IndexPersonal PerspectiveHistorical PerspectiveEthical PerspectiveCultural PerspectiveCritical PerspectiveImagine a suspenseful, historical, and action-packed film. In 1863, an epic event occurred in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania that was made into a film in 1992. This place is now visited by thousands of visitors and is considered a historical landmark. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "Gettysburg", the film, featured a stellar cast who delivered flawless performances depicting a horrific event that changed the course of the Civilization War. Six different perspectives describing the visual communication of the film will be analyzed. Perspectives by David Lodge, provides an analytical critique of how the film should be interpreted by the audience. Perspective analysis will give a detailed account of what the director wanted to achieve. These different perspectives give the film a "flavor" in how it is sampled by audiences. Personal Perspective My gut reaction to this film is that it was a failed attempt by the Confederates to send a message to the Union forces. Communication was poor and each side relied on messengers to get information from each other. The battle was more of a political agenda for Robert Lee to prove he could beat Union forces even though his second in command, James Longstreet, strongly disagreed. “Lee sought to win politically significant victories, to eliminate war from Virginia's devastated farmlands, and to gather supplies for his army” (“Gettysburg,” n.d.). As a result of Lee's failure, 51,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, etc. Because the Union forces were unwittingly receiving reinforcements, the Confederates thought they had an advantage. “Lee attacked the Federals on the heights, but failed to dislodge the defenders” (“Gettysburg,” n.d.). The heights were two hills on which the Union gained ground and the Confederates needed this area to complete a victory, unfortunately fighting up a hill proves difficult. The hills were called Little Round Top and Big Round Top. The reason the Confederates wanted to take the hills was so they could flank the entire Union army causing even more bloodshed. “Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain rushed headlong into history, leading his 20th Maine Regiment in what is perhaps the most famous counterattack of the Civil War” (Brann, 2014). Lawrence's Maine regiment fought the Confederates until they ran out of ammunition. The famous counterattack was famous thanks to the ingenuity of Colonel Chamberlain; attacked using bayonets. The enemy, heavily fatigued and overheated, surrendered. This act of courage earned Colonel Chamberlain the Congressional Medal of Honor. Historical Perspective The Civil War was based on many economic perspectives. “In the mid-19th century, as the United States experienced an era of extraordinary growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the northern and southern regions of the country” (“American Civil,” n.d.). In the North, manufacturing and agriculture were thriving. The Southern economy depended on the cultivation of cotton and tobacco harvested by African American slaves. The South feared that its “workers” would disappear due to Northern states encouraging freedom. President Lincoln's creation of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 made the southern half of the United States very nervous. "On September 22, immediately after the Union victory at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in rebellious states “shall then, henceforth, and forever be free” (“Emancipation Proclamation,” n.d.). The film represented exactly what the history books had written. The film followed the timeline along with a narration to explain how the film would begin. According to (Ebert, 1993), “This is a film, pure and simple, about the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, about the strategies, calculations, mistakes, and heroism that decisively turned the tide of the Civil War against the South. The film delved into how servicemen lived their lives, left friends, and accepted death. The film provided realism by providing many scenes that felt realistic to me; smoke, injured bodies and obvious uniforms of the time. To increase the realism of the conflict, many charitable organizations took part in “Gettysburg” reenactments. “Each year the Gettysburg Anniversary Committee (GAC), local organizers of the annual Gettysburg reenactment, chooses several community and preservation causes and supports these organizations with a portion of the event's proceeds” (“Preservation,” n.d.). The success of the film from a technical point of view is due to the thousands of people from different organizations who participated to recreate the march of the Confederates towards the conflict. Each participant has his own uniform, musket, etc. Bringing all these participants together honored the brave men who gave their lives during this conflict. According to (Egan, 2012), “I have never had a more intimate experience with the story than I did the day we shot that scene on the real battlefield.” Brian Egan was one of the actors in the film and was describing the final march across the field to the final battle with the Union troops This technical perspective gave insights into marching through the heat, tall grass and not seeing the enemy until it was too late Ethical perspective The moral indicates that the war was deemed insignificant to one side and the other fought to keep their values and land intact. According to (Weigel, 2016), “If Gettysburg was the linchpin of the Civil War, and if the Civil War changed the country. from “the United States is…” to “the United States is… then the United States as we know it” was forged July 1-3, 1863, outside a small town at the crossroads of Pennsylvania” The ethical perception of the film illustrates that even though many people were killed, it demonstrated how the country should be shaped. Because soldiers on opposing sides feel they have "wronged" each other, two veterans of the actual event met at Gettysburg in 1913. "Two Civil War veterans, one from the South and one from the North, walked together through the town of Gettysburg, bought a hatchet together in a hardware story, went up Cemetery Ridge together and buried the hatchet together at the Bloody Angle” (Weigel, 2016). but rather they forgot about it, they decided to make amends among themselves. Cultural Perspective The symbols that were inherent in the culture of that period were the destroyed properties of Gettysburg residents. “The battle brought devastation to the residents of Gettysburg agricultural garden was a cemetery. Churches, public buildings and even private homes were hospitals, full of wounded soldiers” (“History and Culture,” n.d.). The cultural outlook was depressing; death and devastation. What the film didn't show was the cultural perspective of the post-war period. The last medical department was abandoned only two years after the war. More than 19,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were treated and.
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