Sherman's March: A Meditation On The Possibility Of Romantic Love In The South During An Era Of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation(1986)
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Directed By Ross McElwee
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"Sherman's March"(as it is called for short) is a brilliant documentary which begins with young documentary filmmaker named Ross Mcelwee ostensibly tracing General William Tecumseh Sherman's swath of destruction across the south that won the civil war for the North, after just going through a traumatic break-up.
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With the end of the world, always present love, affection, and companionship are far more seductive and enticing than recording a path of destruction (and interviewing reluctant southerner's who'd rather not talk about "that horrible man").
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While Ross stays with a reclusive scientist on her own private island in a lake it feels as if a kind of paradise has been found, a retreat from the world of intrusive family members, nuclear paranoia, history, and responsibility in general.
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The emotional loses of the relationships that McElwee builds (whether these were real or projected as the cases may be) become battle scars Mcelwee let's us feel, through the personal documentary medium, which though nowa-You-tube-days might seem quaint, was way ahead of its time.
Most significantly unlike many documentaries of this sort then and especially now, McElwee does not coast on cuteness or novelty, but roots his film firmly in capturing the essence of his subjects and reflecting them back into his attempt and failures to construct a narrative, and some sense, at least to his mind, one of histories great contradictions in general Sherman; a man who had to destroy the thing he loved in order to preserve it.
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I'm not much interested in "realism" that tries to mimic "real life" which in all it's complexity and detail will ALWAYS elude artists. "Sherman's March" instead wisely allows real life to happen to it, the camera and we by default become a young man with a camera searching for affection and solace, and grappling with history and intellect only to avoid succumbing to emotions and attachments.
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Ultimately this kind of realism, accounts for why the film may appear incomplete, as it noticeably does not end on the same foot it begins, but then again few relationships ever do that, and certainly even fewer wars.
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