The American Civil War on Film and TV
Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color
Contributions by Susan Aronstein, Guerric DeBona, Paul Haspel, Jeanne Holland, Martin Manning, Sue Matheson, Ray Merlock, Kathy Merlock Jackson Virginia Wesleyan University, president of the Popular Culture Association, Earl F. Mulderink, Scott Allen Nollen, Biljana Oklopcic, Gregory Perreault, Fran Pheasant-Kelly, Peggy A. Russo, David S. Silverman, Judith Sobré, Beth Jane Toren, A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Rosanne Welch, Kayla McKinney Wiggins, Michael Wiggins, Douglas Brode, Cynthia J. Miller Institute for Liberal Arts, Emerson College Edited by Douglas Brode, Shea T. Brode, Cynthia J. Miller Institute for Liberal Arts, Emerson College
Publication date:
05 October 2017Length of book:
294 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
237x157mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781498566889
Whether on the big screen or small, films featuring the American Civil War are among the most classic and controversial in motion picture history. From D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) to Free State of Jones (2016), the war has provided the setting, ideologies, and character archetypes for cinematic narratives of morality, race, gender, and nation, as well as serving as historical education for a century of Americans.
In The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color, Douglas Brode, Shea T. Brode, and Cynthia J. Miller bring together nineteen essays by a diverse array of scholars across the disciplines to explore these issues. The essays included here span a wide range of films, from the silent era to the present day, including Buster Keaton’s The General (1926), Red Badge of Courage (1951), Glory (1989), Gettysburg (1993), and Cold Mountain (2003), as well as television mini-series The Blue and The Gray (1982) and John Jakes’ acclaimed North and South trilogy (1985-86).
As an accessible volume to dedicated to a critical conversation about the Civil War on film, The American Civil War on Film and TV will appeal to not only to scholars of film, military history, American history, and cultural history, but to fans of war films and period films, as well.
In The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color, Douglas Brode, Shea T. Brode, and Cynthia J. Miller bring together nineteen essays by a diverse array of scholars across the disciplines to explore these issues. The essays included here span a wide range of films, from the silent era to the present day, including Buster Keaton’s The General (1926), Red Badge of Courage (1951), Glory (1989), Gettysburg (1993), and Cold Mountain (2003), as well as television mini-series The Blue and The Gray (1982) and John Jakes’ acclaimed North and South trilogy (1985-86).
As an accessible volume to dedicated to a critical conversation about the Civil War on film, The American Civil War on Film and TV will appeal to not only to scholars of film, military history, American history, and cultural history, but to fans of war films and period films, as well.
A collection's merit hangs on the skill of its editors, whose task it is to commission essays on meaningful topics and then edit those essays to meet the overall needs of the collection. Douglas Brode, Shea Brode, and Cynthia Miller succeed beautifully in this excellent volume. The timeliness of the book is noteworthy: recent events such as Charlottesville and the controversy over Confederate memorials are very much in the public consciousness. Most of the essays are well written and creatively engage media portrayals of the Civil War and its aftermath. Particular standouts are Guerric DeBona's history of John Huston’s adaptation of The Red Badge of Courage (1951), Susan Aronstein and Jeanne Holland’s overview of Disney Civil War–themed productions of the 1950s and 1960s, and Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper’s take on alternate history and the othering of the Civil War (Kevin Wilmot’s C.S.A would have worked nicely here). Arranged in rough chronological order of the release dates of the films discussed, the essays take readers through US popular culture of the past 120 years as they look at the breadth and impact of the American Civil War. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.