The Civil War remains a Hollywood favourite

As far as Hollywood is concerned the American Civil War is still going on, with an average of one new movie every two years about the conflict between the north and south in 1861-5.

The most famous - and still among the best - is one of the very first, D.W. Griffiths' spectacular Birth of a Nation, which could well have been watched by people who remembered the war. Anyone who was a child when the war ended would have been in their sixties when Birth of a Nation was released in 1915. How would you feel seeing the terrible things that happened when you were a child graphically brought to life in the startling new technology of movies?

Historical fact almost always gives way to dramatic licence in civil war films, as in so many other movie sub-genres. The terrible events of the time simply become a vehicle for an adventure or a romance, or to make a political or social statement.

Yet the war continues to grip the public imagination in America, as witness just some of the movies that have been made about it.

Twelve years after Griffiths’ masterpiece, Buster Keaton starred in The General, a great film in its own right but pure fiction.

Louisa May Alcott’s famous book Little Women was first published in 1868, when the war was still very recent history. It has been turned into film at least four times, the first in 1933 starring Katherine Hepburn and Joan Bennett. This was a work of intense detail, striving to give an idea of what everyday life was like as the women of a family coped alone.

The all-time box office war winner has to be Gone With the Wind, the 1939 melodrama which makes up in romantic fiction what it lacks in historical realism.

Since then there have been at least 34 movies based on the civil war, some much better than others. That’s about one every two years, which speaks volumes for Hollywood’s continuing interest in the conflict.

Two of the most enduring were made in 1965 – Shenandoah and Major Dundee. But, again, neither is true to the events of the time. The closest movie to historical veracity is Gettysburg, released in 1993. It lasts a bum-numbing six hours, but if you want accuracy it’s a small price to pay. The battle lasted three days, so the movie could have been longer!

A personal favourite is Glory, the 1989 telling of the story of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first unit to be made up entirely of African-Americans, with white officers. It is much closer to the reality of the war than almost any other film. It is also gripping and intense, and rightly earned Denzel Washington an Oscar.

References
Only Good Movies, http://www.onlygoodmovies.com

Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com