Well, we saw Cold Mountain last night. (I've been going to movies quite a bit lately -- both as a distraction from thinking about next month's surgery & because I have an idea that I'll not be feeling like getting out to the movies -- or anywhere else -- for a while afterwards, lol.)
I haven't read the book, so I can't say whether the movie-makers did it justice, but I thought it was a very well-made movie, although maybe a bit too long. Rather than a Civil War movie per se -- it's more a movie about the "home front." The two main characters, Inman and Ada, are either opposed to the war, or not particularly interested in it. Inman has deserted from the Confederate Army and is trekking home across the mountains to North Carolina & his sweetheart, Ada; back home on Cold Mountain, poor Ada, a city-bred girl who has no idea how to run a farm, is just trying to figure out how to survive. Luckily she is helped out by Ruby (Renee Zeilwegger), a local girl who knows how to kill a rooster and milk a cow. Meanwhile, rapacious predators roam the countryside -- they call themselves "the Home Guard" and go around shooting deserters, but are concerned mainly with grabbing anything they can for themselves.
As for violence: There are some pretty horrific battle scenes in the first 10-20 minutes, when the Union troops tunnel under the Confederate lines and blow them up, only to find themselves trapped in a crater, where the Confederates literally massacre them. After that, the violence is episodic: there are a bunch of shootings, one rape incident. I wouldn't call the violence excessive, certainly not by the standards of today's films, it is not terribly graphic, it is quite "tastefully" done, but it does bring you face to face with what war does to people.
I thought the acting was very good -- I'm not really a Nicole Kidman fan, but even I had to admit she was good in this. (Curious, however, that despite all her privations she retains that porcelain-perfect complexion.) Judd Law was terrific. All the supporting roles were very solid and the photography was superb. I don't know where this movie was filmed, but the scenery was very beautiful.
