I cannot begin to describe how much I appreciated the way Gettysburg portrayed its titular battle. Gettysburg is very long and there is no intermission breaking it up, but I'd be lying if it wasn't an incredibly immersive and genuinely impressive film.
A lot of war films since Saving Private Ryan rely a lot about depicting battles in the most gruesome- albeit realistic- way possible, but this film came before that became the thing to do. Gettysburg, instead, relies and utilizing professional Civil War reenactors to play the role of the soldiers and using real equipment and authentic gear on the actual location of the battle.
This has to be the most comprehensive depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg possible, as the scale of the various battlegrounds and the forces that met there are easy to see and understand. One of the best parts of this film are the long periods of time spent outside of the skirmishes. This is probably why Gettysburg gets so many complaints for its length, but I think that's part of the genius of it. It was a serving Civil War soldier who wrote that "fighting for his country" consisted of weeks of sitting around and not doing much of anything, punctuated by short bursts of violence and terror. The Battle of Gettysburg was a 3 day affair, but it wasn't 72 hours of continuous brawling. A lot of that time, and probably most of it, was spent moving regiments around and camping out, either preparing to do something or waiting for something to happen. The fact of the matter is that, the scenes that many- especially modern moviegoers- would call boring are what the majority of war, especially these types of slow moving pre-modern wars, were like. It's that particular accuracy of capturing that long period of inactivity and anticipation that I liked the most about this film. I felt like I was one of the soldiers under Chamberlain, wondering if we're really going to stick here and defend to the last man, or being a Confederate soldier and wondering if a charge really is going to be ordered while watching the generals talk among each other.
I cannot compliment this film enough. On a technical level, the fact that so much of this film is live, without the aide of computer generated effects or any of the sort is amazing. Sure, it looks a bit dated, and it seems that some of the same footage is recycled a few times, but I can't complain when so much was done to recreate a battle of this scale with such accuracy. This is a really great film and I would recommend it to anyone who likes history and isn't phased by its exceptionally long run time.
A lot of war films since Saving Private Ryan rely a lot about depicting battles in the most gruesome- albeit realistic- way possible, but this film came before that became the thing to do. Gettysburg, instead, relies and utilizing professional Civil War reenactors to play the role of the soldiers and using real equipment and authentic gear on the actual location of the battle.
This has to be the most comprehensive depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg possible, as the scale of the various battlegrounds and the forces that met there are easy to see and understand. One of the best parts of this film are the long periods of time spent outside of the skirmishes. This is probably why Gettysburg gets so many complaints for its length, but I think that's part of the genius of it. It was a serving Civil War soldier who wrote that "fighting for his country" consisted of weeks of sitting around and not doing much of anything, punctuated by short bursts of violence and terror. The Battle of Gettysburg was a 3 day affair, but it wasn't 72 hours of continuous brawling. A lot of that time, and probably most of it, was spent moving regiments around and camping out, either preparing to do something or waiting for something to happen. The fact of the matter is that, the scenes that many- especially modern moviegoers- would call boring are what the majority of war, especially these types of slow moving pre-modern wars, were like. It's that particular accuracy of capturing that long period of inactivity and anticipation that I liked the most about this film. I felt like I was one of the soldiers under Chamberlain, wondering if we're really going to stick here and defend to the last man, or being a Confederate soldier and wondering if a charge really is going to be ordered while watching the generals talk among each other.
I cannot compliment this film enough. On a technical level, the fact that so much of this film is live, without the aide of computer generated effects or any of the sort is amazing. Sure, it looks a bit dated, and it seems that some of the same footage is recycled a few times, but I can't complain when so much was done to recreate a battle of this scale with such accuracy. This is a really great film and I would recommend it to anyone who likes history and isn't phased by its exceptionally long run time.
