Repeat: Movies is movies, history is history

Just received a letter from a reader. I pass it on unedited: “I recently read your review on line of the Cold Mountain movie. Since The American Civil war has been a passion of mine for 30 years and I’ve read 150 different books on the subject. This movie although fiction had a very factual description of the crater incident, which cost the lives of several thousand Yankee troops. Your reviewer only gave it 2 stars and if I had gone by their review would not have attended the movie, but instead went anyway and found the acting superb, Nicole Kidman turning in an Oscar winning performance. Sometimes I wonder when your reviewers aren’t from the South, they don’t really understand the desvastation that war caused on the people of the south both white and African American, a condition that the south is only starting to recover from in the last 30 years.”

My response: My editor passed on your comments regarding my review of “Cold Mountain.” First of all, thanks for the comments. It’s nice to know that people are reading.

I want you to know that I do understand the kinds of problems that the Civil War caused in the South. I’ve lived in both Texas and Virginia — back in the days of segregation, mind you — and I’ve traveled through every other southern state. So I’m familiar with both the history of the war and the culture of the people who lived, and still live, there.

But you’re mixing up issues involving real life with the artistic representation of that life. I have no problems with the way that Anthony Minghella represents the war, nor even with how Charles Frazier does it in his novel. Both Minghella and Frazier go to great pains to show both the horror that confronted both the soldiers who fought and the unfortunate civilians who go caught up between the warring sides.

Still, I think that the movie is too long, that the performances are melodramatic and that Minghella makes the same mistake that Frazier did in his novel: He takes his protagonist through the worst the war has to offer just to kill him off in the most meaningless way imaginable. It’s said that Frazier based his novel on a blending of two sources: “The Odyssey” and the real-life fate of one of his own ancestors. Well, Frazier’s ancestor went through nothing similar to what Inman endured, so any “real-life” similarity is merely suggestive, not illustrative. And as for “The Odyssey,” Homer’s whole point was that Ulysses both made it home alive and vanquished Penelope’s so-called suitors. So you can scratch that, too.

I’m sure a case can be made for Frazier. His book, after all, did win the National Book Award. But it would be an arguable point at best. That’s the nature of art. It isn’t science any more than it is literal history.

Anyway, thanks again for writing.