strange Shot in Romania, lead actress from Aust. lead actor from England. Director from England, supporting actress from Isreal, Only actress/actor who had a major role was Renee Zellweiger-Texas. Several of the other supporting people came from places like Ireland, England and a few who were american born. Tho the Author of the book is from US.
 
Being a movie about the Civil War( War of Seperation) and it's people,
I thought it was very strange Shot in Romania, lead actress from Aust. lead actor from England. Director from England, supporting actress from Isreal, Only actress/actor who had a major role was Renee Zellweiger-Texas. Several of the other supporting people came from places like Ireland, England and a few who were american born. Tho the Author of the book is from US.

That's Hollywood for ya... :whistling:
 
I never read the book, but the author was said to have seen the tombstone of W.P. Inman, which said he was killed by the home guard. His records show he deserted once but was reinstated. The writer simply made up a novel based on a tombstone and knowledge that Inman had deserted once. The rest is pure moonshine.
 
Has anyone else seen the movie Cold Mountain? I read the book which was great and I have the movie, I think the battle scenes are great What do you think?

Excellent battle scenes of the Crater. Great story. All in all I loved the book and the movie and usually for me it is one or the other rarely both.
 
The depiction of the Crater was awful - one of the worst things about this turgid, soap-opera potboiler! IF Mahone's Confederates had stood on the rim of the Crater perfectly sillohetted against the sky for any time like depicted, it wolud've been THEY who were shot to pieces, NOT the Yanks. And the Crater tunnel was a crawl-space, about 3 feet square, size determined strictly by the size opening necessary to get the powder kegs through - NOT big enough to stand upright in, by any means.

And of course there HAD to be a brutal redneck villian! Not that this was impossible by any means, but just another excuse for a little PC "South-bashing". The most ridiculous aspect of this was in him DELIBERATELY killing the Jude Law character - bounties were only paid for LIVE prisoners, and you can bet Bubba knew THAT. The absolutely best thing about the entire script was depicting a non-solid South, rife with problems like hunger, desertion and draft evasion.

Of course, the "necessity" of filming this mostly in Romania is mystifying; at least the company "imported" Brian Pohanka and another reenactor ( Dale Fetzer? ) to do what they could to correct the most grevious blunders, but it obviously wasn't enough. As far as I'm aware, only the hospital from which Jude Law's character deserts was actually filmed in the U.S., Va. or N.C. as I remember. I see NO reason this couldn'tve actually been filmed ENTIRELY in the U.S. using reenactors and an all-American cast - Texan Renee Zellwieger was the best thing about it anyway!

I thought the battle footage was great. To be honest I never gave much thought to the Confederate defenders silhouetting themselves above the rim of the Crater. Still they must have fired into the Crater and I don't see how they could have done that from anywhere other than the rim although you have a good point about getting small and presenting a smaller target. I absolutely loved Renee Zellwieger's performance I felt she stole the show from Kidman. Renee had so many great lines.
 
I never read the book, but the author was said to have seen the tombstone of W.P. Inman, which said he was killed by the home guard. His records show he deserted once but was reinstated. The writer simply made up a novel based on a tombstone and knowledge that Inman had deserted once. The rest is pure moonshine.

Well he certainly spun a great yarn........ Great imagination sez I. Just think he created all that from a tombstone and a few records.
 
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