Realistic Battle Scenes

[Waterloo50]

I have been watching a lot of ACW battle scenes and I am wondering if the battle scene in 'Wicked Spring', Wilderness Battle, could be considered as one of the most authentic movie ACW battle scenes. I think that the battle in this particular scene manages to convey a sense of confusion and panic which is what I imagine these types of battles would have been like. I am interested to know if anyone thinks that there is a more realistic or historically accurate scene out there.

Regards

Waterloo

 

[Henry Whitworth]

I don't think anyone has made one yet.

 

[Waterloo50]

I don't think anyone has made one yet.

I know its a big question but in your opinion, what are the movies doing or getting wrong?

 

[John Winn]

I was mightily impressed with that when I first saw it. I think it does portray how it likely really was more than other movies. The only criticism I have is that all the artillery incoming explodes on the ground which I don't think is accurate for a number of reasons (which I will spare you enumerating). For an independent B movie the whole thing's really pretty darn good IMO.

 

[Waterloo50]

I was mightily impressed with that when I first saw it. I think it does portray how it likely really was more so than most movies. The only criticism I have is that all the artillery incoming explodes on the ground which I don't think is accurate for a number of reasons (which I will spare you enumerating). For an independent B movie it's really pretty darn good IMO.

Thank you for your response.

I am really only asking about realism in movies because some of the later big budget movies are deemed to be very accurate. I realise that they have the benefit of living eye witness accounts, movies such as (Saving Private Ryan) are deemed to be almost faultless in their historical accuracy, so why is it with all the information available such as eye witness testimonies, reports and feedback from ACW experts, why is it that ACW movies are still not able to give an accurate portrayal of the period? Surely, if an independent B movie can get it almost right, the big budget movies should. I watched Glory recently and even I was able to spot plenty of inaccuracies in it.

Regards

Waterloo

 

[Henry Whitworth]

I know its a big question but in your opinion, what are the movies doing or getting wrong?

Graphic description follows.


I think it's just nearly impossible to really convey what happened in those battles on the screen and a filmmaker would have to be absolutely ruthless (and have a real big budget) in trying to show it. People shot with .58 caliber bullets and artillery don't totter over. They get blown apart. It's not just smoke but a red mist and body parts in the air when a big volley or canister hits. Some guys are covered in parts of their slaughtered comrades or trailing their own guts. People get taken down by flying bone fragments. Who wants to watch that? I think we use movies to make war into something more palatable and even kind of 'fun' for many, like a sporting event. Notice that I feel compelled to warn about what is an accurate description of battle on a site dedicated to discussing the war.

War should offend. It's offensive.

 

[Jamieva]

Headless bodies etc. We see these graphic descriptions in soldiers writings during the war but no movie has come anywhere near depicting it. It's been more romanticized like a 1950s movie more than the realism you are looking for.

 

[John Winn]

Thank you for your response.

I am really only asking about realism in movies because some of the later big budget movies are deemed to be very accurate. I realise that they have the benefit of living eye witness accounts, movies such as (Saving Private Ryan) are deemed to be almost faultless in their historical accuracy, so why is it with all the information available such as eye witness testimonies, reports and feedback from ACW experts, why is it that ACW movies are still not able to give an accurate portrayal of the period? Surely, if an independent B movie can get it almost right, the big budget movies should. I watched Glory recently and even I was able to spot plenty of inaccuracies in it.

Regards

Waterloo

I have wondered the same thing myself. If Ryan could show things graphically correct why not a CW film ? Maybe it's just a matter of budget and that most people don't have a clue anyway so why go to extremes to be precisely accurate when the audience wouldn't know the difference. I guess that's a long-winded way to say I don't know.

 

[Waterloo50]

Graphic description follows.


I think it's just nearly impossible to really convey what happened in those battles on the screen and a filmmaker would have to be absolutely ruthless (and have a real big budget) in trying to show it. People shot with .58 caliber bullets and artillery don't totter over. They get blown apart. It's not just smoke but a red mist and body parts in the air when a big volley or canister hits. Some guys are covered in parts of their slaughtered comrades or trailing their own guts. People get taken down by flying bone fragments. Who wants to watch that? I think we use movies to make war into something more palatable and even kind of 'fun' for many, like a sporting event. Notice that I feel compelled to warn about what is an accurate description of battle on a site dedicated to discussing the war.

War should offend. It's offensive.

I agree with you on the points you raised, especially regarding the slaughter, with modern CGI it is possible to show the reality of war but as you said yourself, 'Who wants to watch that', personally speaking I don't have an issue with it. Its not because I enjoy blood and gore, far from it, I just want to understand what these men went through. I remember watching the epic film Waterloo, I don't recall a scene with any blood in it. I guess a movie doesn't have to be graphic to be accurate.

Waterloo

 

[Jamieva]

All you have to ask yourself is to remember the reaction people had to the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan when it came out.

 

[M.Warren]

I have wondered the same thing myself. If Ryan could show things graphically correct why not a CW film ? Maybe it's just a matter of budget and that most people don't have a clue anyway so why go to extremes to be precisely accurate when the audience wouldn't know the difference. I guess that's a long-winded way to say I don't know.

There were more men killed in 32 hours at Chickamauga than in 32 days at Iwo Jima. The cost would be vast and to be quite honest, I don't know that I'd want to see it. Its hard to grasp the scale of death in the ACW but there are some colorized battlefield pictures out there that show the fields of bloody mud that were left. Large caliber, low velocity projectiles paired with rows of 10's of Thousands of soldiers, made one heck of a mess. Modern pics are one thing but I'm not sure they can even start to come close to scenes of the ACW. It would take a modern wars worth of casualties to make up One battles worth from the ACW. If they did make a more accurate film my guess would be lots of vomit being cleaned up in theaters and a huge loss in revenue from the amount of people that would walk out. I don't think people could "handle the truth" to be honest. I'd avoid seeing it just because I don't want those pictures in my head. There are enough in there already I'd be glad to be rid of.

 

[Waterloo50]

All you have to ask yourself is to remember the reaction people had to the first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan when it came out.

That's a very good point. I had the same reaction as everyone else to the opening scene, the bit that I have never been able to watch without closing my eyes, is the bayonet scene in the bedroom, that scene above all else, makes my blood run cold, the movie achieved what it set out to do and that was to show the grim reality of war. I think that scenes like that should be there for us to see, as we all know the ACW was brutal and bloody, if ACW films contained scenes of warfare that deliberately set out to have a psychological impact on the audience, then as horrible and uncomfortable as it is, the audience would possibly get a better understanding of what these men had to endure.

Waterloo

 

[AUG]

Its a good scene, but its lacking in number of extras or battlefield smoke. In reality, with roughly 250 - 350 people per regiment, there would be A LOT more people than that and, as many accounts mention, the black powder smoke choked up the field to point where men couldn't see 10 feet away. Of course there's gore and other things, but Wicked Spring is a low-budget film after all, not Saving Private Ryan.

And, of course, every movie is just that, a movie. Even if it is Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Fury, etc. I find it hard to watch any war movie, or historical film for that matter, without the nagging thought in the back of my head that its just someone's imagination of what the real thing looked like, based on the research they have done plus added hollywood drama.

 

[Waterloo50]

Its a good scene, but its lacking in number of extras or battlefield smoke. In reality, with roughly 250 - 350 people per regiment, there would be A LOT more people than that and, as many accounts mention, the black powder smoke choked up the field to point where men couldn't see 10 feet away. Of course there's gore and other things, but Wicked Spring is a low-budget film after all, not Saving Private Ryan.

And, of course, every movie is just that, a movie. Even if it is Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Fury, etc. I find it hard to watch any war movie, or historical film for that matter, without the nagging thought in the back of my head that its just someone's imagination of what the real thing looked like, based on the research they have done plus added hollywood drama.

One of the more subtle things always missing are the black powder stained lips and teeth.

 

[Henry Whitworth]

I agree with you on the points you raised, especially regarding the slaughter, with modern CGI it is possible to show the reality of war but as you said yourself, 'Who wants to watch that', personally speaking I don't have an issue with it. Its not because I enjoy blood and gore, far from it, I just want to understand what these men went through. I remember watching the epic film Waterloo, I don't recall a scene with any blood in it. I guess a movie doesn't have to be graphic to be accurate.

Waterloo

It's out of respect for what they went through that I've come to dislike most war movies. I find the lack of offensiveness in most of these movies to be offensive. These things are very relative, of course, to what people are used to seeing and what triggers our imagination. No movie no matter how overtly graphic can really put someone in a battle. It's just a matter of how much the work hits home for different people. Remember that Matthew Brady's photographs shocked the public when they were shown and were said to send some people reeling. I think that we're desensitized from our entertainments to the point where getting a modern audience to react in anything like a realistic way with a war movie is going to be tough. It should make people sweat and cry and send some of them out of the theater. There should be stragglers in the lobby who just can't take it. Instead war is categorized as "action" and it feeds a fantasy on a level that people can accept and even enjoy. Right here we talk about "where would you like to have been in the Battle of Gettysburg," as though we all missed out on a big party or something. It's all askew in my view.

 

[AUG]

There were more men killed in 32 hours at Chickamauga than in 32 days at Iwo Jima.

Sorry for the nitpick Warren, but actually there were more men killed on Iwo Jima than at Chickamauga. IIRC, there were near 4,000 men KIA at Chickamauga. At Iwo Jima there were over 6,000 Marines and Navy Corpsmen killed and nearly the entire Japanese garrison (about 22,000) fought to the death. But in terms of men hit, there were probably more men killed and wounded at Chickamauga within 24 hours than 24 hours at Iwo Jima.

 

[M.Warren]

Sorry for the nitpick Warren, but actually there were more men killed on Iwo Jima than at Chickamauga. IIRC, there were near 4,000 men KIA at Chickamauga. At Iwo Jima there were over 6,500 Marines killed and nearly the entire Japanese garrison (about 22,000) fought to the death. But in terms of men hit, there were probably more men killed and wounded at Chickamauga within 24 hours than at Iwo Jima.

I stand corrected. No need to be sorry. The point is still the same. The numbers were huge compared to what people try to make realistic from modern war movies. I knew the numbers were close and compared often. I should have double checked my stats. Thanks for the correction actually.

 

[Waterloo50]

It's out of respect for what they went through that I've come to dislike most war movies. I find the lack of offensiveness in most of these movies to be offensive. These things are very relative, of course, to what people are used to seeing and what triggers our imagination. No movie no matter how overtly graphic can really put someone in a battle. It's just a matter of how much the work hits home for different people. Remember that Matthew Brady's photographs shocked the public when they were shown and were said to send some people reeling. I think that we're desensitized from out entertainments to the point where getting an audience to react in anything like a realistic way with a war movie is going to be tough. It should make people sweat and cry and send some of them out of the theater. There should be stragglers in the lobby who just can't take it. Instead war is categorized as "action" and it feeds a fantasy on a level that people can accept and even enjoy. Right here we talk about "where would you like to have been in the Battle of Gettysburg," as though we all missed out on a big party or something. It's all askew in my view.

I guess it really comes down to our own individual reasons for the interest that we have developed in the subject of the ACW. I know that there are a high percentage of members on the forum that had a relative or relatives involved in the ACW, if you ask most of them, and this is only a guess, I would suspect that many of them want to understand what their relatives had to endure, its a way of connecting with them. I don't think that I had any relatives involved in the ACW, all mine were involved in the Battle of Waterloo. I study the Napoleonic war in detail but its the ACW that seems to give some of the best accounts of battle. In my own round about way, I am trying to understand what it feels like to be in a situation where your very existence is hangs on a thread. That is why I search for the most realistic view/description of battle's that I can find.

Regards

Waterloo

 

[bdtex]

Graphic description follows.


I think it's just nearly impossible to really convey what happened in those battles on the screen and a filmmaker would have to be absolutely ruthless (and have a real big budget) in trying to show it. People shot with .58 caliber bullets and artillery don't totter over. They get blown apart. It's not just smoke but a red mist and body parts in the air when a big volley or canister hits. Some guys are covered in parts of their slaughtered comrades or trailing their own guts. People get taken down by flying bone fragments. Who wants to watch that? I think we use movies to make war into something more palatable and even kind of 'fun' for many, like a sporting event. Notice that I feel compelled to warn about what is an accurate description of battle on a site dedicated to discussing the war.

War should offend. It's offensive.

I recall one or 2 scenes in some Civil War movies like that but certainly not enough of them to come close to the reality of CW combat.

 

[kevikens]

Would a Confederate soldier have called out "corpsman" when looking for medical help for his buddy?