Entertainment

Gettys’borg’

PHOTO FINISH: Amos Humiston died in Gettysburg clutching this photo of his three children. The photo helped identify him.

PHOTO FINISH: Amos Humiston died in Gettysburg clutching this photo of his three children. The photo helped identify him.

What happens when a couple of Brit brothers get together to explain the American Civil War? I’m glad you asked.

What happens is explosively watchable TV.

Gettysburg,” the Scott brothers’ — Tony (“Top Gun”) and Ridley (“Gladiator”) — triumphant blood-and-guts retelling of the deadliest war in US history, is told from the points of view of the men on the ground, not the men in ivory towers who directed the war and wrote much of the history.

Filmed in the fashion of high-budget feature, the Scotts combine computer-graphic imaging with the letters and journals of soldiers (voiced over by accomplished actors). It brings the horrors of those horrible three days that changed America to life — and to death.

Yes, the battle that lasted just three days produced 50,000 casualties — all of whom were spread out dead and dying on the grounds of the tiny Pennsylvania town.

Soldiers are brought back to life in the movie. The most outstanding include Rufus Dawes, the 24-year-old leader of an all-volunteer unit in the Union’s Iron Brigade; Ridgeley Howard, a Confederate private whose grandfather fought with George Washington’s army; and Amos Humiston, a married father from New York who left one piece of identifying documentation on his body, a picture of his children.

The photo was found by another child and, eventually, made its way to the newspapers, where it caused a national sensation. The dead soldier was finally identified — by his widow who found the photo in her local newspaper.

“Gettysburg” divides the three days into three- to four-hour blocks, skirmish-by-skirmish. Sounds boring, but it’s anything but.

It doesn’t matter if you are so obsessed with the Civil War that you get dressed up in Civil War gear and re-enact the battles in the Walmart parking lot, or you couldn’t care less, “Gettysburg” will change the way TV documentaries are made from now on.

No endless marching feet and braying/rearing horses in the mist. Instead, the Scotts take us into the battle — and it ain’t pretty.

In fact, it’s very tough at times to watch as men’s hips, arms and limbs are blown off.

Turns out the best way to document something this huge is make it as if it were fiction.