No war on earth has generated more literature than the American Civil War, most of the story being familiar to most people. So how do you hold the attention of a mass audience for eleven hours?
One way is to involve Shelby Foote, who wrote the 3000-page history that will surely never be supplanted as the definitive account of the conflict. Foote manages to look and sound unlike any other Mississippian of 70-plus, despite the authentic Deep South accent. He always said he didn't want to be just another Lost Cause apologist, and he is certainly anything but that. He manages to exude a profound knowledge of this vast subject, edged with creative insight, humour and a unique whimsical charm.
As in his book, themes are the key - how to maintain a long narrative thread, with the main events in sequence, but without making it feel like a series of tutorials. Instead of just marching forward, it manages to dance. Dozens of themes glide past each other, some of them major topics like Conscription or the Siege of Petersburg, others quite minor, like home-made hooch or the mysterious 'acoustic shadow' that could make a battle inaudible to troops in the next valley. Like any old soldier, I can connect with the front-line joke about Tullahoma. It comes from two ancient Greek words. One means mud. The other means more mud! And I like the jibe about the beleaguered Confederate President Davis: by the end, he was presiding over a Confederacy of the mind.
The spoken quotations from generals and politicians, or from letters and diaries, can seem like rather a conventional treatment - until you start to notice the unusually high quality of speech. These are actually some of the world's most famous actors, as listed in the last frame, if you ever get there. But certainly too conventional is the musical track - same old tunes over and over, all too loud and distracting, and some of the recordings distinctly wobbly.
As the slaves' view of the war is emphasised more than usual, I was surprised there was nothing on how the Native Americans felt about it too. And there were some rather odd disembodied statements that didn't seem to relate to anything before or after, as well as some quite unnecessary reminders of what was happening in the rest of the world in each of these years. The historian Ed Bearss seems to think he's in a horror-film, with his strange posture and weird hand-signals, curiously lit as well. His glamorous Afro-American counterpart Barbara Fields appears to carry conviction until she declares that the civil war is not over yet - not while some people live in houses and others on the street. Oh dear, just another PC indoctrinaire after all.
Finally, don't miss the diaries of Mary Chesnut, far more sensitive and insightful than you would expect from a fashionable lady of South Carolina. And a clip from the 75th anniversary reunion of Gettysburg veterans (1938, and with sound) is a startling piece of theatre, right there on the battlefield, though I can't help wondering if there might be a few sly gatecrashers among all those fine old boys with their brave white moustaches and rebel yells.
One way is to involve Shelby Foote, who wrote the 3000-page history that will surely never be supplanted as the definitive account of the conflict. Foote manages to look and sound unlike any other Mississippian of 70-plus, despite the authentic Deep South accent. He always said he didn't want to be just another Lost Cause apologist, and he is certainly anything but that. He manages to exude a profound knowledge of this vast subject, edged with creative insight, humour and a unique whimsical charm.
As in his book, themes are the key - how to maintain a long narrative thread, with the main events in sequence, but without making it feel like a series of tutorials. Instead of just marching forward, it manages to dance. Dozens of themes glide past each other, some of them major topics like Conscription or the Siege of Petersburg, others quite minor, like home-made hooch or the mysterious 'acoustic shadow' that could make a battle inaudible to troops in the next valley. Like any old soldier, I can connect with the front-line joke about Tullahoma. It comes from two ancient Greek words. One means mud. The other means more mud! And I like the jibe about the beleaguered Confederate President Davis: by the end, he was presiding over a Confederacy of the mind.
The spoken quotations from generals and politicians, or from letters and diaries, can seem like rather a conventional treatment - until you start to notice the unusually high quality of speech. These are actually some of the world's most famous actors, as listed in the last frame, if you ever get there. But certainly too conventional is the musical track - same old tunes over and over, all too loud and distracting, and some of the recordings distinctly wobbly.
As the slaves' view of the war is emphasised more than usual, I was surprised there was nothing on how the Native Americans felt about it too. And there were some rather odd disembodied statements that didn't seem to relate to anything before or after, as well as some quite unnecessary reminders of what was happening in the rest of the world in each of these years. The historian Ed Bearss seems to think he's in a horror-film, with his strange posture and weird hand-signals, curiously lit as well. His glamorous Afro-American counterpart Barbara Fields appears to carry conviction until she declares that the civil war is not over yet - not while some people live in houses and others on the street. Oh dear, just another PC indoctrinaire after all.
Finally, don't miss the diaries of Mary Chesnut, far more sensitive and insightful than you would expect from a fashionable lady of South Carolina. And a clip from the 75th anniversary reunion of Gettysburg veterans (1938, and with sound) is a startling piece of theatre, right there on the battlefield, though I can't help wondering if there might be a few sly gatecrashers among all those fine old boys with their brave white moustaches and rebel yells.