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Gods and Generals— Extended Director’s Cut

Warner Home Video 280 minutes, 2011, $29.95

When Gods and Generals hit theaters in 2003, many Civil War enthusiasts were  optimistic it would be a worthy follow-up to the 1993 epic film Gettysburg. The 219-minute feature, based on Jeff Shaara’s 1998 best-selling novel, left most disappointed. Included in that group was the film’s writer-director, Ronald F. Maxwell, who had dedicated considerable energy and much of his soul over several years to get the project to the screen. In hindsight, Maxwell realized what was released wasn’t the film he had set out to create; compromises made to satisfy the fluctuating motion picture market ultimately hindered his vision. In late 2010, with the blessing of executive producer Ted Turner and the support of Warner Home Video, Maxwell re-edited and re-mastered the film. He is pleased with the result: Gods and Generals— Extended Director’s Cut, released on Blu-ray last summer.

In his novel, Shaara—replicating some of his father Michael Shaara’s magic with The Killer Angels— absorbs his readers in the lives and ruminations of four prominent Civil War generals: Robert E. Lee, Winfield Scott Hancock, Joshua Chamberlain and Stonewall Jackson. Although that convention worked well in Gettysburg, not so with Gods and Generals.

Whereas Gettysburg centers around one battle, trying to follow the protagonists over a four- or five-year period and learn what shaped their abilities and attitudes as leaders was difficult to present cinematically. The new version better demonstrates how these characters are shaped against the backdrop of battles and wartime events. Maxwell designed Gods and Generals to be an epic Civil War drama, but acknowledges that in working with such a familiar and emotional part of American history the danger is to do too little, or too much the wrong way. Gods and Generals has always walked a tightrope in that regard.

Although it remains primarily Jackson’s story, new and expanded scenes give more meat to the characterizations of Lee, Hancock and especially Chamberlain. This version is chaptered into periods based on significant events. Characters surrounding the leads have more interaction with them and each other, and there is one new character: John Wilkes Booth. Gods and Generals—Extended Director’s Cut still carries some of the problems of the original film. The depiction of Hancock is wholly unsatisfying. Too much time is spent in justifying and glorifying the Southern cause. If the Confederate leaders were indeed all gentlemen and the Federals all buffoons, the Union side would not have even made it to Chancellorsville. Still, anyone who enjoys epic historical drama will do well to see this new version.

 

Originally published in the January 2012 issue of America’s Civil War. To subscribe, click here.