On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
Ang Lee and writer James Schamus’s thesis for Ride with the Devil, suggests there was no right and wrong in the Civil War and that both sides were equally violent in their dealings with the other. While the movie is greatly esteemed by persons sympathetic with the Confederacy, viewers and movie critics were considerably less enthusiastic.
Movies profiled in this book:
“Sometimes the saddest work is not the nursing, but the lying,” Anita offered. “Telling men who won’t see tomorrow’s sunrise that they are fine is the work of the many mothers who cannot be here with their sons.”
“Or of the many wives who cannot be here with their husbands,” Cristina said.
“Or of the poets,” Margaret added.
Anita nodded, “Sadly, there is poetry in telling lies.”
“Yes, but shall the angels ever forgive us these lies?” Cristina wondered.
Andersonville tells the story of Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville Prison. Not surprisingly, few Civil War movies explore the prisoner of war experience, probably because the topic is so unremittingly unpleasant. Set in 1864, the film is grimly unpitying and while it contains historical inaccuracies, it gets closer to Civil War prison camp realities than any film before or after.
Movies profiled in this book:
Loyalties among the citizens changed hands daily based on each victory and each loss. Those who favored Mazzini’s push for diplomacy and negotiation with Napoleon one day would support Giuseppe’s push for hard fighting the next.
Realizing the location would be as much a character as any person, Turner negotiated for some of the scenes to be filmed on the actual Gettysburg battlefield itself, an unprecedented National Park Service allowance, though strict federal regulations ruled out any scenes showing opposing fire or combat. In this way, Turner can be compared to David O. Selznick in terms of the way he too obsessed over every detail of the production in ways producers do not always do.
Movies profiled in this book:
Giuseppe countered, “They do not yet think us an equal and separate foreign country. They believe us to be a rogue section of their own country, quite the way the English viewed the Americans during their revolution. We have to strike while they are weak. Before they regroup.”
Many historians and critics consider Glory the best American Civil War movie ever made. The film shatters the great taboo of Civil War movies—making race and slavery central to the story and using black characters to do so (Chadwick 2001).
Movies profiled in this book:
Mazzini said. “But we both know the army coming against you is triple the number you command. I do not wish to send men to their deaths.”
“Nor do I,” Giuseppe said. “That’s why we are a volunteer army. Fighting for the love of Italy. Any man who chooses, may leave, and yet few ever do.”
“Even though so many came with you from across the ocean?” Mazzini mused.
“The love of freedom has no borders,” Giuseppe said. “Nor should the Italian people any longer.”
In the decades before World War II, Civil War films were largely set in the Eastern theater, but as the center for movie making shifted west to California and studios built permanent western sets (so as to make a great number of inexpensive western films), filmmakers began combining the two film genres. The innovation not only expanded the kind of movie stories that could be told, but allowed filmmakers to avoid the contentious issue of slavery.
Movies profiled in this book:
Giuseppe’s words were magnified by the arrival of Mazzini from France, ready to raise the needed support to defend the nation. “There are not five Italys, or four Italys, or three. There is only one Italy and the destiny of Rome and the destiny of Italy are the destiny of the world.”