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Not enough superlatives to describe it.
by ElizabethS (movies profile)
Mar 25, 2007
54
of
61 people found this review helpful
I loved Cold Mountain when I read it a couple of years ago. The story is based upon the author's own family history, and it's one of the few Civil War era books I have read which is consonant with what I know from family and local history. I hesitated to see the movie, because I couldn't stand to have the book spoiled. Yet this movie truly did justice to the book.
Knowing the area and its history as I do, I am extremely hard to please when it comes to Civil War movies. Most portray every Southerner as a slaveowner, never touch upon what those left behind were forced to endure, and never look at any other area beyond the Deep South. What movies ever include the mountains generally portray the people -- inaccurately -- as ignorant hicks instead of the resourceful, iron-willed people they really were. They were not Tidewater self-styled aristocrats, but neither were they cartoonish Beverly Hillbillies.
Cold Mountain remains true to the book upon which it is based. It examines an area of the South which had few slaves, where loyalties were bitterly and deeply divided and the strongest ties people had were to their families and to the land their families held. The people of this area descended from Scots and Irish who came specifically to own land they could not hope to hold under English rule. These people did not fight for a Cause; they fought because the land was in their blood and they didn't wish to lose it, and sometimes, they fought because they had no choice.
Even more rare for a film based in this period, Cold Mountain does an outstanding job of portraying the general lawlessness and hardships which those the soldiers left behind had to endure. It shows the death of a culture and a way of life, without ever once singing paeans of praise for rich planters and lavish plantations. Anyone seeing this can finally understand why the wounds of this war were so very deep and so very hard to heal. It had everything to do with land, internecine warfare and rampant greed, and nothing to do with slavery.
The attention to detail in this movie was astounding. Zellweger, Kidman and Law should be lauded for their mastery of accents and speech patterns alone. (The accent of an uppercrust Charlestonian is -not- the accent of the North Carolina mountain regions, and the more educated had entirely different speech patterns than the less educated.) The costuming and sets are dead on the money. The church scenes are unusually consonant with how services were generally conducted in those days, and continued to be conducted for years. Even the battle scenes are bitterly realistic, right down to the desperation of the men for food and the recycling of clothing and shoes from the slain.
The portrayal of the characters is superb. Portman (for a change) shows some real acting chops in her role as a widow on a lone homestead. Zellweger is perfect as the self-sufficient, independent Ruby. Kidman does an incredible job of showing the transition of Ada from a soft and sheltered belle to a strong and enduring woman. Law as Inman is simply superb - a taciturn, deeply devoted yet ordinary man who possesses his own stubborn brand of honor and courage.
Last but not least, the music is perfect. True mountain ballads, old religious music and Celtic-derived *old* bluegrass, absolutely true to the area and to the period. Anyone who knew enough to include 'Wayfaring Stranger' is someone who really did his or her homework on the area and its musical culture. This is one soundtrack that deserves an Academy Award.
If you do not see another movie this season, see Cold Mountain. It was one of the most profoundly moving, accurate and well-done stories of the period that I've ever seen, period.
P.S. Incidentally, to anyone doubting the historical accuracy of the land-grabbing captain of the Home Guard, I advise you to look up the history of the Eversole-French feud in southeastern Kentucky, a small but bitter war fought when the leader of the French clan (a lawyer) attempted similar property seizures from widows and non-Confederate families during this time period. Also, keep in mind that a lot of the outlaws of the Old West got their start in the latter days of the Civil War and the years just after it. Seeing this movie, one can see why. |
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