Lessons in Celluloid

...While it doesn’t mean that an alternate reality has been devised in which the Confederate Army is victorious, it does mean that the true historical cause of the Civil War has been lost in the shuffl e. This leads us to Gary W. Gallagher, professor of history at the University of Virginia and a leading Civil War scholar and author...

...There really haven’t been vivid accounts of what it meant for a northern soldier to join the Union army and fi ght for the American dream...

...And last, the Reconciliation Cause, which represents “an attempt by white people North and South to extol the American virtues both sides manifested during the war...

...From Dances with Wolves to Cold Mountain to Pharaoh’s Army, the Union is seen as a vicious, bloodthirsty outfi t that is hell-bent on destruction rather than its true goal of nation-building...

...sheds light on the common misrepresentations of the confl ict between Blue (North) and Gray (South...

...In fact, Gallagher points out the lack of a strong Union theme “must be read on one level as a triumph for the Lost Cause” and a victory for old-style antiYankee sentiment...

...Causes Won, Lost & Forgotten Michael Taube is a public affairs analyst and commentator, and former speechwriter for Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper...

...Even worse, Hollywood has been serving up “a postVietnam vision of the Union army as a cruel, racist juggernaut that wreaks havoc and stands for nothing admirable...

...America, “The days when Hollywood captured the imagination of the entire world with stirring accounts of our heroic history have given way to an era of self-fl agellation and irresponsible revisionism...

...Meanwhile, its prequel, Gods and Generals, displays many Lost Cause traits but also “allocates a few minutes to Union motivation,” leading to discussions of emancipation...

...According to Gallagher, Shenandoah (1965) represents a “watershed in Hollywood’s relationship with the Lost Cause...

...Both fi lms may deal with the Lost Cause, yet they aren’t Lost Cause films...

...Today’s entertainment industry has, for the most part, ignored the growth of the Union army and “Lincoln’s vision of a democratic nation devoted to economic opportunity...

...Two examples of this shift in thinking are Gettysburg (1993) and Gods and Generals (2003...

...Naturally, there are historical inaccuracies in Glory...

...Stuart...

...Still, Causes Won, Lost & Forgotten notes that while “Shenandoah’s emancipationist elements built on these insubstantial precedents . . . it remained for Glory to thrust the Emancipation Cause into heroic cinematic relief...

...The art world has also decided against paying homage to the Union Cause...

...If the current trend in popular culture continues, fewer and fewer people will understand what the Union and Confederate causes were about, and why the Civil War was fought in the fi rst place...

...the 54th Massachusetts actually came together in 1863, not in 1862 as the fi lm depicted...

...As Michael Medved wrote in Hollywood vs...

...The white soldiers are depicted in a racist manner which “certainly would have been repellent by modern standards...

...They are not historians, and a history lesson is likely the furthest thing from their minds...

...The Old South was viewed as being both heroic and romantic, passionate discussions of emancipation barely registered, and the Union was often viewed in a negative fashion...

...They are seen as heroic and pious fi gures, and typically painted with strong, dominant features and an air of confi dence, such as George Bagby Matthews’s 1907 masterpiece, Lee and His Generals...

...Gallagher classifi es fi lms under four traditions which have underscored Civil War-themed movies and art...

...Civil War artists like Mort K?nstler and John Paul Strain have overwhelmingly depicted beautiful portraits and military scenes of famous Confederate military fi gures like Robert E. Lee, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and J.E.B...

...And one of the main culprits has been (brace yourself) the entertainment industry, which would revise everything from the Dawn of Man to the 2000 presidential election— if given half the chance and a few million bucks...

...Movie studios and artists have taken it upon themselves to recreate this war in a manner that suits their needs...

...Causes Won, Lost & Forgotten gives credence to the cruel reality that Hollywood and popular art are not portraying the Civil War from a valid historical perspective...

...Even though 90 percent of Virginia’s military-age white males were conscripted in the Civil War, the Anderson family’s fi ve sons somehow avoided it...

...Sadder still, the Civil War almost always falls into this wayward category...

...But Gallagher notes that Gettysburg repudiates the Lost Cause in one important respect: “There are innumerable Confederate fl ags in evidence but no sense of Confederate nationalism animating soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia— many of whom in 1863 would have described the army as the embodiment of their nation...

...Next is the Union Cause, which frames “the war as preeminently an effort to maintain a viable republic in the face of secessionist actions...

...Why is there a preference for Confederate art...

...Reasons for this could range from a broader appeal and admiration for Confederate fi gures, or even possibly “the romantic underdog aura of the Confederate war that transcends geography...

...and Robert Gould Shaw didn’t jump at the chance to become the outfi t’s commanding offi cer—he initially rejected the posting before eventually agreeing to assume the role...

...Our objective was to make a highly entertaining and exciting war movie fi lled with action and character...

...While freely admitting that he’s “trained as neither a fi lm critic nor an art critic,” Gallagher has nevertheless produced a superb analysis of a war that defi ned a nation—but that has lost its defi nition thanks to liberal amounts of creative license afforded to the celluloid and pen-and-ink crowds...

...There’s the Lost Cause, which casts “the South’s experiment in nation-building as an admirable struggle against hopeless odds...

...Then there’s the Emancipation Cause, which depicts the war as “a struggle to liberate four million slaves and remove a cancerous infl uence on American society and politics...

...But if we want history to “come alive,” and if we want to learn about the past, the only way to properly do it is to accurately depict individuals as they were and events as they happened...

...The fi lm tugged at heartstrings and introduced audiences to a very different side of the war they knew little about...

...But therein lies a major problem: Gallagher asserts that the Union Cause, which carried the most weight during the Civil War era, has become “Hollywood’s real lost cause...

...Gallagher acknowledges that hard data do not exist...

...But his unscientifi c study of more than 2,750 advertisements for prints and artwork during 1962-2006 in three magazines (Civil War Times Illustrated, Blue & Gray Magazine, and North & South) suggests that the artbuying public “overwhelmingly prefer Confederate leaders and themes...

...Integrated U.S...

...Overall, Gettysburg and Gods and Generals “unfurl a far more conventional reconciliation banner in scenes involving both offi cers and common soldiers,” and the absence of speaking roles for black characters in Gettysburg also “sets a reconciliationist tone...

...Julio and William DeHartburn Washington painted majestic scenes of Lee and Jackson leading the rag-tag Confederate army in battle after battle...

...This popular fi lm is rife with historical inaccuracies...

...Some people vividly remember the positive portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan in the former fi lm and Rhett Butler not giving a damn about Scarlett O’Hara in the latter...

...Even examples of 19th- and early 20th-century Civil War art show a remarkable dominance of the Lost Cause tradition...

...In Hollywood’s early years, the Lost Cause was dominant in fi lms such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone with the Wind (1939...

...Only the black soldiers are portrayed in a sympathetic light, along with the sole exception of their white colonel...

...But these cinematic masterpieces also “exposed generations of Americans to strongly positive depictions of the Confederacy and the slaveholding South...

...True, the goal of fi lm studios and artists is to create subject matter that will appeal to their specifi c audiences and reap massive profi ts...

...Glory (1989) is the epic story of a mighty struggle to form an all-black regiment—the 54th Massachusetts— in the Union army...

...military outfi ts also magically appeared, defying history and reams of literature...

...Some examples include: The fi lm portrayed the black soldiers as being former southern slaves, but in reality, most were born free men in the North...

...If you think that an accurate refl ection of this important historical period would be a routine procedure, think again...

...Most Civil War fi lms that have followed Glory have been part of either the Emancipation or Reconciliation Cause—even if they had elements of Lost Cause...

...As well, the movie is not a balanced presentation, missing themes like “the thousands of slaves who ran to Union lines,” the use of slavery “as a precipitant of secession and war,” and “white citizens unhappy with the Confederacy...

...The former has several Lost Cause themes, including “the idea that Gettysburg represented a dramatic moment when the Confederacy could have established its independence...

...Artists such as Everett B.D...

...The author places this fi lm squarely in the Emancipation Cause, and argues it “should be considered pre-eminently as an antiwar fi lm...

...But when the fi lm’s producer, Freddie Fields, was asked about these inaccuracies, he brushed them aside: You can get bogged down when dealing in history...

...According to Gallagher, the last quarter-century of Civil War art “would warm the hearts of former Confederates who laid the groundwork for the Lost Cause tradition...