Alexandersmap

    Tag: Gettysburg

    • Those Beloved, Perfect-Enough Movies

      There are no perfect movies, despite the Twitter debate going on around it.  Nothing is perfect, but you have to ship it at some point, and hopefully you get close enough to the mark.  Perfect doesn’t always mean commercially successful, but if the stars align and word of mouth lifts a movie’s profile, it sells enough tickets.  Anyway, I’m not Roger Ebert, but I know a great movie when I see one.  Sure, I could pick the big ones that I love, like The Godfather or North By Northwest or Casablanca, but what’s the fun in that?  Let’s go one layer deeper and find some other gems.  Here are five perfect-enough movies – movies that I’d see over and over.  Like a near-perfect song or poem, there’s magic woven into each.  Some may be very familiar to you, some may be completely foreign, but they all have cast a spell on me in their own way.

      The Shawshank Rebellion
      The ending is just about perfect and what everyone remembers in this film.  That scene is set up by the one I linked to, where Andy and Ellis have this conversation:
      Ellis: “I don’t think I can make it on the outside, Andy.  I been in here most of my life.  I’m an institutional man now.  Just like Brooks was.
      Andy: “Well, you underestimate yourself.”
      and later in this scene: “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really.  Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

      Local Hero
      No shock for readers of this blog, as this remains my favorite movie.  Is it perfect? Of course not!  Parts of the soundtrack are charmingly locked in the 1980’s (while most of it is stunningly beautiful and  timeless).  Watch the scene in this link, as the band starts to play Mist Covered Mountains and Gordon walks up to join them, he places his glass of scotch on the snare drum and Rikki the drummer gives him a WTF glance.  Gordon gives his own glance soon after as Mac dances with his romantic partner Stella.  Small examples of the magic woven into this movie.

      Gettysburg
      This one is an outlier on this list, I know.  But this movie about the Battle of Gettysburg stays with me just as the other movies do.  And this scene with Sam Elliot is the highlight of the movie.  I was never a soldier, but I know the value of the high ground in a battle.  As a New Englander I tend to focus on the contributions of Joshua Chamberlain to holding the line, but the reason he had high ground to hold in the first place was because General John Buford held the high ground long enough for the Union forces to arrive.  That ultimately determined who would be victorious at Gettysburg, and this scene captures the moment when he decides to hold off the Rebel army long enough for the infantry to arrive.

      Hugo
      When Martin Scorsese created this movie he said in an interview that he wanted to make a movie his grandchildren could watch with him.  I use the word magic too frequently (indeed), but this movie about an orphaned Hugo Cabret living secretly in a train station in 1930’s Paris is truly magical.  This scene, where Hugo and Isabelle talk about their purpose is a lovely moment in the film, and set up a scheme to help Isabelle’s godfather re-find his own purpose.  I’ve watched Hugo with my daughter many times, it inspires her to create her own magic in this world.  And it just might do that for her father too.

      The Princess Bride
      Another Mark Knopfler soundtrack that I can’t stop listening to.  And another movie that casts a spell on you.  The characters of Inigo Montoya and Fezzik are the MVP’s of this film, with dialog sprinkled in fairy dust.  As a parent, I can think of no better movie to watch with your children.  As an adult, The Princess Bride is a welcome step into a world of wonder.  I wish it were longer, but there’s a lesson in it’s brevity too.  Nothing nearly perfect lasts forever, so enjoy every moment of it while you have it.  Want to watch it again?  As you wish.

       

       

    • The High Ground

      During the beginning stages of the French and Indian War, the British Army led by General Edward Braddock and officers that included Thomas Gage and George Washington marched to modern-day Pittsburgh to drive the French out of Fort Duquesne.  During the march, Gage’s Advance Guard failed to secure the high ground.  As they marched towards Fort Duquesne, they stumbled upon French and Indian forces, who quickly took the high ground and leveraged it to drive Gage’s Advance Guard back towards the main army.  In one became known as the Battle of the Monongahela, Braddock rushed his own army forward right into the retreating Advance Guard soldiers.  Chaos ensued, and the French and Indians routed the British forces and killed Braddock.  If lessons were learned in this battle, taking and holding the high ground seems to have been lost on some of them.

      Almost twenty years later, during the beginning stages of the American Revolution, the City of Boston was under siege immediately following the Battles of Lexington and Concord.  Both sides looked at the hills surrounding Boston and recognized the strategic importance of holding these hills as soon as possible.  The Americans were quicker to get there, and under the direction of General William Prescott, 1200 men built a redoubt on Breeds Hill to defend against the inevitable counterattack by the British.

      Old friend Thomas Gage, by now Military Governor of Massachusetts and perhaps not entirely remembering the lessons of the Battle of the Monongahela, ordered the British forces to attack Breeds Hill on June 17th, 1775.  They were repulsed twice with significant casualties, particularly with their officers.  It was during this battle that General Prescott told his American militia “Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes” both for accuracy and because they were dangerously low on ammunition.  In fact, the lack of ammunition is what ultimately led the British to take Breeds Hill on the third attempt.    The Americans fled up and over adjacent Bunker Hill, and for some reason the event has forever been called the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Nine months later, the British evacuated Boston when they looked up at Dorchester Heights and saw the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga pointing down at them, proving they recognized the value of the high ground.

      The colonial American army seized Fort Ticonderoga by surprise and then had a year to fortify it before the British could amass an army, wait out winter, sail across the Atlantic and work their way down the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain to meet them in battle.  When the British arrived they completely bypassed the fort and took the high ground behind it.  When the Americans holding the fort saw the cannon pointed down at them they knew the jig was up and evacuated the fort.  With barely an exchange the British took Fort Ticonderoga in one day because they saw the high ground that the Americans thought was impossible to haul cannon onto and proved them wrong.

      On July 2nd, 1863, the critical importance of holding the high ground was on display at Little Round Top in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment led by Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain repulsed repeated attacks by the confederate soldiers led by Lieutenant General James Longstreet.  Like the Americans at Breeds Hill in 1775, the 20th Maine soldiers were running out of ammunition.  Chamberlain, under orders to hold the line at any cost.  If the confederates were to break through they could flank the Union forces and break the back of the entire Union army.  Chamberlain ordered a bayonet charge down the hill, surprising and then routing the confederates.

      The high ground is advantageous, but it doesn’t guarantee those who hold it will win.  What it does guarantee is that there will be a high cost for trying to take it from those who currently hold it.  There’s a lot of talk about taking the moral high ground lately.  Democrats point to Republicans and evangelicals and openly question them taking the moral high ground when they defend the President’s actions and statements.  My BS detector tells me who holds the true high ground, but that could be bias.  What’s apparent though is that continuously attacking those who sit on the high ground, whomever they may be, has a deep cost.