Gods and Generals
Roy Beck considers the historical and moral dimensions of the latest attempt to put Jackson, and the American Civil War itself, on the big screen.
Stonewall Jackson arrives on the screen with excellent credentials as a movie star. Consider his quirky religious piety and moral certitude on the side of the defenders of slavery, his reputation as a killing machine on the battlefield, his brilliant military tactics, his eccentric personality, harsh discipline, and death at the hands of his own men during his greatest victory.
All this – as well as spectacular, gut-wrenching combat – is captured in the movie Gods and Generals (released in the US this month by Warner Brothers), which follows the war in Virginia during the first two years leading up to the pivotal battle at Gettysburg in July 1863.
But director Ron Maxwell’s epic depicts Jackson not as a cardboard villain but as a tender figure through whom themes of love and devotion can be explored. Maxwell believes these may help us understand what could have motivated Americans to kill and be killed in such massive numbers in the bloodiest of fashions.
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