Glory (1989)
Movie Rating: 10/10
Glory, along with Free State of Jones, is the best film I’ve ever seen about the U.S. Civil War. Part of the movie’s appeal is the historic shift it symbolized in how Americans viewed the war.
Through the bulk of its history, the portrayal of the Civil War in U.S. cinema was based in the negationist historical myth of the Lost Cause. In this it reflected views of the Civil War in U.S. culture at large. The Lost Cause held that the Civil War was fought over states’ rights, not slavery; that enslaved people were treated well in the antebellum south; that the cause of the Confederacy was just, its military skill superior, and its ultimate defeat caused only by the North’s superior numbers and economic might. A cult of personality around Confederate leaders, particularly Robert E. Lee, is another major element of Lost Cause mythology.
In his book The Reel Civil War: Mythmaking in American Film, Bruce Chadwick documents how even before D.W. Griffith’s racist epic The Birth of a Nation revolutionized cinema in 1915, the Lost Cause was the dominant lens through which Hollywood viewed the Civil War. The antebellum South was idealized as a land of noble slaveowners and happy, loyal enslaved workers, while the North was depicted as the aggressor. In a blatant falsification of history, these films ignore the fact that the Confederates started the war with their bombardment of Fort Sumter. Instead, the war begins with Lincoln calling for volunteers to fight the South. After the war, Reconstruction is portrayed as a disaster. These basic tenants of the Lost Cause were repeated in later films such as Gone With the Wind. The idea of the Confederates as heroic underdogs continued to dominate into the television era, with offerings such as the long-running western series The Rebel.
Dominant views of the Civil War and U.S. history in general began to shift with the civil rights movement. In the 1970s, the TV series Roots brought the horrific reality of slavery into American homes as never before and offered a new focus on Black history. By the 1980s, the time was ripe for a different kind of Civil War film.
Released in 1989 and directed by Edward Zwick, Glory depicts the history of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the Union Army’s earliest African-American regiments in the U.S. Civil War. Though the lead character is white officer Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick), the film’s primary focus is on the Black enlisted men, their formation as a regiment, battlefield experience, and fight against racist prejudice. Despite some racial slurs from Southern civilians, most of the racism depicted in the film comes from white Union soldiers.
One of the main themes of the film is how the bravery and fighting prowess of the 54th causes many of these same white soldiers to reconsider their prejudices. A white Union soldier who directs racist remarks against Black troops earlier in the film is later heard cheering them on: “Give ‘em hell, 54th!” A title at the end suggests it was the courage of the 54th that caused Congress to authorize the raising of Black soldiers throughout the Union, with Lincoln later crediting them for turning the tide of the war.
Broderick may have top billing, but the bigger impact comes from the actors playing soldiers in the 54th—some of whom would later rank among Hollywood’s leading stars. A young Denzel Washington stands out for his performance as Private Silas Trip, lighting up the screen with the charisma that paved the way for his eventual A-list status and earning a well-deserved Oscar. Morgan Freeman also shines as Sergeant Major John Rawlins. Other standout performers include Cary Elwes, Andre Braugher and Jihmi Kennedy.
While it offered a different perspective on the Civil War, Glory remains in some ways a product of its time. The fact that the story is told primarily through the eyes of a white officer is in part due to the screenwriters drawing on Shaw’s letters as a source. But one could argue that it was also a concession to an industry more accustomed to white protagonists. The Confederates have minimal presence in the film, which may again be part of an effort to avoid alienating the perceived sensibilities of Southern audiences. Whatever the motivation of the producers, it ultimately results in a more nuanced presentation of the war than might be expected.
The real meaning of the U.S. Civil War was as the Second American Revolution, which evolved over its course into a revolutionary war to end slavery. Though it would be easy to simply portray the racism of the Confederates—who, after all, were fighting to preserve the unspeakable evil of chattel slavery—the film shows that racism was also rife within the Union ranks. Many of the Union soldiers had little concern for the plight of African-Americans.
Viewers under the sway of trendy ideas such as postmodernism, identity politics, and critical race theory might single out the racism of white Union troops as one of the film’s more honest qualities. Those same individuals, however, might criticize the film for telling its story primarily through the eyes of a white character. One of the main tenets of ideologies such as critical race theory is a fundamentally pessimistic view that sees racism as inherent, the product of internal beliefs rather than material conditions. It suggests we can never really solve racism.
For those whose worldview is based on historical materialism, on the other hand, racism is a product of capitalism. Racism began as an ideological justification for slavery and colonialism, and continues as a favoured tool of the bourgeoisie to divide the working class. If, as Malcolm X said, “You can’t have capitalism without racism,” then by ending capitalism we can end the conditions that breed racism. In contrast to the pessimism of liberal identity politics, Marxists believe it is possible to overcome racism by transforming the material conditions that cause racism to persist.
All this is to say that I found Glory to be inspiring in its depiction of how white Union soldiers were able to overcome their prejudice and gain respect for their Black comrades. Nowadays it’s popular among the liberal establishment to mock the very idea that racism can be overcome in this way; just think of the outcry from many establishment liberals a few years back when Green Book won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Well, if they don’t like a film like Glory, they’re missing out. This is a great movie with an outstanding cast, well-done battle scenes, a fine score by James Horner, and an inspiring story of Black troops fighting for freedom in a revolutionary war to end slavery. The film doesn’t have to hammer that message home for the viewer. To me, the scenes of the 54th regiment marching past admiring Black civilians—particularly Black children, symbolizing their hope for a better future—says more than enough.
These men overcame slavery and racism to fight a truly just war for the freedom of their people and future generations. Hard to think of a story more inspiring than that.