Sherman's March

La marcha de Sherman

Ross McElwee

United States of America

1986

155'

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Description

''You should use the camera as a way to meet women….” What begins as an attempt to retrace the path taken by General Sherman and his Union soldiers in their devastating sweep through the secessionist South, becomes, in the words of McElwee’s sister, a brokenhearted filmmaker’s clumsy chivalrous quest to find love. In his most celebrated film, McElwee points up the paradox of the inquisitive documentarian: “He’s gotten scalded by life, his lover left him, and so he retreats into the mollusk shell of his camera and pokes his head out now and then". (MoMA)

Awards and festivals

- National Film Preservation Board, USA - National Film Registry (2000)
- Sundance Film Festival - Best Feature Documentary Prize (1987)
- Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards - Best Documentary (1987)
- National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA (1987)
- USA Film Festival, Dallas - Special Jury Award

Biography of the director

Ross McElwee
Ross McElwee received his BA from Brown University followed by an MS from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He freelanced for a few years, shooting for documentarians D.A. Pennebaker in Washington DC, and John Marshall in Namibia before beginning to direct his own documentaries.

Ross McElwee has made eleven feature-length documentaries as well as several shorter films. Sherman's March won numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Time Indefinite won Best Film Award in several festivals. Six O'Clock News won Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Bright Leaves premiered at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight. Photographic Memory premiered at the 2011 Venice Film Festival.

McElwee's films have been included in the major festivals of Berlin, London, Vienna, Rotterdam, Florence, Quito, Sydney, Seoul, and Wellington. Retrospectives include the Museum of Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago; American Museum of the Moving Image, New York; and États généraux du film documentaire in Lussas, France.

Ross McElwee teaches filmmaking at Harvard University where he is a professor in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies.