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Gods and Generals, the
screen adaptation of Jeff Shaara’s heralded best-selling novel and
prequel to the acclaimed drama Gettysburg, is
an epic and sweeping portrayal of a nation divided at the start of the War for Southern Independence. Beginning in early
l861 and continuing through l863, just prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, Gods and
Generals illuminates heroes
of the conflict and chronicles the tremendous
suffering and bravery on the battlefields as well as the home front. The
film vividly brings to life not only the War’s
legendary leaders, but also the legions of anonymous
soldiers and citizens who fought passionately and courageously for their
vision of freedom, in a war in which more Americans
lost their lives than in any other conflict in the nation’s history.
"Historians will always study the Civil War," declares Ron Maxwell, the film’s writer, director and producer. "It is our Iliad. It is American, yet universal, touching on themes that transcend time and place and nation, echoing from the American Civil War to the Civil War in Rome. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to bring Roman legions into Rome, violating Roman law, in the same way that Lincoln sent Federal troops across the Rappahannock, violating, in the view of the seceded states of the Confederacy, what they perceived as the voluntary pact of the Constitution and American law. So although the events of the film are particular and specific to American history, it has a resonance to other people and other times." "This is not simply a war movie," cautions associate producer Dennis Frye. "It’s a movie about people who are caught and trapped by war, whose lives are changed by war, and unfortunately, some of whom will die because of this war. When people see this film, ‘Stonewall’ Jackson no longer will be a name on a page in a book – he now becomes real. He becomes human. He’s no longer dust in the grave."
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Sure to be one of the more controversial films of 2003, Ronald F. Maxwell's Civil War epic "Gods and Generals" opens Feb. 21. This Ted Turner-financed war movie, an adaptation of Jeff Shaara's best-selling historical novel, is the bigger budget prequel to Maxwell's "Gettysburg" of 1993. The political climate has changed since then, however. It has never been more unfashionable to portray Confederate soldiers in a positive light, and the main protagonist of "Gods and Generals" is the Southern hero Stonewall Jackson. Already, some Republican commentators, smarting from the brouhaha over former Senate majority leader Trent Lott and hoping to pin the "Southern racist" label on a Democrat, have attacked Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., for playing a Confederate general in a cameo in "Gods and Generals." (Republican Sens. George Allen, of Virginia, and Phil Gramm, of Texas, however, also appeared briefly in Rebel uniforms, along with the politically idiosyncratic mogul Turner, who is stepping down as vice chairman of troubled AOL Time-Warner. Maxwell told UPI that such pundits should "grow up." "Gods and Generals" re-unites most of the cast of "Gettysburg," and features two Oscar-winning newcomers. Robert Duvall replaces Martin Sheen as the Southern commander Robert E. Lee, and Mira Sorvino joins as the wife of Lt. Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (played by Jeff Daniels), the Maine college professor who may have saved the Union on the first day at Gettysburg. Maxwell said, "'Gods and Generals' follows these Yankee and Confederate characters from the outbreak of hostilities in April 1861 through three major battles: The First Battle of Manassas (known in the North as 'Bull Run'), Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville in May of 1863." The new film focuses on Lee, Chamberlain, and, most of all, Jackson (who is portrayed stunningly by Stephen Lang).
Links of Educational interest: Driving Dixie Down http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/greenhut1.html Lincoln the Pyromaniac http://www.lewrockwell.com/jarvis/jarvis19.html A Jeffersonian View |
Some thoughts to ponder: If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; And the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they do now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains around the necks of our fellow sufferers; And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on 'til the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering... And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. ~Thomas Jefferson Test your knowledge of United States History Our beloved state of Virginia is often called "The Mother Presidents". Name the United States presidents who came from Virginia. (Think carefully, there have been 10)
Answer: Presidents of the United States in Congress Assembled
Presidents of the United States under Constitution of 1787 George Washington On July 2, 1776, the United colonies of America officially became the United States of America. By the time George Washington took the oath of office, fourteen presidents had preceeded him.
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