Andersonville Revisited

Abstract

JOHN FRANKENHEIMER'S LATERST FILM, ANDERSONVILLE, opened recently in the USA on the Turner Television Network to excellent reviews and a highly favourable audience response. His 31st motion picture, it takes place during the American Civil War and depicts for the first time on film the terrible suffering of Northern soldiers imprisoned in an overcrowded poorly managed camp run by the army of the South. An atrocity from the past, it also speaks graphically of the barbarities of the present war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and gives terrible meaning once again to the memories of the Holocaust. Implicit in Frankenheimer's treatment and graphic images of man's ever-present brutality towards mankind is the awareness of the powerful forces controlling the lives of certain individuals motivated by power and greed -- a theme underlining much of his work and informing the actions of so many of his characters. Andersonville In 1864, more than 32,000...