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After the heart-rending nobility of Abraham Lincoln’s verbal tribute to Gettysburg’s fallen, there is not much else that could do those men justice.
Yet Gettysburg does so.
This 1993 film, second in a civil war trilogy that begins with Gods and Generals and concludes with Last Full Measure is worlds beyond its predecessor in cinematographic and dramatic prowess. To put it as succinctly as possible, this is a profoundly moving four hours of personalized history.
A film like this helps us to recall that we are not yet one hundred fifty years from southeastern Pennyslvania’s momentary appearance as a killing field. In America’s most costly war, this was its linchpin battle.
Tom Berenger and Martin Sheen turn in understated and powerful renderings of Confederate generals. Sheen’s Robert E. Lee carries a mountain’s weight of burden on his grieving shoulders even as he makes the decisions that will send still more Virginia gentlemen and Texas cowboys to their deaths. Jeff Daniels far outshines his earlier representation of Maine’s Coronel Chamberlain, the six-times wounded college professor who would finish his working life as the president of Bowdoin College.
The panoramic battle scenes provided legions of Civil War reenactors with their glorious opportunity, one that – with the exception of a handful of volunteers who couldn’t help grinning while they were being shot down – seized the day with remarkable poignance.
This one is for seeing again and again, remembering, and bowing one’s head against the awful fact that nations are too often born in blood.
Canter Bridge 
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