Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 5, 2015

History and its sibling channel H2 have never been shy about utilizing various gimmicks, bells and/or whistles to gussy up what is typically a fairly dry subject, namely history itself. And in a way, it’s hard to find fault with this strategy, for despite the thousands of years of recorded events which both History and H2 tend to cover, let’s face it: there are only so many really epochal incidents that both linked networks must almost by default cover stories they’ve already done (sometimes to death). And so some curmudgeons may approach Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color with more than the usual sense of foreboding and/or outright dismissal. After all, it’s one thing to build various documentaries around WWII in HD, for a little thing known as color film was actually in use during the 1930s and 1940s. Photography itself was in its relative infancy as the Civil War began, as Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color actually talks about in one of its first episodes, and so the subtitle of this multi-part series may seem like an intentional cheat, a kind of “come hither” advertising ploy that is going to result in silliness. Perhaps surprisingly, then, Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color actually manages to be one of the more cogent and compelling documentaries that History (and/or H2) has churned out, and this either despite the fact or because of the fact that the documentary has gone to the National Archives, retrieved scores of images from the Civil War era, and, yes, colorized them. While that tactic may just seem dunderheaded to some, it does manage to bring a bit more “life” to some of the old images. What’s actually more salient about this piece is that in reality it doesn’t need to rely on any gimmicks at all—the general information, along with History’s penchant for uncovering often fascinating little anecdotal tidbits, manages to make Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color uniquely compelling even putting aside any perceived gimmicks.

One of the first interesting factoids that Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color imparts is how this particular conflict entered the figurative living rooms of the general American populace in ways no previous battle had, courtesy of elements like newspapers and, yes, photographs. The visceral intensity of the Civil War actually took a while to fully penetrate into the body politic, or at least the collective psyche, and in fact the first episode details the almost mind boggling decision of some folks to trek on down to Manassas to witness the First Battle of Bull Run as (incredible as this may sound) almost a picnic celebration. The sheer horror of the mass casualties (including some picnickers, evidently) taught these particular “sight seers” that war was not an entertainment.

As tends to be the case with most of these interlinked networks’ offerings, there is a nonstop array of talking heads interspersed throughout the proceedings, along with quite a few historical reenactments. Occasionally, the series has been designed so that a “photograph” comes to life, though my hunch is some of these stills are actually not from archival sources and are just frozen frames from the footage. The talking head assortment is rather heady this time out, with participants like Generals Colin Powell and David Petraeus offering some “insider” insight into things like strategies. In what actually proves to be less problematic than it might sound at first, Richard Dreyfuss, evidently a Civil War geek of some long standing, is also on hand offering up occasionally wry anecdotes. Perhaps surprisingly, Ben Stein has relatively little really interesting information to impart.

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color hits most of the major data points of the epochal conflict, offering sidebars that deal with everything from the ironclads (and some of the first submarines), to field amputations (some of the statistics involving states’ budgets and prosthetic limbs are truly mind boggling), to some of the political machinations surrounding Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Perhaps ironically, some of this miniseries’ most compelling, if also rather sad, content deals with life for African Americans after the Civil War. The tragedy of Lincoln’s assassination and how that exacerbated fractures which he was trying desperately to mend is presented as a contextual wrap around that helps to explain some of the backroom strategies employed by whites in power after the War’s end. The central issue of a large segment of the United States citizenry being (further) denied their rights is a rather interesting way for part of this miniseries to wrap up, and perhaps offers a clue as to a subject History or H2 could delve into further.

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color is presented on Blu-ray by a consortium including History, H2 and Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As with many such History undertakings, elements have been sourced from a variety of different stocks and formats, and the result is sometimes a bit of a hodgepodge from a homogeneity standpoint. Contemporary interview segments look sharp and appealing, with a good, natural looking palette and abundant fine detail even in what are often midrange setups. Reenactments have been tweaked quite a bit in post to look "distressed", and therefore sharpness is highly variable at times. The stills which are the ostensible "reason" for the documentary are limited in their detail, as befits their archival provenance, and while the addition of color is never overly fake looking (a lot of the photographs end up looking like hand tinted pictures from days of yore), detail is often middling at best.

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color features a typically noisy History sound mix, one which delights in ubiquitous LFE (even divorced from battle scenes), along with a surplus of other sound effects which regularly dot the surrounds (these more traditionally within those battle scenes). Talking heads and narration sound fine and are well prioritized when there are other sonic elements unfolding simultaneously in the mix.

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Featurettes (1080p; 15:29) is billed as a supposed Extra, but it is in fact simply excerpts from the actual miniseries, some quite short (and edited fairly clumsily, virtually mid-sentence in a couple of instances). This seems like a rather odd addition to this set, especially since History has so many pre-existing properties that touch on various elements of the Civil War and which could have been appended here relatively easily. The snippets include:

  Davis is Chosen to Lead

  A Call to Arms

  Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

  The H.L. Hunley Death Trap

  Sherman's March to Savannah

  Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

  Lee's Reluctant Surrender

  African Americans After the War

  
  

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color follows a pretty standard History template, with a supposed "hook" that provides the fulcrum around much of what the documentary offers ostensibly hinges, as well as the usual assortment of talking heads and historical reenactments. That somewhat rote feeling aside, though, Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color is actually quite a fascinating piece a lot of the time, covering the "big ticket items" well enough while also highlighting a number of odd, at times slightly tangential, anecdotes. While it's fine and dandy to see old black and white photographs colorized (especially when it's done as relatively tastefully as it's been handled here), that central gambit ironically turns out to be one of the most unnecessary things about the documentary. Technical merits are generally very good on this release, and Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color comes Recommended.