Official Synopsis
Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color commemorates one of the most defining moments in American history, one which tore the nation apart, pitting North against South and brother vs. brother. Over the course of four years, more than 750,000 military and civilian lives were sacrificed to make the United States a more perfect union. Using state-of-the-art technology to colorize 500 rare black-and-white photographs, and unprecedented access to government and private archives, Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color brings the emotional stories of these brave men vibrantly to life.
The two-disc Blu-ray release of Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color is fascinating, haunting and mind-blowing. It really lays it all out there for the viewer and doesn’t pull its punches through its montage of photos.
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The release is fascinating because it takes you step-by-step through the war from the inception of it, until the last gun is fired (and the repercussions of the war on the country and its people). Going into this release, I wasn’t really expecting anything beyond being led by colored photos of the participants, its tragedies and random scenes that were told by the limited stock of photos. It delivered much more than a gimmick and ended up being something visually compelling and spectacular. In short, I was pretty sure it was going to be led by the photos and not the entire story of the war.
The release is haunting because it’s weird seeing two different sides of the country go to war, something I cannot fathom when watching things like this. What’s even more haunting are the photos of the dead, wounded and forever changed. When the Civil War is taught in schools, you never see the impactful view of how bad things had gotten. You never see how devastating the Civil War was to the country and its people. You never see these things and this documentary really lays it all out there for the viewer, even when it’s grotesque.
What’s mind-blowing about this release is sheer number of photos that it actually contains, how long and in-depth the documentary is and how well it’s put together. I’m sure that not all the details of the war are in this two-disc set, but what you do get is nothing short of amazing. How they coordinated including the photos in with this stories makes this a documentary that is worth watching. It’s so well organized and presented. This is potentially one of the best, non-Ken Burns, Civil War releases out there. A history teacher would probably love this piece.
Overall, I wasn’t expecting much from Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color, but it certainly delivered on content and taught me more about this war than I have ever been told previously. The use of photos was a good choice and certainly a driving point to what ended up being an impressively done documentary.
On the Blu-ray side of things, Blood and Glory: The Civil War in Color is superbly done. The HD transfer is quite good considering how old the photos used in the program are and how cleaned up they were made before the entire transfer to HD. There are times where you think maybe the History Channel put some of those scenes together with actors because of the clarity of it, and they didn’t, but the clean/fresh scenes should be credited towards the solid transfer via Lionsgate. The pictures and such really put you there due to the format.
The only special features attached to this Blu-ray release is exclusive interviews, which is fine, but most of those interviews aren’t anything outside of what is already in the feature. Regardless, the entire package is worth the time and money.
