Sherman's March

Sherman's March
Directed by Ross McElwee
1986, 155 min.

Documental que a primera impresión podría sonar tedioso y aburrido. Una búsqueda personal que no tendría porque interesrle a nadie más. Sin embargo se vuleve bastante interesanta gracias a las chicas a las que aborda a lo largo de todo el film, pues todas son peculiares.



La cámara subjetiva, todo el tiempo, lo vuelve una experiencia al estilo de "Being John Malkovich" en la que se nos da la oportunidad de ver todo literalmente a través de los ojos de Ross McElwee y de sentir las reacciones que los demás tienen hacia Ross como si las estuvieran teniendo directamente hacia nosotros, me refiero a que cuando la chica coquetea con Ross, nosotros no podemos evitar sentirnos seducidos, cuando se enoja con él, sentirnos regañados, y así sucesivamente. Esto logra generar un nivel de empatía que rara vez es alcanzado.

La edición y el levantamiento de imágenes es bastante casero. En realidad casi no cuenta con efectos de postproducción. Supongo que esta decisión se tomó para lograr conservar la verosimilitud lo más posible, para evitar romper con la diégisis, para acercar aún más al espectador a creer que no hay censura ni manipulación del material. Y esta es justo la impresión que permanece cuando uno termina de ver el documental. Uno siente que Ross ha sido completamente sincero en su manera de contarnos su experiencia, que se puede confiar en lo que se ha visto, que se conoce al personaje y que es seguro encariñarse con él.


Director Statement:

had no firm idea as to how to begin shooting Sherman's March. That is, I only knew that I wanted to make some sort of film about my homeland, the South, and I was interested in the degree to which the South was still haunted by the Civil War - Sherman's campaign in particular - but I never intended for it to be an historical documentary. I thought perhaps my shooting would yield more than one film, and I assumed that racial relations in the so-called "New South" would be a major theme - perhaps the major theme of the film. But other themes became more dominant, though the notion of how blacks and whites coexist in the South is still imbedded in much of the footage. I thought I would probably narrate it with first-person voice-over, as I had done in Backyard, but I wasn't enthusiastic about stepping in front of the camera to perform monologues. I was more comfortable behind the camera. But as I finished my first month of shooting in North Carolina and realized that this film was going to be more directly autobiographical than I had anticipated, I began filming monologues. I thought it would be best at least to get them on film. I could decide whether to use them later.
I was on the road for about four months, and shot, or was ready to shoot, nearly every day. I was open to filming anything that came along. Serendipity was paramount. The only requirement I forced on myself was that I somehow stick to the path Sherman's army made as it swung through Georgia and the Carolinas. I shot perhaps twenty-five hours of film. I did not have a very big budget and had to marshal my film stock carefully. I sometimes wonder how much more footage I would have shot if I had been shooting video, but video was not really viable for field-shooting back in the early 1980s when I shot Sherman's.
The first test screening of any material from Sherman's March was comprised of scenes from my meeting and pursuit of Pat Rendleman, the aspiring actress who was in search of Burt Reynolds. I did not include my Atlanta monologue, filmed in a motel after Pat left Atlanta. After the screening, there was a sense that something was missing, so I reluctantly cut that monologue into the version I had shown, and it seemed to work. I then processed all the other monologues I had shot on the road and ended up using most of them. I got over my camera-shyness and my reluctance to put the filmmaker in front of the camera. The first assemblage of all the footage I had shot, with all of the portraits, was eight hours long! I projected it for a small group of filmmaker friends. It took me another two and a half years to finish editing Sherman's March.

An excerpt from “Southern Exposure: An Interview with Ross McElwee” By Scott McDonald, Film Quarterly, Summer 1998.

S.M.: ''What was the balance between how much you shot and didn't shoot when you were with people?''
'I was almost always ready to shoot. I kept the camera within reaching distance, sometimes balanced on my shoulder. Maybe Sherman's March took five months of shooting. I never figured it out exactly. But even between major portraits, when I was on the road, I was totally open to filming whatever might happen in a gas station or in a restaurant, or wherever. So in one sense you can count all that time at "filming time."
I'd guess the total amount of footage I actually shot was about 25 hours. I don't remember exactly. In the finished film I ended up with 2 1/2 hours of that--a 10 or 11 to 1 filming ratio. But that other ratio, between five months and 2 1/2 hours--that's astronomical.
I spent five or six days with Charleen [Swansea]. That was probably the shortest period overall that I spent with anybody. She's so intense; things happen so quickly with her, that I didn't need to be there long. Of course, there were also times when I'd go with her prepared to film, and film nothing because it wasn't interesting enough. I'd just relax and enjoy myself if I could.
I'd never presume to make a pronouncement concerning what I think relationships between men and women are all about. I think it's abundantly clear, from Sherman's March, that I myself, haven't a clue--at least at that point in my life. I guess the one lesson I might have garnered from the experience of making Sherman's March was that true love, whatever that is, was unlikely to present itself as long as I was determined to track it down with a camera, and the audience knows this. But the humor of this knowledge, this audience one-upmanship, is one of the reasons why the film works--at least for most people who see it. In general, I'd have to agree with the philosophy stated in innumerable Broadway songs that love is likely to strike when you least expect it. That was certainly the case with me and Marilyn, my wife. And from then on, it's a matter of redefining what love means as you stay with someone.'

FUENTES:

• Ross McElwee. Sherman's March. http://rossmcelwee.com/shermansmarch.html