IN-PERSON: The Elderwise classroom at the Vineyard Church
Book: Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels
Movie: Ted Turner’s Gettysburg
In 1993, Ted Turner produced his epic film Gettysburg, which is based on Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel The Killer Angels (1974). During these class sessions we will view the film and discuss it in relation to the novel and to the mythologization of history. This is a timely topic since some Americans are suggesting that another civil war is imminent. Peggy Russo, Ph.D., is retired from Pennsylvania State University, where she taught English for thirty years. She has often taught Shaara’s novel in relation to the Turner film, and has published a chapter on the topic in The American Civil War on Film and TV, Lexington Books [2017]: “Adapting The Killer Angels: Historical Accuracy versus Poetic Vision in Gettysburg.”
