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Favorite Films: Gettysburg (1993)

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Probably the Greatest Ever Movie Made for Television

Probably the Greatest Ever Movie Made for Television

Since reading the second volume of Shelby Foote’s magnificent The Civil War: A Narrative, I have decided to read some more histories during the heat of the summer. But first, I thought it was a good time to see the Turner movie of Gettysburg directed by Ronald F. Maxwell.

The film is a real labor of love, with excellent performances by Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee (he was too short for the role, but was most convincing), Tom Berenger as General James Longstreet, Sam Elliott as General John Buford, and Jeff Daniels as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. What is so remarkable is that so many of the minor roles were acted with so much passion that they stick in the mind even after twenty years. I am thinking particularly of Richard Jordan as General “Lo” Armistead; Patrick Gorman as General John Bell Hood; and Brian Mallon as General Winfield Scott Hancock.

The use of Civil War re-enactors on both sides made a big difference. This was literally a cast of thousands—thousands of enthusiastic volunteers who had their own uniforms and were accoutered with all the authentic accessories. The only disadvantage to using re-enactors is that so many of them are stout and in late middle age, but one can overlook that.

Also significant was that the script was based on Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels, which focussed on several key parts of the battle, namely the charge on Little Round Top and Pickett’s suicidal charge on the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. There were other actions that never quite make it to the forefront in histories, not to speak of this movie: I am thinking of Ewell’s assaults on Cemetery Hill (not to be confused with the Ridge) and Culp’s Hill. Without that focus, the battle, like many Civil War battles, tends to be too diffuse. (The classic example of a diffuse battle was Chickamauga fought near Chattanooga later that year.)

As good as Gettysburg the movie is, the same director tried to make a prequel ten years later: Gods and Generals (2003) was a rather flaccid failure. Jeff Daniels plays the same role, but he had gained quite a few pounds while he was at Chancellorsville a scant few months earlier.

 

Decussation and the Mind of God

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A Quincunctial Lattice

A Quincunctial Lattice

Back in January, I printed a quote from Sir Thomas Browne’s Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or. A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes Lately Found in Norfolk (1658). A reader named Kevin Faulkner took me to task for essentially taking the easy way out and not coming to terms with the work of the 17th century scientist, divine, and mystic. He recommended that I read the companion piece Browne published in the same year, entitled The Garden of Cyrus, or, the Quincunciall, Lozenge, or Net-work Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered with Sundry Observations.

This week, I finally got around to reading The Garden of Cyrus. When confronting such a powerful mind as Browne’s, with his phenomenal erudition, recall, and powers of observation, I must confess to feeling unworthy. Never before has prose risen to such poetic heights, with a level of difficulty that approaches Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. The following comes early in the first chapter:

Wherein the decussis is made within a longilaterall square, with opposite angles, acute and obtuse at the intersection; and so upon progression making a Rhombus or lozenge configuration, which seemeth very agreeable unto the originall figure; Answerable whereunto we observe the decussated characters in many consulary Coynes, even even those of Constantine and his Sons, which pretend their character in the Sky; the crucigerous Ensigne carried this figure, not transversely or rectangularly intersected, but in a decussation, after the form of an Andrean or Burgundian cross, which answereth this description.

Now this is in no wise to be considered as light reading. Yet there is a Greco-Roman sense of majesty in which Browne takes the simple shape illustrated above, inspired by the tree planting pattern of Cyrus in ancient Persia, as one of the basic patterns in nature and art. And ultimately in the mind of God.

Browne goes far beyond the lattice-work in nature and botany to a mystical consideration of the shape and of the number five, which it suggests in the Quincunx pattern, with a tree in the center and one at each of the four points in a lozenge-shape surrounding the central tree. As Browne says in his conclusion in Chapter Five (the last chapter, appropriately): “All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical Mathematicks of the City of Heaven.”

Sir Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne is not a writer one can read once over lightly. Each of his powerful essays, including his Religio Medici, begs to be accepted as a vade mecum to which the reader will return again and again.

And what does the reader gain? Actually, the erudition and complex latinate vocabulary by itself is not the reason for a further acquaintance: Rather, it is the way in which the towering speculations of the author are in the humble service of his God. For Browne, there is no conflict between science and Christianity. They complement each other at every turn.

Somehow, I feel as if my dreams tonight will be of rhombuses and quincunxes extending into the heavens, from the smallest parts of creation even unto the stars.

If you are even moderately interested in a difficult and rewarding author, I suggest you read his essays, and also look of Kevin Faulkner’s excellent website entitled The Aquarium of Vulcan, which deals rather more substantially with Browne than I am able to at this time.

“I Killed Seven With One Blow”

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What a Valiant Little Tailor!

What a Valiant Little Tailor!

The tale comes from the Brothers Grimm: It is the story of a little tailor who kills seven flies with one blow of his swatter. Then, to make sure the world knows what a valiant little tailor he was, he makes inscribes the line “I killed seven with one blow” on his belt and goes out into the world to—what else?—make his fortune. Of course, everyone misunderstands the saying on the belt and thinks the tailor killed seven men with one blow.

I felt much the same way when I read an interview with Gore Vidal in The Paris Review in which he states “But then I’m typically American. We weren’t brought up with theater like the English or the Germans. On the other hand, I saw every movie I could in my youth. I once saw four movies in one day when I was fourteen. That was the happiest day of my life.”

What, only four? I think I have had at least ten days in my time when I have seen five or even six movies in one day. I remember two days at the University of Southern California (USC) when I saw five Westerns directed by Budd Boetticher and another when I saw not only five films by John Ford, but John Ford himself showed up. I don’t count the day I saw five films directed by Hitchcock—but only because the 35mm nitrate print of Rope (1948) exploded into flames in the projection booth.

Then there were all the days I spent at the Cinecon show in Hollywood watching early silent and sound films, one after the other, with breaks only for lunch and dinner.

For the first time in nearly a decade, I don’t think I’ll be attending the Cinecon show this time, for reasons I hinted at in a post I wrote a year ago. Of course, I could still change my mind; and Martine is interested in attending at least one day of the screenings. We’ll see.

You’ll Get There Strætoway

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The Central Bus Terminal at Hlemmur

The Central Bus Terminal at Hlemmur

I’ve always thought that one of the most fun things about visiting a foreign country is using the local bus system, especially when it’s so well organized (as it usually is in Europe). It’s an altogether different proposition in Latin America and Asia, where it’s not easy to find out beforehand where a particular bus goes and how often.

Reykjavík’s Stræto (pronounced STRY-toe), on the other hand, is pretty easy to use. Their yellow buses go all over the capital, and schedules are readily available on the Internet—in English. There are a number of regional terminals, such as Mjódd, from which the Stræto long-distance buses depart for the south and west of Iceland. These are usually a better deal than using the Reykjavík Excursions buses with their preponderance of backpackers. Then there is Háholt in Mosfellsbær and Fjörður in Hafnarfjörður in the southern part of the “metroplex.” (The quotes are there because Reykjavík has only about 150,000 residents.)

Stræto Buses at Hlemmur

Stræto Buses at Hlemmur

The bus fare for Stræto local buses is over $3.00, but there are several ways one can save. For more tourists, I recommend getting the Reykjavík Welcome Card, which allows you unlimited free bus travel for 1, 2, or 3 days. Also included is free admission to museums and swimming pools in the area. One could also buy panes of bus tickets. Note that long-distance services charge additional tickets, and these can either be purchased in advance at bus terminals or via credit card from the driver.

One interesting feature of the yellow Stræto buses is a display of what the next stop is, together with the name pronounced in proper Icelandic. It’s a great way to learn how to pronounce what is a real tongue-twister of a language.

 

The Story of Will Rogers

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Lobby Card from the Film The Story of Will Rogers

Lobby Card from the Film The Story of Will Rogers (1952)

It has become a tradition for Martine and me to attend the annual outdoor screening each August to mark the anniversary of the star’s death in a 1935 Alaska airplane accident. This year, it was held last Friday. The event is co-sponsored by the Will Rogers Ranch Foundation, to which we belong, and the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation. This year, instead of screening a film starring Will Rogers, we got a film about Will, starring Will’s son, Will Jr., who is a dead-ringer for his father.

The Story of Will Rogers is an A-list film starring not only Will Jr., but Jane Wyman as Betty Rogers and a great cast of supporting actors, including James Gleason, Slim Pickens, Noah Beery Jr, and Mary Wickes.

As usual, the film was screened outdoors as soon as the sky darkened (around 8 pm). The audience sat around on either blankets or (like us) chairs that we brought from home with us.

I have always thought that Will Rogers was, in many ways, the ideal American. Not only did he have Cherokee blood from both his parents, but his sense of humor was completely non-partisan. Everyone got gored—and fairly, too!

Just to leave you with one of his thoughts: “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

Nothing Is Infinite, Except Stupidity

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Fumarole Near Thingvellir

Fumarole Near Thingvellir

Some time ago, I heard that Iceland was looking for some way to store electricity for transshipment to other countries that were shortchanged of the fuels required to run their turbines. It appeared that, with all their volcanoes, the little island nation was sitting on an infinite source of energy. After all, one just had to punch a hole in the ground, and steam would come pouring out.

But the actual situation is more complicated than that. For one thing, there is a relatively new kind of pollution that occurs when you harness the seemingly infinite energies of molten lava under the earth. For one thing, you get Hydrogen Sulphide pollution, which is already so bad in Reykjavík that it adversely affects sound recording equipment. The geothermal power plant at Hellisheiði is some 30 km east of the capital—contrary to the prevailing westerly wind. Yet H2S precipitates on copper and silver lead to a shortening of the equipment’s life. This could put a serious crimp in Iceland’s attempt to become a rock and roll superpower.

Then there is the matter of polluted effluent lagoons for the steam that has cooled. These pool are loaded with minerals, the concentration of which has not yet been sufficiently studied. The tourist area south of Hellisheiði, Hveragerði, is complaining that pollutants are leaching into their soil and water supply.

The Geothermal Power Plant at Hellisheiði

The Geothermal Power Plant at Hellisheiði

When Iceland lurched into its own economic recession in 2008, the solution was to build even more geothermal plants, which could generate power to run gigantic aluminum smelters—one of the most energy-intensive industrial processes known to man. The plan was to put up a cluster of power plants just to power the giant smelter at Helguvík, just south of the capital on the way to the airport. But then it was found that Hellisheiði produced insufficient power to run the smelter, and that the additional power plants envisioned by the government were running into strong opposition from the ecology-minded citizens.

Not only that, but the Hellisheiði plant was in danger of being tapped out.

 

From the Confederate Point of View

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Historian Shelby Foote (1916-2005)

Historian Shelby Foote (1916-2005)

If you have ever seen the multipart Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War first broadcast by PBS in September 1990, you will undoubtedly remember Shelby Foote (above), who is famous for his trilogy The Civil War: A Narrative. For today, I decided to post my review of the second volume of his trilogy, covering the pivotal year of 1863.

Ever since I first came across the works of Bruce Catton in my teens, I have been an aficionado of the American Civil War. So much concentrated slaughter among peoples who resembled one another so much! Also, so many lessons to be learned about the arts of leadership, and what happens when they are lacking—as in all but the last generals in charge of the Army of the Potomac!

This is the second volume of three of historian Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: A Narrative. Nestled away in the “Bibliographical Note” section at the end is this revealing quote:

As for method, it may explain much for me to state that my favorite historian is Tacitus, who dealt mainly with high-placed scoundrels, but that the finest compliment I ever heard paid a historian was rendered by Thomas Hobbes in the forward to his translation of The Peloponnesian War, in which he referred to Thucydides as “one who, though he never digress to read a Lecture, Moral or Political, upon his own Text, nor enter into men’s hearts, further than the Actions themselves evidently guide him … filleth his Narrations with that choice of matter, and ordereth them with that Judgement, and with such perspicuity and efficacy expresseth himself that (as Plutarch saith) he maketh his Auditor a Spectator. For he setteth his Reader in the Assemblies of the People, and in their Senates, at their debating; in the Streets, at their Seditions; and in the Field, at their Battels.” There indeed is something worth aiming at, however far short of attainment we fall.

I don’t think Foote falls far short at all. In Periclean Athens, there was not much first-hand information upon which the historian could rely, whereas the Civil War is one of the most written-about episodes in all of world history. In addition to making his information vivid, Foote has to wade through terabytes of minutiae to find interesting episodes. One example: Southern General Nathan Bedford Forrest, encountering one of his men in headlong retreat, stopping him in his tracks, pulling down his trousers, and administering a savage spanking with a brush in front of his peers to motivate him to reconsider, which he did.

The period covered by the volume is calendar year 1863, in which two of the most decisive Union victories took place: Gettysburg and Vicksburg — right around the 4th of July. The other major battle discussed was Chickamauga, a Southern victory which ruined the careers of both generals, Rosecrans and Bragg, and which could have gone either way if a third of the Union line had not panicked and run. There is also a brief look-ahead to the spring of 1864, when U.S. Grant was named a Lieutenant General and appointed to the Army of the Potomac.

This 966-page book seems shorter than its weight would imply. That is due to Foote. In fact, this volume is so good that two extracts have been separately published as books: The Stars in Their Courses about Gettysburg and The Beleaguered City about Vicksburg, both of which are excellent reads in their own right.

“Air and Light and Space and Time”

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski

“–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create.”

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

© Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press

For a graphic version, click here.

Economic Austerity: Who Stands to Benefit?

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There’s a Reason Why Republicans Are So Behind This

There’s a Reason Why Republicans Are So Behind This

There is an excellent article by Paul Krugman in the June 6 issue of The New York Review of Books entitled “How the Case for Austerity Has Crumbled.” Paul Ryan and other apologists for economic austerity in the U.S. have been using two studies to bolster their case: Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff’s “Growth in a Time of Debt” and a 2009 analysis by the Italian economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna. It appears now that both studies are discredited as a result of miscalculations and wild assumptions.

That, however, does not prevent Republicans from pushing austerity measures in Congress irrespective of the reasoning. Their motivation is simply that, once again, they are shilling for the rich:

It’s also worth noting that while economic policy since the financial crisis looks like a dismal failure by most measures, it hasn’t been so bad for the wealthy. Profits have recovered strongly even as unprecedented long-term unemployment persists; stock indices on both sides of the Atlantic have rebounded to pre-crisis highs even as median income languishes. It might be too much to say that those in the top 1 percent actually benefit from a continuing depression, but they certainly aren’t feeling much pain, and that probably has something to do with policymakers’ willingness to stay the austerity course.

There is a widespread attempt to make economics into a “morality play” to make the pain of austerity seem necessary to account for the wretched excesses of the boom times. Krugman recalls how Andrew Mellon advised Herbert Hoover to let the Great Depression run its course so as to “purge the rottenness from the system.”

But where does this rottenness come from? Certainly not from the lower classes who are just trying to survive in tough times. Granted that thousands of people bought into mortgages they couldn’t really afford, but who packaged these mortgages for sale to them and to dim investors who were not in on the joke?

In little Iceland, bankers who made the loans which in 2008 precipitated the country’s financial crash were sentenced to prison terms for fraud. Did we do as much? Why have we exonerated greedy bankers for causing this whole mess?

There is a price to be paid for the U.S.’s financial woes, and I believe that eventually we will turn to prosecuting some of the guilty parties. But, as usual, the most guilty parties will not only get off scot-free: They will have, in the long run, gained from their crimes.

 

Boo-Birds and Soreheads

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Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America

Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America

In the past, I have been critical of what I sneeringly referred to as the Confederate States of America. Now, as I am slowly working my way through the second volume of Shelby Foote’s magnificent The Civil War: A Narrative, I realize that further distinctions need to be made.

On the Southern side were such admirable and talented men as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, and such great generals as Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest (though the latter, as founder of the Ku Klux Klan, was not terribly admirable).

Where I was mistaken is that certain political partisans, such as the Tea Partiers, have more in common with the people who were like a saddle sore to Davis and Lee. The diminutive Alexander Stephens, Davis’s Vice President, got so disgruntled by the politics of Richmond that he just moved back to his home state of Georgia and stayed there. The Confederate paper dollar plummeted in value, eventually sinking to one-twelfth the value of a gold dollar. As Foote writes:

[T]here were many behind the southern lines who disagreed with [Davis]; who were also for peace, but only on Union terms. Some had lost heart as a result of the recent reverses [at Gettysburg and Vicksburg], while other had had no heart for the war in the first place. The latter formed a hard core of resistance around which the former gathered in numbers that increased with every Federal success. It was these men Davis had in mind when, after referring to “threats of alienation” and “preparation for organized opposition.”

I cannot help but think that the Limbaughs and Hannities of our time would also have fought against their government at Richmond. There is a certain strain of sorehead or boo-bird that is incompatible with any leader who is actually trying to accomplish something even halfway laudable—even if we were to assume that States’ Rights was a laudable goal (which I myself do not).

After Gettysburg, Lee asked Davis to be relievbed of his command.  Davis responded with a heartfelt letter that made the Army of Northern Virginia take back his resignation:

RICHMOND, VA., August 11, 1863.

GENERAL R. E. LEE,

Commanding Army of Northern Virginia.

GENERAL : Yours of the 8th instant has been received. I am glad that you concur so entirely with me as to the wants of our country in this trying hour, and am happy to add that, after the first depression consequent upon our disasters in the West, indications have appeared that our people will exhibit that fortitude which we agree in believing is alone needful to secure ultimate success.

It well became Sidney Johnston, when overwhelmed by a senseless clamor, to admit the rule that success is the test of merit, and yet there is nothing which I have found to require a greater effort of patience than to bear the criticisms of the ignorant, who pronounce everything a failure which does not equal their expectations or desires, and can see no good result which is not in the line of their own imaginings. I admit the propriety of your conclusions, that an officer who loses the confidence of his troops should have his position changed, whatever may be his ability; but when I read the sentence, I was not at all prepared for the application you were about to make. Expressions of discontent in the public journals furnish but little evidence of the sentiment of an army. I wish it were otherwise, even though all the abuse of my self should be accepted as the results of honest observation.

Were you capable of stooping to it, you could easily surround yourself with those who would fill the press with your laudations and seek to exalt you for what you have not done, rather than detract from the achievements which will make you and your army the subject of history, and object of the world’s admiration for generations to come.

I am truly sorry to know that you still feel the effects of the illness you suffered last spring, and can readily understand the embarrassments you experience in using the eyes of others, having been so much accustomed to make your own reconnoissances. Practice will, however, do much to relieve that embarrassment, and the minute knowledge of the country which you have acquired will render you less dependent for topographical information.

But suppose, my dear friend, that I were to admit, with all their implications, the points which you present, where am I to find that new commander who is to possess the greater ability which you believe to be required ? I do not doubt the readiness with which you would give way to one who could accomplish all that you have wished, and you will do me the justice to believe that, if Providence should kindly offer such a person for our use, I would not hesitate to avail of his services.

My sight is not sufficiently penetrating to discover such hidden merit, if it exists, and I have but used to you the language of sober earnestness, when I have impressed upon you the propriety of avoiding all unnecessary exposure to danger, because I felt your country could not bear to lose you. To ask me to substitute you by someone in my judgment more fit to command, or who would possess more of the confidence of the army, or of reflecting men in the country, is to demand an impossibility.

It only remains for me to hope that you will take all possible care of yourself, that your health and strength may be entirely restored, and that the Lord will preserve you for the important duties devolved upon you in the struggle of our suffering country for the independence of which we have engaged in war to maintain.

As ever, very respectfully and truly,

(Signed) JEFFERSON DAVIS.

I take back my words about the Confederates States of America. Even in the South, there were Archangels, and there were also malignant spirits.