CS Weekly Archive > The Big Picture > 02/02/07

The Seven Best Civil War Movies

By jason davis

In honor of Glory's re-release on DVD, CS Weekly pits the Blue against the Gray in the seven best Civil War films of all time.

The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened fire on the Federal soldiers at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The state had seceded from the Union over four months before and deemed the fort to be the property of South Carolina. Spurred on by the South's intractable stance on state's rights and further complicated by a newly elected Republican president desperate to staunch the practice of black slavery, the war raged on for five years, claiming over 618,000 lives before the Confederate States surrendered. With its overarching themes of brother against brother, as well as the emotional issue of slavery at its heart, the War Between the States remains a constant favorite of filmmakers, as evidenced in the seven movies below.

The General (1927)
Written by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman (both directed)
Adapted by Al Boasberg & Charles Smith from William Pittenger's The Great Locomotive Chase
Though hardly a laughing matter, war has inspired a multitude of comic films, but few earlier than Buster Keaton's masterpiece, The General. Based on actual events, the silent classic finds locomotive engineer Johnny Gray (Keaton) rejected by the Confederate Army and, by default, the beautiful Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack). Accidentally stumbling on a Union plan to sabotage the railroads of Georgia and Tennessee, Gray pursues (and is pursued by) the Yankees in an elaborate chase that puts Keaton's penchant for life-threatening stunts to the test as the two trains race down the tracks with bullets flying, cannons blazing, and death around every bend. Culminating in the single most expensive shot in movie history at the time, The General jettisons the more intellectual concerns of the era in favor of delivering astonishing action and breath-taking spectacles—and it does it a mere 62 years after the war ended.

Gettysburg (1993)
Screenplay by Ronald F. Maxwell (also directed)
Based on the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
If there's a polar opposite to The General, look no further than writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell's adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Killer Angels to find it. Told from the perspective of several Generals (and one Colonel) on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, Gettysburg dwells on terrible fact that virtually everyone engaged in the hostilities had a friend or relative on the opposing side. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the elite ranks of generals orchestrating the action. Set in the days leading up to, and including, the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg, where the Confederacy forever buried its chances of success, the action centers on General Robert E. Lee's (Martin Sheen) desire to take the war to the North, against the advice of his most trusted colleague, General James Longstreet (Tom Berenger). The film derives much of its power from the audience's foreknowledge of history and the inherent dramatic irony of each event leading to Lee's defeat.

Glory (1989)
Screenplay by Kevin Jarre
Based on the books Lay this Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard and the letters of Robert Gould Shaw
On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers heroically stormed Fort Wagner and were virtually annihilated in the process. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a Boston Abolitionist, led the regiment, a unit entirely comprised of African Americans. Drawing on Shaw's own letters, screenwriter Kevin Jarre dramatized the colonel's (Matthew Broderick) struggle to get his men on the field of battle where they could prove their courage and demonstrate the black man's right to fight for the freedom of his race. Despite petty politicians who see his charges as gimmicks for their cause and corrupt Union generals who see black soldiers as a tool of terror to deploy against their Southern foes, Shaw's mission prevails. His unit, comprised (in the film) of as many former slaves as free men comes together despite varied backgrounds to prove their commanding officer's faith well founded. Not so much the story of their defining battle, Glory chronicles the events that shaped the unit and its colonel and shows how the idea of African American soldiers became the fact of courageous men willing to fight for the rights of their brothers.

Gone With the Wind (1939)
Screenplay by Sidney Howard
Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell
As the abolition of slavery provided a noble cause for the Union, the defense of Southern culture was the bone of contention in the South, and the heart of Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic. Centering on Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh), the spoiled daughter of a Georgia planter, the Academy Award- winning Best Picture follows the young woman from the outbreak of war, through General Sherman's burning of Atlanta, and on through the desolate years of reconstruction as she grows from a dreaming girl to a woman dedicated to the survival of her family and way of life despite unimaginable odds. Accounting for inflation, the film still holds the box office record for highest grossing film, and the central romance between Scarlett and scoundrel Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) has formed a cinematic template for antagonistic lovers in stories as diverse as The Empire Strikes Back, Smokey and the Bandit, and Army of Darkness. Boasting the AFI's most memorable line in movie history—"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."—the movie remains a high-water mark in the history of cinema, mirroring the success of its literary source, still among the best-selling novels of all time.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) (1966)
Screenplay by Age & Scarpelli & Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Leone (the last directed)
Story by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Leone
Set against the disastrous New Mexico campaign of Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley, filmmaker Sergio Leone's third Spaghetti Western finds its title characters in pursuit of a fortune buried in a graveyard. While "Blondie" (Clint Eastwood) knows the name on the grave where the loot is buried, his sometimes partner Tuco (Eli Wallach) and adversary Sentenza (Lee Van Cleef) know the location of the cemetery. The ensuing race to reach the gold, with all its intrinsic alliances and betrayals, is a marvel of visual storytelling, with only Tuco offering much in the way of dialogue and composer Ennio Morricone's score providing the soundscape. Unlike classical American Westerns with their white and black hats, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly dwells in the gray (pardon the pun) areas that defy moral absolutes. Title aside, no one is entirely good or bad (and ugly comes down to personal aesthetics), and the characters create an interesting metaphor for the war raging behind them as they pursue their goal, using and abusing each other as necessary as a means to an end.

The Red Badge of Courage (1951)
Screenplay by John Huston (also directed)
Adaptation by Albert Brand
Based on the novel by Stephen Crane
Based on Stephen Crane's 1895 novel about a young man, Henry Fleming (Audie Murphy), who flees from the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 and laments his cowardice, writer-director John Huston's 1951 film is a an elegant, if spartan, re-telling of the tale. Lifting huge swaths of the story's text as the basis of Fleming's internal monologue on his own hopes and fears, the film creates an honest psychology for its protagonist who both fears the horror of battle and his own cowardice. Casting World War II's most decorated soldier (Murphy) as the frightened young man adds a degree of verisimilitude no writing can ever hope to achieve on its own, and the young soldier's battle with himself takes center stage away from the Civil War to create a solo debate on the evils of war itself.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (La Rivière du hibou) (1962)
Screenplay by Robert Enrico (also directed)
Based on the short story by Ambrose Bierce
The quintessential example of an unreliable narrator, Ambrose Bierce's unforgettable short story became the source of a short film by Robert Enrico. The 28-minute feature details the hanging of Confederate saboteur Peyton Farquhar (Roger Jacquet) and his subsequent "escape" from certain death when the rope snaps. The story's final revelation remains as powerful today as when Bierce composed the short story, and the added visual impact of Enrico's images sells the conceit even better than prose. Bereft of dialogue, save for the shouts of soldiers as Farquhar swims away from his fate, the picture went on to win the Academy Award and had its U.S. debut as a fifth-season installment of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. Perhaps as compelling as the story itself is the fate of Bierce, who set off on a tour of Civil War battlefields in 1913 and vanished without a trace after crossing into Mexico.

Though excluded by the parameters of this article, it would be a war crime not to mention two TV mini-series that employed that now-nearly-extinct format to bring the war to the small screen. The Blue and the Grey captures the conflict from the perspective of a young war correspondent, while the three-part epic North and South, based on novelist John Jakes' trilogy of books, spans decades on either side of the war in the company of two intertwined families from both sides of the line.

Jason Davis is the DVD Manager for CS Weekly , a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and has written for Cinescape.com, MSN.com, and created the TV series Studio 13, which ran on Lorne Michaels' Burly TV network. He lives in the small space left over by his ever-expanding library of books, movies, and music.

The General courtesy Image Entertainment
Gone With the Wind courtesy Warner Home Video
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly courtesy MGM Home Entertainment

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