Gods and general review
...ish soldiers of the north and south. I also wish we knew more about the ordinary men that were fighting on the battlefields and not just the generals. They did show 2 men and a small amount of background history was told about them but that seemed to be just for comic relief and not historical purposes. The movie had one two many sences of the Generals in the living room listening to a horrible piano player, having conversations about lemonade. Not only was the story told from the point of view of the general’s but from the eyes of one general, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. At times I thought that instead of the movie being called ‘Gods and Generals’ it should have been called ‘The Life and Romance of Stonewall Jackson’. Another downfall was the storytelling was that it was from the point of view of the south, which would have been fine if it were done from an unbiased point of view. Everything the south did was glorified and the north was seen as dumb and unprepared. Too many issues that should have been dealt with, such as slavery and how Robert E. Lee obtained his reputation, along with why these men joined the army. Too many things left unresolved in the movie, which had me going home knowing less about the civil war then what I came in with. The melodrama was another problem the movie had that left me feeling uneasy. It is bad enough that there is no background information leading into a battle, but it is horrible that you have to listen to a long soliloquy with statements like “hale Caesar” with a lot of references to the bible. Nothing in the movie was said without it being drawn out with 15th century English vocabulary making me feel like I was watching Hamlet instead of a civil war movie. Instead of the characters speaking directly with each other using realistic communication skills such as eye to eye contact, they looked outward as people usually do when they are in a play with a spotlight. Everyone looked emotionless, including the extras, there was a sence where the battle had reached a town, and you see people running but not people who are upset. The emotion level ran from people who were overl...