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| 12/20/2003 |
| Cold Mountain: What's so Civil About War Anyway? |
A Movie Review
by Wes Bennett
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“Cold Mountain,” writer-director Anthony Minghella’s (“The Talented Mr. Ripley”) big screen adaptation of Charles Frazier's Civil War novel, is a somber, affecting epic that depicts hope amid great brutality, by inflicting large amounts of drama, conflict and tragedy on the audience.
While the film is surrounded by a minimalist love story, the bulk of the film is divided between the episodic tales of a soldier's survival and the struggles of the woman he left behind across the war ravaged back country of America. The primary theme seems to be that war is hell and leads to hardship and tragedy that have repercussions that reverberate much further than the battlefield.
In rural Cold Mountain, a young worker Inman (Jude Law) falls for the beautiful Ada (Nicole Kidman). When war breaks out nearly every able bodied male leaves town. Ada pledges to wait for him and never stops writing letters. Because their time together was was brief, their memories of each other are few but all the more precious and potent for the thoughts and hopes of what could have been.
Ada's minister-father’s (Donald Sutherland) sudden death leaves Ada overwhelmed by a farm that she has no idea how to tend. Slowly falling into despair, she plead with Inman to stop fighting and return to Cold Mountain.
Inman has fully realized the horror and futility of carnage as many of his friends and neighbors from home are slaughtered. After Inman is severely wounded and hospitalized, he chooses the dangerous life of an Army deserter and attempts to journey back to Ada.
Back in Cold Mountain, Ada is helped out by a tenacious local woman named Ruby (Renee Zellweger), who uses her earthy common sense to engineer the farm back to a productive state. Together, they must battles loneliness, starvation, and fend off the local Home Guard, led by a treacherous Teague (Ray Winstone) and his blond-haired henchman Bosie (Charlie Hunnam).
During the passage of seasons and the endless hardships Ada and Inman endure, we are introduced to dozens of characters all caught up in the crossfire of war, with vivid chapters of their own to contribute.
“Cold Mountain” emphasizes the hardships of the families and women who were left behind who suffered in their own way as their husbands and brothers died on the battle field. With almost all of the young men gone, women were left with their children with little to defend themselves against threatening soldiers and wandering mobs searching for deserters.
Combat scenes early in the film, often shot tightly to emphasize the chaos of murderous hand-to-hand fighting in mud, bring home the unfathomable carnage of the Civil War. We are spared the patriotic rhetoric of politicians and leaders and instead are plunged headfirst into a bloody and horrific battle. These scenes rival the opening sequence of “Saving Private Ryan” where the dominating emotions were fear and confusion.
Nicole Kidman looks distractingly gorgeous for the period and her character's dire situation, but she does capture the yearning and hopes of a young woman waiting years for her soldier to return from an increasingly senseless war.
While Jude Law is at times cool and remote, he makes you feel a soldier's war weariness and determination to walk home from the battlefield. He has seen the horrors of war and it has numbed or even killed a part of him.
While all three of the leads give good performances, it is Zellweger who has the most showy part. As Ruby, she completely disappears into the character of the feisty farm girl who rescues Kidman's helpless gentlewoman. Audiences will find her charming and funny, but a bit over the top at times. Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic as a disgraced, lusty clergyman, who’s presence is a definite high point.
This film is very successful in it’s colorful assortment of characters that we meet as Inman journeys across the country, as well as it’s hard hitting antiwar themes. What is less developed is the love between Inman and Ana. I would definitely put the film on the same level as “Master and Commander” and “The Last Samurai.” It succeeds in capturing a definitive time in American history and it’s arguably more dramatic in the amount that the characters have to suffer.
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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| 5 |
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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