This film can remind young Americans, black and white, of sacrifices their ancestors made in the past to secure the freedoms they enjoy in the present. In interviews, Zwick explained that many Americans “are … learning about the Constitution for the first time because it’s being trashed. The fewer books that people read, the less good the history … taught in schools.” This makes the obligation of filmmakers talking about this even greater.
Command
Physically, Shaw is as unlikely a man as any to merit command of anything, forget about a pioneering regiment. He’s tiny. His feeble voice barely carries across a foyer at home, let alone a field of battle. Worse, his men look no more threatening than peasants. Yet, unlike many of his military colleagues, he treats soldiers as human beings, not dispensable assets. Naturally, his men’s resentment toward him gives way to respect.Equally, when he’s tempted to show favoritism to a less-than-soldierly black private because they “grew up together,” a white sergeant sets Shaw straight: “Let him grow up some more.”
After weeks of being denied a shot at combat on racist grounds (that they’re not good enough) the regiment finally gets their first whiff of action. Only, this is not the honorable kind they’d been longing for. Their fraught campaign in Georgia presents them with competing visions of freedom, forcing them to confront possibilities they hadn’t conceived of.
No, it isn’t their color or their commanding officer, but their inner moral code that decides whether they’ll be free men or not, brave or cowardly, dignified or debased. Even with his back to the wall, Shaw shows them that freedom needn’t imply license.
A flag is more than a cloth emblazoned with stars and stripes or, in Shaw’s case, the regimental colors. To him, it’s a symbol, calling lesser freedoms to aspire to greater, nobler ones. Watch how his actions teach sniveling soldiers this truth when his words fail to.
Entitlement
Some soldiers secretly scorn Shaw. Surely, he hasn’t been to West Point. Surely, he’s a colonel only because his “mommy and daddy fixed it.” But nepotism is the craven, conceited leverage of a legacy; like twisted forms of antiracism it reeks of entitlement. Here, the regiment’s hard work, patience, and resilience prove that acclaim that appears only inherited can, in truth, also be earned. When Shaw discovers how entrenched slavery is, he doesn’t hesitate to wield the influence his family has, to go above and around the heads of top brass, even writing to his father to prevail upon Lincoln to intervene.Shaw’s letters to his mother exude humility, as he ponders his ability to lead his men, “I don’t want to stand in their way because of my own weakness.” Once, challenged about the exacting standards he sets for his men, he snaps, “These men have risked their lives to be here. They have given up their freedom. I owe them as much as they have given. I owe them my freedom, my life if necessary.”
Zwick’s film redefines freedom. But it also contextualizes victory. Those who defend an honorable cause, honorably, don’t need to listen for the bugler, to know who’s won. They’ve won already. Glory is theirs for the asking.
