MOVIE REVIEW : Epic ‘Gettysburg’ Provides Evenhanded History Lesson

At a bit over four hours, “Gettysburg” (selected theaters) has a TV miniseries pacing and spaciousness. That’s not surprising, since it was originally planned as a miniseries--and will air in a six-hour version on Ted Turner’s TNT network next year.

Director-screenwriter Ronald F. Maxwell, adapting Michael Shaara’s 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Killer Angels,” keeps the action confined to the three climactic days in the summer of 1863 when 150,000 Northern and Confederate soldiers squared off in the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. He’s aiming for epic drama with intimate shadings.

As in Shaara’s book, most of the personages in the movie are officers, and this gives it a somewhat Olympian tone--except the dialogue is often stilted, as if Robert E. Lee and the others were already aware of their places in history. They carry on like Men of Destiny.

Maxwell introduces each of these men in heightened cameos that set off their personalities in a flash. On the Confederate side, Lee (Martin Sheen) is gracious and revered by his men; Lt. Gen. James Longstreet (Tom Berenger) is rough and ready, as defensive a tactician as Lee is offensive; Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead (Richard Jordan) is valiant and deep-souled--he fears for his friend Union Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock (Brian Mallon), against whom he will charge.

The North has its own legend-toned lineup, including Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels), who knows his Bible and his Shakespeare and defends Little Round Top against crushing odds; Brig. Gen. John Buford (Sam Elliott), whose knowledge of terrain is almost primeval--it is he who saves the high ground for the Union army, and Sgt. Buster Kilrain (Kevin Conway), a tough Irishman whose view of humanity is unremittingly bleak. (“There is no divine spark,” he says.)

Maxwell’s view of these men--these “killer angels”--is not so unremitting. He takes an evenhanded approach, carefully balancing out his scenes between North and South. The logistics of battle are lucidly sketched, and so are the various arguments for war on both sides. But very little truly objectionable material intrudes, which gives the film a placid sheen. Lee, for example, is quoted in Shaara’s book as saying that he does not believe “the Negro, in his present stage of development, can be considered the equal of the white man,” but this sort of stuff doesn’t make it into the movie. Lee is portrayed less as a racist than as a high-minded bungler of genius who tragically did not heed Longstreet’s warnings about Gettysburg.

The battles themselves, while they have panorama and authenticity, are rather mild in their depiction of violence. Maxwell goes in for long tracking shots and sprawling tableaux, but there’s not much kinetic spring in his war sequences. We feel we’re observing the battles rather than being right inside of them.

And yet the battles are the best part of “Gettysburg.” Whenever the action stops while the officers plot and wheedle and ruminate, the film sinks into animated waxworks. A few of the actors, notably Jeff Daniels and the late Richard Jordan, manage to inject some real feeling into all the historical posturing. They bring the human drama into intense focus, and we fear for them when the bullets and the cannonballs start flying.

Some of the other performances are undone by fake beards. Lee’s isn’t so bad, though it gives him a St. Nick look. But Tom Berenger is saddled with a thatch that makes him look like an Amish elder on a bad beard day.

After Ken Burns’ PBS series “Civil War,” and the shelves of books that have been written about the Battle of Gettysburg, this full-scale re-creation sometimes seems like a species of pageantry--the ultimate boys’ dress-up game, complete with uniforms and fake rifles. When the film is at its best, though, Maxwell makes us forget the fakery, and the enormity of what we’re witnessing sinks in. (It has the time to sink in.) “Gettysburg” (rated PG for language and battle scenes) isn’t a work of great feeling or depth but it lays out its story with a minimum of bluster, and that has its own integrity. It doesn’t close off your interest in the Civil War, or in warfare.

‘Gettysburg’

Tom Berenger: Lt. Gen. James Longstreet

Martin Sheen: Gen. Robert E. Lee

Richard Jordan: Lewis A. Armistead

Jeff Daniels: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

A New Line Cinema release of a Turner Pictures production. Director Ronald F. Maxwell. Producers Robert Katz, Moctesuma Esparza. Screenplay by Ronald F. Maxwell. Cinematographer Kees Van Oostrum. Editor Corky Ehlers. Costumes Michael T. Boyd. Music Randy Edelman. Production design Cary White. Art director Mike Sullivan. Running time: 4 hours, 8 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG (language and battle scenes).