Since we’ve got one about Vietnam movies. I don’t feel like posting a poll, partly because I don’t want to get hung up on whether, for instance, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is really a CW film; likewise, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Just name whatever you like and say why.
For me, I can’t say anything other than Gettysburg. From first shot to last, it’s a visual masterpiece, and the Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point of the war, so it’s most worth focusing on. I have to give some props to Andersonville and Glory, though. And Gods and Generals fell just a teeny bit short of the mark (then again, it’s mark was Gettysburg). And it’s true but you may not believe it: I’ve never seen GWTW all the way through.
While I think **Glory **is also an excellent movie, I have to agree with the OP about Gettysburg, if only because it’s such a faithful adaptation of such an incredible book.
As much as I like Gettysburg, I still think Gone With the Wind has to take the title for “greatest Civil war movie”. It depicts an awful lot about attitudes toward vthe war and how it affected the lives of several people. I’m still awed by how uncharacteristically downbeat and accurate the film was. In an era when Frankenstein was extensively rewritten to avoid offending the audience (and they still redid the ending after filming, to make it a Happy Ending, and then still went further and covered up the possibly offensive “Now i know what it feels like to be God” with a fortuitous thunder crash), Gone With The Wind gave us a heaping helping of The Late Unpleasantness, complete with devastation and destruction. They avoided the Happy Ending and even gave us the "Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn"They gave us a hospital full of suffering and dying men and amputations, and even though it was suggested more than depicted graphically (as it would be today), it was no less intense for all that, and uncharacteristically true to life for a Hollywood depiction in 1939.
It’s true that, as has been argued, its depictions of its black characters is a white fantasy (stereotypical black mammies, Topsy-like pickaninnies, blacks who stayed with their masters rather than running away during or after the war), but these are not only as depicted in the book, it’s what you’d expect of a tale told from the point of view of a white plantation lady (as Scarlett O’Hara was).
While I agree The General is the best silent comedy about the Civil War, Hands Up!, starring the criminally overlooked Raymond Griffith (in top hat and tails, even when in a coal mine), is a clear second choice.
As for the greatest, I’d probably give Glory the edge over Gettysburg.
I have to give props to Gone With the Wind also. Of course, it’s a homefront movie, so it’s kind of hard to compare it to a battle movie, but I like it a lot better than all of those.
I think The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is as much a Civil War movie as Gone With the Wind is, and it’s a damned smart one.
I’m surprised GWTW hasn’t dominated this thread. It’s certainly far more revealing of American perception of the war than the others. Honorable mention for The Beguiled, Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut.
While I loved Gettysburg, it had a whole lot of speechifying which sort of brought the movie to a halt in many places, especially towards the end. And some of the glue on beards were just laughable, Longstreet’s being the worst.
No, I have to give the laurels to Glory, as I thought it to be the most realistically lifelike depiction. The dialog seemed much more natural.
For those of you who think Gone With the Wind’s portrayal of blacks is bad, you might try watching the Shirley Temple movie The Littlest Rebel. Holy crap! That is downright painful to watch!
Glory has it all over **Gettysburg, **which tried way to hard to be Worthy. GwtW, seriously? It’s a film set in the CW but that doesn’t make it a CW film.
