I task each and every one of you to find a better Civil War film than Glory. You can’t do it. Maybe Lincoln comes close, but still pales in comparison to this rich story of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, even with a great performance from Daniel Day-Lewis. What Glory does that most slavery-centered movies don’t is round out the Black characters. Typically, the plot is a Black person trying to escape the tyranny of their master, and so strongly are their convictions to escape that there is no further characterization beyond that. However, in Glory, the slave emancipation storyline is broadened to the scope of the entire Civil War. And each character that makes up the 54th has their own personality. Rawlins is a wise and diplomatic older man whose demeanor gets him promoted. Even though he doesn’t want it, he accepts the promotion because he knows he can be used for the betterment of the regiment. Trip is an angry young man, who lashes out at everyone, including his fellow Black soldiers just to try and make himself feel better. Thomas is a well-educated and articulate freeman who is somewhat ostracized from the others because he walks and talks like a White man. Despite his own freedom, he fights just as determined as the others for the sake of them all.

Captain Robert Gould Shaw is promoted to colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first all-black regiment in the Union army. He appoints his friend Cabot Forbes as his second-in-command. They receive a group of volunteers that includes the men I mentioned above. Thomas is Shaw’s family secretary, so they are already well-acquainted. The Confederacy issues a response to the Emancipation Proclamation claiming they will capture any Black men fighting for the Union and enslave or kill them, as well as many White men charged over them. Other problems plague the regiment. Trip seemingly deserts and is returned and flogged. Shaw learns from Rawlins that Trip was not deserting, he was only going to find shoes, something the 54th in particular has been denied. Shaw confronts the quartermaster and gets the regiment shoes. The federal government makes it clear that the Black soldiers will not be paid as much as the White soldiers. Trip leads a protest by convincing everyone to tear up their payment vouchers. Shaw tears his up as well and declares the White officers will not take payment either until the dispute is settled. Shaw works to finally get his regiment to see combat. The regiment is sent to Fort Wagner to capture it for the Union.

Glory is an intense, thrilling war movie and it contains many staples of that genre: excellent camera work, powerful and emotional score, and great performances. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington, as well Andre Braugher (Captain Raymond Holt of Brooklyn’s 99th Precinct) in his first film role. Denzel Washington not only received awards for his performance as the hot-headed Trip, but he also turned into a household name, nearly overnight. Morgan Freeman was already known to some for his work on The Electric Company, but he also had a big year in 1989 between Glory, Driving Miss Daisy, and Lean On Me, which certainly increased his stardom.

Glory is a powerful film. It is an important film, because it is an important story in our nation’s history that doesn’t often get told.

Bonus Review: Mudbound

It feels like an eternity ago, but there was a brief time in history where Netflix tried with its original programming. The very first Netflix Original Movie was Beasts of No Nation – a story about a child soldier in an African civil war – for crying out loud. Mudbound, also based on a novel, deals with themes of surviving PTSD, racism in the South, and generational sins. Quite a step up from The Noel Diary.

Henry McAllen is conned out of renting a home and must take his wife, Laura, their children and his father, Pappy, to live next to the Jacksons near Marietta, Mississippi. Hap Jackson is a Black tenant farmer and a preacher at a nearby church. He and his wife, Florence, do what they can to provide for their family. Henry’s brother, Jamie, and the Jackson’s eldest son, Ronsel, enlist in the military to fight in World War II. The two families work together to stay afloat, financially, but at the encouragement of Pappy, Henry pushes for an edge over the Jacksons, demanding half of the Jackson’s crop for the use of his mule. Hap breaks his leg while building a church and is unable to work. Laura sneaks some of Henry’s money to them to keep the Jacksons going until Hap can get back on his feet, but this further sours the already loveless McAllen marriage.

Ronsel and Jamie return from the war and develop a friendship. Jamie, however, medicates his PTSD with alcohol and Ronsel deals with increased racial disdain. Because of Jamie’s alcoholism, Henry demands that he leave the farm before Henry returns from a trip. Ronsel receives a letter from a White German woman he fell in love with while overseas, along with a photo of her and the mixed-race child they conceived. Jamie and Laura grow close while Henry is away, keeping Jamie from leaving the farm. Pappy finds the letter from Ronsel’s love and with the help of his friends in the Ku Klux Klan, they ambush and beat Ronsel within an inch of his life. When Jamie shows up and sees the state Ronsel is in, he points a gun at his father. However, he is immediately restrained and beaten as well. Pappy makes Jamie choose what sensitive part of Ronsel’s body he will lose or they will kill him and a dejected Jamie picks his tongue. Later that night, Jamie returns to the farm and smothers Pappy with a pillow. When Henry returns home, Laura tells him that Pappy died in his sleep. Henry and Jamie struggle to bury Pappy the next day, and Henry asks Hap to help them as the Jacksons are leaving. Jamie also gives the Jacksons the letter and photo of Ronsel’s lover and child to return to him. Jamie moves to the city and Ronsel returns to Germany.

As Pappy is buried, Hap says a prayer over the grave and quotes the following passage from the Book of Job:

He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; Turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day. For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up: So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.