Gods & Generals |  | Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
Actors: Stephen Lang, Robert Duvall, Jeff Daniels, Mark Aldrich, George Allen
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
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Rating:  754 reviews
Sales Rank: 3688
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 219 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.6 x 0.5
MPN: D23413D
UPC: 085392341320
EAN: 0008539234132
ASIN: B00009OOFA
Theatrical Release Date: February 21, 2003
Release Date: July 15, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Dramatization of the rise and fall of civil war general, Stonewall Jackson.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 8-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
The more you know about the Civil War, the more you'll appreciate Gods and Generals and the painstaking attention to detail that Gettysburg writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell has invested in this academically respectable 220-minute historical pageant. In adapting Jeffrey Shaara's 1996 novel (encompassing events of 1861-63, specifically the Virginian battles of Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville), Maxwell sacrifices depth for scope while focusing on the devoutly religious "Stonewall" Jackson (Stephen Lang), whose Confederate campaigns endear him to Gen. Robert E. Lee (Robert Duvall, giving the film's most subtle performance). Battles are impeccably recreated using 7,500 Civil War re-enactors and sanitized PG-13 violence, their authenticity compromised by tasteful discretion and endless scenes of grandiloquent dialogue. Still, as the first part of a trilogy that ends with The Last Full Measure, this is a superbly crafted, instantly essential film for Civil War study. For all its misguided priorities, Gods and Generals is a noble effort, honoring faith and patriotism with the kind of reverence that has all but vanished from American film--but provides abundant proof that historical accuracy is no guarantee of great storytelling. --Jeff Shannon/
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 754
 Great History February 11, 2010
Joseph F. Jech (Illinois)
Excellent acting, great history but a little long.
Would have been great during high school while studying the civil war.
 God and Generals Review February 10, 2010
elliesamericana
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Riveting movie. Within just 10 minutes you were back in 1861 feeling it. I understand the movie has been criticized for giving sympathetic view to the Confederacy, but this actually translates to a simply more realistic view. The initial buildup of the Army showing Virginians of all walks leaving their homes to join up was the way it actually was. For those who want to see the Confederate Army as it really was at the beginning, in victory and full glory, this is the movie to see. Sadly, most modern works depict Confederate Soldiers as fat, lazy, uneducated, and racist. This was not the case, and this movie shows that.
A Prequel to "Gettysburg" with a Disjointed Narrative February 7, 2010
Mark J. Fowler (Okinawa, Japan)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Gods and Generals" boasts most of the same creative team that teamed to make the spell-binding "Gettysburg (Widescreen Edition)". Ronald Maxwell again directs, this time from the book by Jeff Shaara. Jeff is the son of Michael Shaara, who wrote "The Killer Angels", the Pulitzer-Prize winning book that served as the source for "Gettysburg".
Many familiar faces appear again in roles from the earlier film. Jeff Daniels and C. Thomas Howell and Kevin Conway again appear as Joshua and Thomas Chamberlain and the fictional Buster Kilrain. Daniels and Conway again team to produce a few of the best scenes of this film, both of them articulating in a way most characters are not allowed. There are significant cast changes. Martin Sheen was heavily involved in "The West Wing" and was unable to reprise General Robert E. Lee. Lee is portrayed this time by Sheen's colleague from "Apocalypse Now", Robert Duvall. Normally I would think that casting of Duvall would be an upgrade from almost any other available actor, but comparing the two versions of the legendary Commander of the Army of Virginia, I found Sheen's depiction elegant and serenely regal, with a temper that can be unleashed (as when Sheen's Lee tears into J.E.B. Stuart for not keeping his cavalry close as Gettysburg unfolds) and a human compassion perhaps best exemplified when the ragged rebel troops retreat from Pickett's disastrous charge and Lee rides out to tell the troops "it was my fault." Duvall's Lee is quirkier and seems oddly detached in comparison.
Tom Berenger is no longer on hand to portray General Longstreet. Early in "Gettysburg" you can sense the dutiful resignation as he unsuccessfully tries to persuade Robert E. Lee to force the Union Army into pursuit by moving toward Washington, then later you can feel his heartsickness as he knows Pickett's Charge is bound to fail and wordlessly waives his troops forward to the suicidal advance. Bruce Boxleitner's Longstreet is decidedly less three-dimensional.
The excellent Stephen Lang again is cast, but instead of playing the flamboyant Pickett, this time he has a leading role as General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
The film is huge in scope, covering two years from the secession of Virginia (which is preceded by the offer to Robert E. Lee to command the Federal Army) to Chancellorsville. As a historically accurate document it is selective: the single bloodiest battle of American history, Antietam, is not mentioned (although there are reports that it was cut from a six hour version of the movie. Curious that the full "director's cut" doesn't make it to the DVD - the audience that would sit through 4 hours of re-enactment would likely want the chance to have the "most accurate" version of the film.) But I digress.
Where Gettysburg focused on the soldiers, "G&G" gives us a handful of stilted subplots. We see the wives of Chamberlain and Jackson in scenes designed to show the tender, human sides of these men, but their dialogue doesn't ring true on modern ears. Since these scenes aren't based on historical record couldn't Maxwell and Shaara have given us more human dialogue instead of having these great men offering scripture and poetry quotations?
Amid the noble and heroic whites on both sides are two significant black characters - Frankie Faison plays Jim Lewis, a free black man with a reputation as a good cook who is hired by Stonewall Jackson. Donzaleigh Abernathy, the daughter of Civil Rights Activist Ralph Abernathy, plays Martha, a noble and loyal slave who stays at the manse in Fredericksburg to shoo away invading Union Troops when the rest of the family skedaddles. Later the house is occupied anyway and Martha nurses injured union soldiers and gives an impassioned plea for freedom to General Hancock. General Jackson is kind and respectful toward Mr. Lewis, and tells him that he's certain the south would also free the slaves, so it's going to happen on way or `tuther. Although Jackson and Robert E. Lee were reported to be against slavery, it would not be difficult to say that having these two characters be the only blacks in a movie of this scope and scale trivializes the fact that millions of blacks were enslaved, scant few were free, and hardly any were treated with the respect these characters receive. It's almost as if Maxwell wants to portray something 180 degrees from "Uncle Tom's Cabin", but if you didn't already know about slavery you wouldn't learn much from this film. I think the filmmakers wanted a movie that would stand almost as a historical document, but whether or not you agree that the Civil War was about slavery, you'd be naïve to not acknowledge that it was on the minds of all participants to some extent or `tuther.
For those who might wonder: I'm a white Son of the Glorious South. There are wonderful things in this film, but there are significant gaps as well.
Great Civil War movie January 22, 2010
James D. Wohlhueter
Great Civil War movie. Some things are wrong, very few. But a great movie. A movie you can learn from. A teaching movie.
Highly recommend!!!!!!
One of the greatest Civil War films ever made. December 31, 2009
Zeeboe (Texas)
Extremely detailed, and very historically accurate. Ted Turner spent top dollar to make "Gods and Generals" as real as possible, and he did an excellent job. If you want to know what life was like during the 1860's, this is the film to see. Even little details the average viewer may not even notice is included in the movie.
My ONLY complaints is that we did not get to see things from the Union point of view enough in my personal and humble opinion. i.e. How Northern Civilians reacted to the war, the men in blue preparing for it, etc. And not all southern's wanted to secede from the country. Quite a few did not actually, and I wish the story could have focused on that issue some.
The film does focus on Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Twentieth Maine for the most part when showing the audience the viewpoint of the Federal troops.
I think one of the reasons why many rebels believed it would be a short war is because they knew quite a lot of them were mountain and woodsmen. Real tough and rough guys who thought Unionists were stuck up, rich boys who wouldn't stand a chance against them, not at all realizing that many, many men up North were also gentlemen of nature too that hunted, had farms, and lived off the land. I believe that is the case with all the men in the Twentieth Maine.
Since I first saw the film "Gettysburg" when I was a kid, I have been fascinated with Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. I also became a huge Jeff Daniels fan as a result of his performance as Chamberlain, and I was happy to see him reunite with C. Thomas Howell and Kevin Conway in "Gods and Generals". I really loved that trio in "Gettysburg", and it was great seeing them together again.
I am very satisfied with the screen time the Twentieth Maine received in both films, but I think it's human nature for people to want more, and it would have been nice to see more screen time for the Twentieth Maine. But I still have books. I've already planned to read Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, The Last Full Measure, as well as The Twentieth Maine by John J. Pullen. So I'm sure I'll learn quite a bit more about Chamberlain and his men.
I know many of the U.S. troops at that time cared more about preserving the Union, which is fine and honorable, but I'm also glad Chamberlain was of the men who not only wanted to keep the country together, but also had a deep desire to end slavery.
I'm sure this film attracted many people who are sympathetic towards the Confederacy, but hopefully those people were open-minded enough to learn more about the Union side of things when Jeff Daniels was on screen, and had a better understanding of why some Union soldiers were fighting in the war.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 754
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