Gods and Generals

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''For the video game, see Gods and Generals (video game)

Gods and Generals is the prequel to Michael Shaara's 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels (filmed as Gettysburg). Written by Jeffrey Shaara after his father Michael's death in 1988, the novel relates events from 1858 through the start of the American Civil War, ending just as the two armies march toward Gettysburg.

Following his father's style of focusing on the most important officers of the two armies (General Robert E. Lee, General Winfield Scott Hancock, General Stonewall Jackson, and Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain) Shaara wrote a war epic, detailing troop movements and strategies, combat situations, and the emotional turmoil of soldiers fighting old friends. General Hancock, for instance, spends much of the novel dreading the day he will have to fire on his friend in the Confederate Army, "Lo" Armistead. The novel also deals with General Lee's disillusionment with the Confederate bureaucracy and General Jackson's religious fervor.

Contents

1 Film

1.1 Criticism
1.2 Cast

2 Quotes
3 Trivia
4 See also
5 Notes
6 External links

Film

Gods and Generals is also a movie based on the novel, released on Friday, February 21, 2003, starring Jeff Daniels as Chamberlain and Robert Duvall as Lee.

The film was directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, who had previously adapted Gettysburg in 1993. After the box office failure of Gettysburg, Maxwell was unable to get the prequel greenlit until media mogul Ted Turner provided the entire $60 million budget.

The film prominently features the Battles of First Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. A lengthy scene depicting the Battle of Antietam was also shot, but cut from the theatrical release.

Criticism

The film was a critical and box office failure. It was criticized for its slow pace and awkward screenwriting; in particular, critics disliked the way the characters tend to deliver highly rhetorical speeches at each other instead of speaking conversationally.[Film review] by Roger Ebert

Civil War historians and aficionados also criticized the film's radical departures from the novel, a significant change from the film Gettysburg, which remained exceptionally true to its novel. These differences include the omission of Winfield Hancock as a major character; the deletion of Stonewall Jackson's less savory characteristics and eccentricities; the introduction of scenes and characters not in the original novel (primarily during the battle and destruction of Fredericksburg); and the complete expulsion of the actions of Darius N. Couch, John F. Reynolds, and George G. Meade, which led to the successful preservation of the Army of the Potomac after the defeat at Chancellorsville.

In addition, the first third of the book that deals primarily with the events leading up to the Civil War and gave important background information of the characters was also entirely deleted, particularly the unrest in Southern California, which was put down peaceably by Hancock and Armistead; John Brown's seizure of Harpers Ferry and the recapture of the arsenal by marines led by Lee and Stuart; the final farewell in California between Hancock and Armistead discussed in Gettysburg; Texas Governor Sam Houston's refusal to support secession; Lee's contempt for David E. Twiggs's surrender of the Department of Texas to the rebels as well as Lee's refusal of Winfield Scott's offer to command the federal forces organized to put down the rebellion. Similarly, critics claimed the film skirted the issue of slavery by having several Southern generals, particularly Stonewall Jackson, give ahistorical anti-slavery speeches.[Film review] in the Village Voice. (The real Jackson had ambiguous views on slavery. He believed that slavery had been imposed by God and therefore did not oppose it openly. His family also owned six slaves. However, the slaves of Lexington, Virginia, generally held Jackson in high esteem for his kind treatment and his flouting of Virginia laws to teach African Americans to read in Sunday school classes. The widely criticized scene in which a slave expresses enthusiasm for working for Jackson as a cook has some historic basis—two of his real slaves, Albert and Amy, requested that Jackson purchase them in the 1850s because of the treatment they expected from him.)

Cast

Robert Duvall as Robert E. Lee

Robert Duvall as Robert E. Lee (replacing Martin Sheen in Gettysburg)
Jeff Daniels as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Stephen Lang as Stonewall Jackson
Bruce Boxleitner as James Longstreet (replacing Tom Berenger)
C. Thomas Howell as Thomas Chamberlain
Kevin Conway as Sergeant "Buster" Kilrain, the only fictional major character
Joseph Fuqua as J.E.B. Stuart
Brian Mallon as Winfield Scott Hancock
Alex Hyde-White as Ambrose E. Burnside
William Sanderson as A.P. Hill (replacing Patrick Falci)

Quotes

General Lee: "The rest is in God's hands."

Stonewall Jackson: "In the Army of the Shenandoah, you were the First Brigade! In the Army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade! In the Second Corps of this Army, you are the First Brigade! You are the First Brigade in the affections of your general, and I hope by your future deeds and bearing you will be handed down the posterity as the First Brigade in this our Second War of Independence. God Speed!"

General Lee: "It is well that war is so horrible. For we should grow too fond of it."

Trivia

Ted Turner has a cameo in the movie as Colonel Waller T. Patton. Colonel Patton, the great uncle of George S. Patton, was mortally wounded at Gettysburg, a scene depicted in the movie Gettysburg.

Some scenes in the movie were filmed at Robert Duvall's estate in Virginia. The estate was the scene of several skirmishes in the Civil War.

Most of the extras were Civil War reenactors, who provided their own equipment and worked without pay. In exchange, Ted Turner agreed to donate $500,000 to Civil War battlefield preservation.

Russell Crowe was the original choice to play Stonewall Jackson. He had begun reading and practicing for the role until his wife went into labor back in Australia, forcing him to drop out. Stephen Lang had begun to reprise his role as George Pickett, but instead was asked to fill in the role of Jackson.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Robert Duvall is related to Robert E. Lee.[link]

Notes

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External links

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