"Gods and Generals" - Interview Report

by Andrew

    Recently, I had the privilege of meeting Jeff Shaara, whose novel was the inspiration for the movie "Gods and Generals", via a camera network. The experience is one I will not soon forget. For a man who wrote such a profound book, Mr. Shaara really seemed down to earth. He spoke with that modern day New Yorker accent. This was surprising because I would have figured he would have carried himself with an aire of superiority. Washington was not the only school involved in this video-conference. There were also two schools from Pennsylvania, one in New York, and one in Kenosha. There were a total of about 5 schools involved.

     The arrangement allowed schools to take turns asking Mr.Shaara a question and we all would watch as he answered it. The conference lasted for about an hour but we only got to ask a handful of questions. This was, in part, because Jeff was kind of longwinded. In addition to that, the network was kind of slow so there was about a 6 second deficit between the time we asked the question and the time he heard it. Aside from these minor "glitches", if you will, the conference was very organized, professional, educational, and productive.

     We learned, among other things, that although he was the author of the book, he had almost no say in how the movie was made. When asked if that was offending or upsetting, he replied, "No, actually it wasn't a problem, I gave them a few tips, but they handled most of the work. I had no say in how things turned out". He did point out, however, that he made sure the director stuck to the dialogue expressed in the novel, which showed great attention to detail on his part. All in all, it was an amazing movie, it was based on an amazing novel, and the author is, not surprisingly, an amazing human being.