Andersonville (1995)
WB DVD (region 4)
d. John Frankenheimer; pr. Lansing L. Smith, David W. Rintels; scr. David W. Rintels; ph. Ric Waite; m. Gary Chang; ed. Paul Rubell; cast. Frederic Forrest, Jarrod Emick, Frederick Coffin, Jan Triska, Ted Marcoux, Carmen Argenziano, Cliff de Young, William Sanderson, (167 mins)
Director John Frankenheimer is mostly remembered for his work in the early 1960s with such classics as Birdman of Alcatraz and The Manchurian Candidate.
Sadly, his fortunes declined in the subsequent decades so that by the mid 1980s many critics considered his work to have irrevocably coarsened. Though he still made features, these were unsuccessful. With offers drying up, he turned to television to helm a number of superior telemovies that revitalized his career. Having been one of the most celebrated of directors of live television in the 1950s Frankenheimer was familiar with drama for the small screen. He found that with contemporary television features now shot similar to films he could combine his experience in both fields. The resultant telemovies – Against the Wall, The Burning Season, Andersonville, George Wallace and the recent Path to War (completed shortly before his death) – were amongst the medium’s most honoured and respected recent works. The most elaborate of these was the mini-series he did for Turner Entertainment, the lavish Andersonville, producer Ted Turner’s ostensible follow-up to his Civil War drama Gettysburg. Andersonville was for a while considered for possible cinema release although Frankenheimer insisted it was better suited to a two-night television event, which is how it was originally screened, both parts being combined without intermission for the DVD release.
This mini-series is an American Civil War prisoner of war drama recreating the atrocious conditions that greeted Union prisoners in the Confederate camp known as Andersonville, barely supplied at a time when the Confederates were losing the war and running out of their own supplies.
Andersonville is a staggering achievement. The sheer logistics are impressive, the prison being constructed on 9 acres of a 15 acre total set.
The actual landscape of the camp is recreated faithfully (including a putrid creek that ran through the camp in which men bathed, drank and cooked) as are the details that made life so unbearable – in harsh weather, there were no shelters in a camp initially built for 8,000 men but holding 36,000 at its peak, and claiming 12,000 deaths in over a year of the camp’s existence. But whilst the conditions are so deplorable and life so debilitating, the film holds onto the possibility of honour and dignity even in such conditions. Indeed Frankenheimer has made a number of fascinating prison films and here uses the context of a military prison to probe an unusual dialectic, contrasting the ignoble suffering and futility of wartime conditions with the nobility of endurance – the paradox a driving dramatic and thematic force throughout the film’s length. In this scheme the real enemy is not the South (however brutal they were) but the Raiders, fellow prisoners who have forsaken humanity, honour and dignity to become predatory animals, making a mockery of the nobility in suffering around them. The triumph of the survivors is that they refuse to let their innate human decency be stripped away. Disease, starvation and freezing cold may all take their toll but humanity will continue.
As usual for Frankenheimer the physical endurance test is, for those who do not despair, the entrance into a higher level of self-awareness. Underlying both this fortitude and thus the dramatization of endurance is the hope for catharsis, the need for history to have relevance.
As powerful as the better known Gettysburg, Andersonville is, despite its hope, ultimately a bleaker experience: for under Frankenheimer’s direction, the prisoner of war camp becomes a kind of American Auschwitz (hence the use of the train to transport prisoners), an expression of the depths of human capability but ironically also thus of the so-called triumph of the spirit to overcome suffering. The inter-relationship of physical misery and psychological despair is explored as Frankenheimer is interested in the almost transforming nature of suffering – in the fate of the Raiders thus is there the hope for a kind of collective moral transcendence, that men will not sacrifice their innate human values or sense of justice, nor condone inhumanity. Whatever the purpose and unfairness of war there is a nobility in painful endurance that has always appealed to this director and here finds its most elaborate realization: in this suffering, there is ultimately meaning. With telling detail and characterization Frankenheimer has made a searing historical document and a fresh demonstration of the television mini-series format at its potential finest. The result is a truly memorable work.
DVD DETAILS:
Vision
The 16:9 enhanced widescreen visual transfer is for the most part exquisite, capturing the enormity of the production, the richness of the production values and the cinematographic challenge posed by such enormity of scale. The camp has a presence throughout the film, with people moving constantly in the background, ever more slowly as conditions worsen. Although always intended for the small screen it is nevertheless in 1:85:1 widescreen format and Frankenheimer has stated that he filmed it as he would a feature, without compromising the compositional sense but for aspect ratio – thus, there is often an incredible depth to the images and the film manages a sense of visual spectacle using literally thousands of extras in vivid and complex scenes. Perhaps the most stunning aspect is the steadicam work taking the viewer regularly through the full depth of the camp. It is in the succession of steadicam shots that the deterioration in the camp and its people becomes evident. Perpetually muddy, there is an overwhelming physicality to this mini-series, especially as the signs of physical disease are ever more visible in the increasingly gaunt faces. The gradual degeneration thus achieved is potent. Firelights are impressive and the camerawork always has immediacy despite some truly minor definition issues and evident aliasing. Gritty realism is the hallmark of this elaborate and affecting production.
Sound
The sound transfer is equally impressive and a true standout amongst works essentially designed for the small screen. Available in a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 transfer, it often has a vibrant spatial dimension and the constant background activity in the camp itself always has an auditory counterpart. Presence is thus well sustained. In this, the riot scene becomes an almost necessary release of explosive energies and resentments and is a vibrant aural experience, fully utilizing the home theatre sound space to capture the chaos in such cathartic actions. Suitably, the riot is a purifying event in the film. Voices are always crisp and nicely struggle to stand out, the desperation and resignation increasingly evident in their tones. The details of rainfall and of walking through the muddy camp are authentically rendered. Just as the camp is alive and initially quite bustling so does the audio design grow more ominous as the situation deteriorates: the score is of an almost epic melancholia, always complementing the thematic and dramatic stresses on the fight for endurance and honour. Despite the background activity the main dialogue is always audible, alluding to a technically superior mixing job – television at its highest professional level. Isolated sounds stand out – single bullet shots breaking the calm on regular occasions – and much is made of the odd, eccentric villains played by Triska and Coffin.
Special Features
As befitting a production with such clear aspirations there are numerous special features including two feature-length commentary tracks. There is a cast and crew list as well as a deleted scene (with director commentary) of the only female presence in this mini-series. The commentary track by director Frankenheimer gives additional background details, production logistics and elaborates on his filming intentions and methods. It covers the use of Civil War re-enactors (also a feature on Gettysburg), the budget constraints and computer effects, the script changes (including the removal of a voice-over), the meticulous attention to researched detail and characterization, the prominence of the set in every shot and the use of wide angle lenses and camera movement. The director also talks of his thematic interest in the nobility in endurance and the indomitability of the human spirit. He talks of the influence of John Ford, the use of real vs. stylized time and the idea of camera improvisation as well as his staging of the group scenes and his dislike for MTV style fast-cutting or standard master shot methods. He also gives some background into Czech actor Jan Triska and his excellent scene with William H. Macy (a standout in the mini-series). He also talks of how he had to reshoot some important material from the trial scene some nine months later after footage was lost, and match the shots accordingly.
The second commentary track (by the writer, producer, editor, costume designer and a military historian) elaborates on a number of these points and further caters to the individual contribution of the speaker and their concern for the authenticity of the production details. Covered is the thematic interest in characters who did not surrender to despair or to their baser needs, the intricacies of lighting such a large set and of staging the many elaborate steadicam shots that Frankenheimer preferred throughout. There are further anecdotes and much of it seems a tribute to the recently deceased director and the continued longevity of his works in film and television as benchmarks, mention made of his fondness for larger-than-life villains and the technical aspects of his auteurship (especially in his preference for the distinctive look of wide angle lenses and cameras placed very close to their subjects whilst maintaining a clear depth of field). The lost footage problems are elaborated upon also. There is greater attention to the casting process, the costuming hassles and the makeup techniques, rounding out the informative features. Incidentally, there were also additional DVD-Rom features and links on the review disc, requiring a software download, although it is unclear if these will be standard on the sell-through edition as well – no mention has been made of them elsewhere.
