Andersonville

Generally these TNT original productions are nothing what one could call spectacular. This film from John Frankenheimer however is one of the better ones. A tale of imprisonment and survival inside the notorious Confederate POW camp known as Andersonville. Civil War historians would probably with certainty find various historical inaccuracies but it is worth viewing although a tad on the long side. Good performances from many of the cast but it seems Frederick Coffin and William Sanderson do the best job as two of the ring leaders of the camps vicious "Raiders" gang. A must see for any Civil War fan.

John Frankenheimer pain stakingly chronicles prisoners of war struggling to survive in an ill run Confederate prison camp during the Civil War. New prisoners are savagely introduced to the pecking order in this small pit of hell. Strong images support the story line for this well written and produced epic. Featured cast members in this trial of humanity are:Frederic Forrest, William Sanderson, Jarrod Emick, Jayce Bartok, Cliff De Young, Justin Henry and William H. Macy. It is hard to find fault in this glimpse of the notorious place called Andersonville.

The movie Andersonville was one of intense drama. The historical subject matter made the film all the more pertinent to society today. Man against Man, Brother against Brother. That is what the Civil War was, and Andersonville was its worst. Men treating other men like animals and game for sport. The utter despair. The terrible suffering.

Andersonville is set during the Civil War, in the south, in a Prisoner Of War camp run by the Confederate Army. The story depicts the conditions of suffering that the Union soldiers endured while held captive. The best and the worst of humanity is shown in this film as the viewer is shown all ends of the spectrum of pain and suffering.

Peter Murnik's character, Limber Jim, was the voice of conscience in this film. Jim was the one who finally stood up to the injustice that other Union soldiers were enacting against their fellows. It was Jim who rallied the troops to a riot to stop the "Raiders" from continuing their carnage. Not a single 'Peter' scene went by without the viewer sensing the intensity. He portrayed it in his face, in his demeanor and most of all, in his eyes. In this film, Peter said so much without uttering a word. The look he gave in his eyes told the viewer the intensity of his feelings. His determination. His desire to see the wrongs righted. In a sense, Limber Jim was one of the saviours of this film. His standing up to the injustice he witnessed and lived through, enabled his fellow prisoners to also rise up and change the world around them, as small as it was.

In spite of the fact that this was a film and an artistic production, the real Andersonville shone through. The viewer came away knowing the despair that the Union soldiers felt and lived. There was no question that humanity, as a whole, had been wronged by the cruelty that took place at Andersonville. The human race came away from Andersonville worse off for having realized that we could fall so far from the very civilization we pride ourselves on creating to treat other fellow human beings the way the Union soldiers were treated.

Andersonville actually existed, and does so today as a Federal Park and tourist attraction. This movie is a very good link in telling the tale that so many never got to tell. The actors, staff and crew of Andersonville did such a magnificent job that anyone seeing this movie will know what it was like to have been there. They will know the suffering, the pain, the disease, the despair. The cast and crew are to be applauded for their efforts.

In his bio, Peter lists Andersonville as one of the projects he is most proud of. And, well he should be. He did an excellent performance and is to be commended. It will go down as one of the favorites with his fans. Once again, Peter's genius comes shining through.

At first I thought this might be an anti-confederate propaganda piece. While I am sure some of it was exaggerated. Like in most wars both sides had people who enjoyed others suffering. The real life camp commander was hung after the war for good reason. As you will see in the film. His bad behavior and cruelty is a crux of the plot. In that he gravitated to the role due to a personality that liked inflicting un-neccesary suffering on captured soldiers in a war (not criminals).

With the dynamic of the film not just being Confederates against Yankies, also the element of the unprincipled 'Raiders'. Essentially a civil war era prison capo, given favorable treatment to boss the camp for the confederates.

One of my favorite moments in the film is when a raider who is to reveal the location of a tunnel is dealt with. This part is one of those where you look away and look back. Won't say more on that cos it would spoil it.

It's not the best action film. But as a story this is great. The personality of the prisoners is portrayed superbly by a largely green cast (in 1996). It is important that you can empathise with the characters and that is done brilliantly here and probably why I would give it an 8 and not a 7. Matinee.

This is a sobering, if perhaps a bit too long, recreation of life in the notorious Confederate Camp Sumter (better known as Andersonville after the neighbouring community) which housed almost 50000 Union prisoners of war during the last year and a half of the Civil War. I found it difficult to determine from what perspective the story was being told - which perhaps makes it a fairly balanced movie. There's no doubt that the Confederate guards were portrayed as ruthless, and that Captain Henry Wirtz, the Camp's commander, was portrayed as both ruthless and perhaps a bit insane, but the bulk of the movie really deals with the problem of factionalism between the Union prisoners, as a group known as the "Raiders" establish their own ruthless control over the other prisoners, stealing from them, withholding supplies from them and sometimes murdering them. The first half of the movie dealt largely with this internal conflict, and was very interesting. The point at which the rest of the prisoners rebelled against them and finally, with Wirtz's approval, put them on trial, seemed to mark a transition in the movie. After their trial and the execution of the ringleaders, the movie took on more of an air of hopelessness (and perhaps became a bit less interesting), as the prisoners await a liberation that, in the movie at least, never comes, as the movie ends with the prisoners being transferred to other prisons.

The movie begins somewhat abruptly with Union soldiers captured in battle being sent into the hellhole that was Andersonville, but there was no real historical context given. It might have been more interesting to see the camp from the beginning, and to trace the descent of the camp into what it became. The whole Andersonville issue is historically controversial, and the movie alludes to the controversy, with Wirtz pleading with a Confederate colonel sent to inspect the camp for more supplies, and many today think Wirtz was unfairly condemned after the war for a situation that was largely out of his control. I thought his portrayal in the movie was fair. Others complain that conditions in Union camps were also harsh, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of evaluating this movie, which certainly presented a sobering enough look at the conditions in this particular camp - which was, after all, its purpose.

The movie features not a stellar cast (there are some fairly well known faces, but no mega-stars) but a solid cast that did a pretty good job with their roles. 7/10