Throwback Thursday: “Sherman’s March,” 40 Years Later
I promise, no one is ready for Sherman’s March the first time they see it.
Ross McElwee’s quirky documentary Sherman’s March was released forty years ago today, on November 13, 1985. One might assume from the title that it’s a film about . . . Sherman’s March, the one to the sea, during the Civil War, after the burning of Atlanta. And it kind of is, but not really. It’s also about a guy who got a grant, who struggles with relationships, and who has some uncertainties that center on Burt Reynolds and nuclear war. Though McElwee was going to make a movie about the historical events of William Tecumseh Sherman’s military campaign in the mid-1800s, he instead wandered off in a different direction when his girlfriend broke up with him. The film’s subtitle “A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation” probably comes closer to describing the content than the title does.
In a September 1986 article in The New York Times titled “When Film Makers Play It by Ear,” writer Annette Insdorf puts it this way:
His sister suggests to him that he use his camera as a way to meet women. This turns out to be a successful strategy, as seven all-too-real Southern females wander into Mr. McElwee’s path, lens and heart: a vapid actress, a right-wing interior decorator, a linguist who lives on a deserted island, an anti-nuclear activist, a Mormon folksinger, a rock singer, and a former love who is now a lawyer. They do not seem fazed by the fact that they are being pursued by a camera as well as a man.
[ . . . ]
In this American landscape where Burt Reynolds is the main idol and anti-Communism the main ideology, the film maker’s quirky sensibility captures lines and images more amazing than fiction.
Sherman’s March is one of those movies that makes us ask, What the hell am I watching? Through minutes-long scenes of McElwee in a studio apartment talking on the phone or through awkward scenes when he is on a date while holding a big 1980s video camera on his shoulder, viewers are carried through episodes of seeming randomness, punctuated by this guy’s sister fussing at him, for about an hour and a half. Then, when it’s over, we go, That was brilliant.
I heard about Sherman’s March much later, in the early 2010s, from filmmaker Andy Grace. In the fall of 1985, when the movie was released, I was in the sixth grade, so it wouldn’t have been my thing. Later, with some hindsight on the ’80s and with some experience with love and art, I recognize this film for its offbeat greatness. For fans of cult classics and other GenX ephemera, I highly recommend it.
Foster Dickson 