Reporter's Notebook

An interview with Ron Maxwell

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“Gods and Generals” director Ron Maxwell kindly gave me an interview today. (And thank goodness it’s now; I don’t know how coherent either of us would have been when his director’s cut screening wrapped up at half past midnight Friday morning.)

About his five hour, 45 minute director’s cut, he explained that that’s the version he, as director, delivered to the studio for further trimming. So it isn’t a process of adding parts back in.

But he was very pleased to see this version, which has a subplot involving the actor John Wilkes Booth and several more scenes showing the camp life of the Union and Confederate troops. The battle scenes also have more detail.

“I’ve known for the longest time … that there’s an audience out there that’s really clamoring to see the director’s cut,” Maxwell said. Interestingly, the group at the GIFF Thursday night almost didn’t get the chance: To show the director’s cut, Maxwell and the GIFF organizers had to get all the right permissions from the studio, then actually obtain a physical copy of the uncut version. They don’t stock those at Blockbuster, so it was only Monday night when Maxwell knew for sure he’d be able to screen it.

This isn’t Maxwell’s first participation in the GIFF. At last year’s inaugural version, he screened “Verna: USO Girl.”

I think it’s a great idea for a festival,” Maxwell said. “Its time has come. … I think it’s very important that the films get seen. And of course the perfect venue is to put the filmmakers in touch with their subject, which this does.”

Many filmmakers at GIFF “are not invited to all these other festivals around the country. … I think it’s for political reasons, which is a shame,” Maxwell said. “The American fighting man gets caught up, not surprisingly, in the policy.”

Military culture “has nothing to do with policy, has nothing to do with partisanship. This is something that all Americans should embrace.”

Unfortunately, Maxwell said, few in Hollywood do.

“With the wars, I find some of the filmmaking downright irresponsible,” he said, specifically “the ones that go out of their way to dredge up the bad stuff, and every war’s got bad stuff. But to highlight that … in the middle of a war, that gives aid and comfort to our enemy. I don’t want to use the T-word, but it comes pretty damn close to it.”