Preview

Edward Zwick's Film Glory

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
625 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Edward Zwick's Film Glory
In Edward Zwick’s 1989 drama motion picture named “Glory”, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a veteran of the Battle of Antietam, commands the United States’ first all African-American regiment in the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. The infantry originally performs menial tasks, however soon after is placed in the heat of battle to fight for the Union. The film explores certain themes that were prevalent during the Civil War such as equality, human worth and essentiality. As slaves began to become free by the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, the issue of value and importance in an unequal system became evident. Glory’s ability to explore the inequalities of lifestyle between colored regiments and white regiments

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Company Aytch is a book that depicts the idealistic memory of a young confederate of the Civil War named Sam Watkins. Some historians articulate towards Watkins having insufficiency of precise facts and sometimes alteration or exaggeration on certain issues. (Watkins & Inge, Introduction) However, it is important to appreciate that Sam Watkins was a survivor that has revealed his recollection of the battles as he has experienced them, and although some may believe his memory has some deficiencies he has a real life testimony that cannot be too farfetched from the reality of the life of a soldier during the Civil War. Sam Watkins was born on the 26th day of June on his father’s farm in Columbia Tennessee where he worked during his youth. There is not much told about other work experiences other than Sam working as a clerk in a local store until he enlisted with Company H of the First Tennessee Infantry in the year of 1861. Sam was only 21 years old, a young confederate, and at this time many signs of war were uprising between the North and the South. (Watkins & Inge, Introduction). His entry is the beginning of the memoirs told by Sam Watkins, an ordinary soldier, not of any high rank, which indeed gives the reader another perspective of the reality of the battles faced during the Civil War. Furthermore, it broadens the view of the emotional triumph a frontline soldier and what they went through rather than focusing on the higher ranking officers. Watkins tells in great detail his experiences and writes of his historical remembrances years later, but he never hides the fact that he is writing solely on his memory and what he saw. In addition to him repeatedly reminding the reader that he writes of his recollections only, he also reminds the reader that what he writes is true. Furthermore, he encourages the reader to refer to history for other historical facts. Later in the report I will tell of an occurrence that…

    • 1178 Words
    • 34 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Glory is defined as being highly renowned, magnificent, or honored by excellent achievements. By definition, the 54th regime exhibited glory more than the rest of the Union army. These men were paid less, threatened with their lives, wrongfully treated, neglected of proper gear, and not allowed to reach their highest military rank, yet they still rose to every occasion to fight for the Union, to win their true freedom, and reunite a country that had kept the African-American people in the shadows.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Glory Review

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Glory was a movie that was filmed in 1989 where it written by Kevin Jarre and was based on the personal letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Glory was mainly about the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which was the first actual US Army that is compromised of only African American men. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was the commanding officer during the American Civil War. He was also the son of an influential abolitionist. Also Glory portrayed many African American who had volunteered for the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Joseph Miller, a former slave, enlisted in the Union army under the promise from the federal government that his family would be given food, shelter, and clothing, in exchange for his service as an enlisted soldier.21 However, when Union soldiers ordered his family to leave the tent they occupied, Miller wrote he “told him [a soldier] that I was a soldier of the United States. He told that it did not make any difference.”22 These types of empty promises made by the Union government were only slightly referenced in the film, such as the pay of African American men, $10, versus white soldiers, $13.23 Downs writes about these empty promises in his essay, stating, “the military often fail[ed] to pay black soldiers, or paid them less than promised.”24 This is seen slightly in the film, however, the film portrayed it as a one-time occurrence, rather than a continuous pattern of failing to pay…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    April 1861, the first month of the Civil War, Alfred M. Green gave a speech to his fellow African Americans striving to break the “race barrier”. Green’s purpose was persuading the African American to join the Union forces, because of their love for their country. He creates a compelling yet passionate tone to convey the idea that races should join through the use of diction and repetition.…

    • 363 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Glory Film Analysis

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the film, Glory, the director made specific choices in editing the scenes in how we are meant to see it. He wanted for us to understand and capture what he was trying to accomplish in said scenes. Music and sound is used to capture our attention and focus on the scene that is currently being shown. The director made choices to place music and sound in specific moments when there is dialog or without. Music and sound is to help us as viewers to understand truly what is going on and how we are to take from the scene. The techniques weren’t anything new or special like other films such as Citizen Kane but the director made a huge impact with simple cinematography.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In this book, the professor conveys major points throughout the Civil War that have been given scant attention, which America herself had previously tried to keep hidden. Professors name exposes the class warfare between rich planters and common folk or “plain folk”, and the economic injustice the planters forced upon the starving men and women on the home front and war front (14). Women fought for their families’ survival, equal rights, and became spies in both armies. Volunteers and conscripted men demanded respect, but the affluent brass ignored any cries and used them for their own economic interest. The professor emphasizes how the actions of deserters and draft evaders had previously been condemned by other Civil War documents and gives justice for their desertion. The spirit and resentment the soldiers and civilians had towards the elites are shown throughout the book as what they perceived as a “rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight” (75). The professor detailed how African Americans fought for their freedom long before Lincoln “emancipated” them and how Lincoln continually showed a vague attitude towards them, and brought light to the fact of the military reasoning for the Emancipation Proclamation. Professor elucidates how Native Americans were continually disposed, massacred, and ripped from their land with no adequate repayment. This book broadens history’s contracted lens by sharing fascinating firsthand accounts of the war and the overall consensus most Americans felt.…

    • 3571 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.”…

    • 1057 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movie “Glory” discloses the story and history behind the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. This infantry became the first black unit to fight in the Civil War for the North. The unit was formed up of black soldiers; some Northern freemen, and some were slaves that had escaped. The leader was General Robert Gould Shaw, the son of one of the top Boston abolitionists. The men of the 54th Regiment proved themselves worthy of the freedom for which they were fighting for and to gain the respect of their fellow white soldiers they fought with. Although the white soldiers fought along their fellow Black soldiers, there were often discrepancies in communication and treatment, that led to character development throughout the movie.…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Roman Quintilian Rhetoric

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Through the emotional and ideological power of his rhetoric, Lincoln’s speech not only inspires Union soldiers to create a free and just world, but also reinvigorates this intrinsically human struggle for moral progress within responders from any context. The allusions to the Declaration of Independence at the onset of the speech, with the direct quote of the iconic line “all men are created equal”, immediately appeals to the human desire for Liberty, and a yearning for the values of freedom and equality to emerge in the world is immediately felt by both Union troops and future responders. Lincoln further utilises the anti-thesis, “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here”, to raise permanent and everlasting images of sacrifice for the ideals which his symbolic nation represents- freedom and equality- inspiring all audiences to similarly fight for moral progress. The epistrophe of ‘people’ in “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” re-enforces the image of human liberation. Combined with the juxtaposition of the moralistic ‘perish’ with the idea of ‘birth’, Lincoln simultaneously inspires and burdens Union troops to persevere in defending the nation- a living, evolving and ever-changing…

    • 1181 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Toussaint L'Overature

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the 1861 essay by Wendell Phillips, the author uses poignt, relevant alusions coupled with powerful selection of detail to reassure Northern Americans reluctant to allowing African Americans to join the military that the African American community is more than competent to defend their own freedom and to demonstrate to the African Americans willing to join that they are to be seen as no less than a regulation soldier.…

    • 401 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    why the war came

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Why the War Came: The Sectional Struggle over Slavery in the TerritorieLincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era: David Herbert ...…

    • 1105 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Among the other prominent facts profiled in the series are: Harriet Tubman, Richard Allen, Frederick Douglass, Robert Smalls, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Oscar Micheaux, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ruby Bridges, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Maulana Karenga, Colin Powell, etc. This film result in meaning to the filmmaker that there’s no America without African Americans. The structure of this film helps you understand that African Americans are…

    • 387 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The State of Virginia embodies the Founding Fathers, the American Revolution and the nation by symbolically demonstrating the beauty of the union. But similarly to the State of Virginia, the sense of American Nationality is flawed because of the institution of slavery. Using Jeffersonian rhetoric, abolitionist Fredrick Douglass’ “Heroic Slave” transforms white attitudes through his promotion for solidarity, activism and resistance.…

    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Gallant Charge

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the portrait, the figure of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw is deeply exaggerated as he is shown to be fatally wounded and even collapsing on the battlefield on top of another deeply exaggerated portion of the image which is the immensely tall sandbagged defense of the Confederates. The illustration of the colonel was quite strategic in that he was placed in the most noticeable place within the image. Through the way he is shown to die as well as in the position that he did, portrays him as a “brave soul” or “hero” who died a “glorious death”. The depiction of this kind of death served to work as a “powerful symbol of the nobility of the abolitionist cause” (Wilson 326). The immense inequality of blacks was still present as shown through how Colonel Shaw, a prominent white figure, was placed on an illustrative pedestal in an image that was meant to be commemorating the valor of the war. Blacks were always meant to be in a place of inferiority; victims of white…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays