ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 2, 1996 TAG: 9603050005
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL E. HILL THE WASHINGTON POST
TNT CABLE airs four-hour miniseries about the Confederate prison camp.
The hallowed grounds of the Civil War have names that still echo more than a century later.
To mention Bull Run, Gettysburg or Shiloh is to evoke a response from those who understand what happened there.
Something was affirmed, someone was denied, blood was shed in commitment.
But one name has dissonance rather than resonance. What value, what virtue was affirmed at Andersonville?
The Confederate prison camp located in Sumter County, Ga., was the burial ground for nearly 13,000 Union soldiers who suffered and died there in the last 14 months of the war.
The Confederates, with resource problems of their own in the final stages of the conflict, had little to lavish on their captives but cruelty.
Sunday and Monday nights at 8, Ted Turner's TNT cable network takes us to that festering historic sore in a TV miniseries, ``Andersonville.''
This is two nights of tough television, a vivid reminder of what a grim place Andersonville was, and how we should be grateful to Turner and cable for adding to its video history.
The cast includes many unfamiliar faces, which seems appropriate given the massive scale of the place. Among the familiar are Frederic Forrest as Union Sgt. James McSpadden and William Sanderson, familiar as Larry of ``Newhart's'' Larry, Darryl and Darryl.
Behind the camera are some of film's abler practitioners.
John Frankenheimer, whose credits run from film - ``Birdman of Alcatraz,'' ``Seven Days in May,'' ``The Manchurian Candidate'' - to television - he's a veteran of the ``Playhouse 90'' era - directed the action, staged on a farm outside Atlanta. He coordinated the work of some 2,200 people, including 57 featured actors.
The piece was written and produced by David Rintels, whose writing credits date back to ``The Defenders'' in the '60s, and who more recently has delved into the historic, from ``Clarence Darrow'' to ``Day One'' to ``World War II: When Lions Roared.''
Approached by the Turner people in 1992, Rintels went to Andersonville, administered by the National Park Service since 1971, and toured the grounds. A park ranger gave him a a heap of printed matter.
``I wanted to follow the men from the bottom up, not the top down,'' Rintels said. ``Gettysburg was about the generals. This was about the people in the trenches, foot soldiers - what motivated them, what their lives were like.
``The thing I got from the diaries of survivors was how without ever seeming to state it, honor and courage infused their lives. How much faith and character and decency was a part of their makeup. Quite amazing. How they supported each other. They did things that still kind of amaze me.''
One of the amazing aspects involved the presence of the Raiders, who terrorized their fellow Yankee captives. ``But having finally turned the tables and captured their tormentors, the Union prisoners gave the Raiders a fair trial, with lawyers and all.
``It is tough television,'' said Rintels. ``It was a tough time, and a place beyond tough. We did not want to sugar-coat. There was no reason to do it unless you did it the right way.''
Indeed, there is a feeling of dread from the outset as Union soldier Josiah Day, played by Jarrod Emick, and a group of his fellows are captured and herded aboard a train bound for Georgia.
From the minute they enter the stockade, the enemies, large and small, are arrayed against them. There are men who will make their lives miserable, not all of them wearing gray. There is the unshaded heat. A meandering branch of Sweetwater Creek is, basically, an open sewer. And there are chiggers.
``It is fair to say that I would have had a tough time selling this to television without the Turner interest,'' said Rintels. ``Because of the subject matter and the treatment and also the cost.
``That stockade is nine and a half acres, and it had to be filled every day [with paid actors and extras]. It would not have happened if Ted Turner hadn't wanted it to happen.''
The movie set was a miniaturization of the 26.5-acre stockade that held a peak of 32,000 men in space designed for 8,000.
Rintels fills this cauldron with real characters and composites based on his research.
John Pielmeyer, who wrote ``Agnes of God,'' had a great-great-grandfather who died at Andersonville, Rintels said. Martin Blackburn, played by Ted Marcoux, is based on him.
There are, of course, historic figures. William Macy, familiar from appearances on ``ER,'' plays Col. Chandler, a Confederate officer who drops by to conduct an inspection. Jan Triska plays Capt. Wirz, the camp commander, who went on to become the only Civil War soldier to be executed for war crimes.
Peter Murnik plays Limber Jim, the man who led a pivotal attack on the Raiders. And Blake Heron plays young Patrick Shay - yes, there really was a drummer boy held in the camp.
The others, Rintels said, were based on the diaries he read.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Jarrod Emick (center) stars as Josiah Day inby CNB``Andersonville,'' a two-part drama, airing Sunday and Monday at 8
p.m. on TNT. color. 2. John Frankenheimer directed
``Andersonville.''