Film Capsule

Sherman’s March / Ross McElwee / 1986 / 

Active Ingredients: Self-deprecating humor; Honesty; Fascinating form
Side Effects: Slightly too long

More of a personal essay than a standard documentary, Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March is a unique film, but its pleasures are much simpler than dry formal experimentation. It’s a film about love, heartbreak and lethargy—and, yes, Sherman’s March—but it’s also discernibly a comedy. The film opens with a map graphic and a brief overview of the Civil War general’s destructive path through the south, quickly followed by a long shot of the director, recently dumped, pacing around his apartment. You see, McElwee set out to document the lingering effects of Sherman’s March on south society, but he doesn’t get much further than five minutes into the film. From then on it becomes about the depressed director’s struggle to find love and a direction in life. He halfheartedly follows Sherman’s trail, but he’s more interested in the women he encounters than the monuments he visits. Over the course of the film, a bevy of southern women flit in and out of his life, some quirky, some crazy, all of them interesting.

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