Glory

And there wouldn't be nothing but rebs dyin if they'd let the fifty-fourth in it.

Based around the actual letters sent by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw to his parents, this Civil War picture tells the story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first black regiment to fight under the American flag. Led by their white leader (Shaw), they must overcome bigotry, in fighting and the war itself, and this just to feel like men of honour.

The most striking thing about Glory is that it is never over sentimental. With the subject to hand it would have been easy for the makers to over egg the pudding and rely solely on a racialist stance purely for impact. What we do get is actually a candidate for one of the most politically correct war films to...

An excellent film that deserves to be revisited and brought back from oblivion.

For me, as a historian, this film couldn't be more interesting. It's not your average war movie, with soldiers running and shooting, and heroism spilling over from bloody deaths. It is much sharper and deeper because it talks about a topic that is treated with excessive ease when talking about the American Civil War: racism. And it's a shame that it's another relatively forgotten film these days.

Really, if we think about it and are faithful to the mentality of the time, it cannot be said that the Civil War was a war against racism, because it was everywhere and in the Northern states, which were mostly against slavery, there was a strong racism that r...