Sherman's March (1986)

 

Sherman's March

There is a fantastic show on HBO called “How to with John Wilson”, which is essentially the filmmaker going around with a camera in and around New York trying to explore some theme, but constantly getting sidetracked by all the curious characters he meets. Forty years ago, Ross McElwee did something similar, except his movie is not much fun.

“Sherman’s March” is Ross McElwee trying to make a documentary about this Civil War general rampaging through the south, though he never gets far in this project. Instead McElwee films a lot of women. Or more precisely, he films himself interacting with a lot of women, though always with a camera between himself and the subject.

Ross McElwee has returned from the north to his native south after a break-up, and his mother and sister are very keen to set him up with some local woman. McElwee himself seems keen at seeking out acquaintances as well, always with the prospect of a romantic relationship in mind, except there is always something. Most commonly McElwee is simply being obnoxious, some of the women are oddballs, but mostly they are simply doing something else and not that interested in McElwee, at least not in this sense.

On this backdrop McElwee gets to meet, talk to and film a lot of curious characters. We are deep in MAGA land, decades before this was even a term, and it is not that they are portrayed as off-beat, they are simply normal people in this part of the country. Or this is the impression I get.

The result is somewhere between a portrait of the South (Northern and Southern Carolina and Georgia), a whole lot of women characters and the navel-gazing of a depressed filmmaker.

The latter is also the weakest part of this movie. Ross McElwee does not come across as a very likeable character. For somebody as both self-effacing and self-obsessed as he is, he needs a lot more self-irony than he can muster. Without that, he balances somewhere between dull and pathetic and this whole affair become more cringe than fun.

The strongest parts are those where McElwee forgets himself and instead takes a real interest in the subjects his is filming. Life on the island in the delta, the preppers in the forest, the religious going on about their prediction of doomsday, the musician and the actor both trying for their breakthrough and the campaign against nuclear plants. There are small gems here and they are pieces in the jigsaw of a portrait he is making.

John Wilson, in his HBO show, involves himself a lot. He is also an awkward type who approaches and talks to people through a camera, but despite never actively mocking people, he manages to create some very amusing scenarios that come across as hilarious even though they are just in a sense everyday life. It is, I think, his eye for that awkward comedy and his self-irony that makes it work. Ross McElwee had some very similar material and a similar approach, but lacks that instinct. Delivering himself as he does is not making it funny or sympathetic. It just makes me feel like giving him a kick in his arse.

With a running time of 2:37 hours, this felt like a long journey. It was also incredibly difficult to find (unless you have an American student or library card...). Just as I had given up, I found it on some dodgy Russian site. So far, I seem to have come out of it alive, but I doubt this movie is interesting enough to go to those lengths to watch it.