Proposal

DVD Cover. Credit: Wikpedia

My Southern Journey was inspired by the documentary Sherman’s March. When I rented the film I had no idea what it was about except that it had some relevance to the South since I had to watch it for my American South Literature class. When it started I became slightly excited because it seemed to be a documentary about General William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous March to theSsea during the Civil War. However, my expectations were soon trampled by a stampede of southern women, emotions, and the search for love. The director and main character, Ross McElwee, was dumped right before he began and the originally planned documentary about Sherman’s March was kicked to the side as McElwee’s love life took over. While he semi follows Sherman’s route through the South, his main focus is on the women that come and go through his life and the ultimate question of when will he find love?

Ross McElwee. Credit: http://cahierspositif.blogspot.com

            At first I didn’t know what to think about this documentary. It was entertaining, funny and at times informational, but I had no idea how it related to the South except it was filmed there and had some information on General Sherman.  As time went on though and I delved further into the South through southern literature I began to realize that Sherman’s March was another perspective of the South and southerners through McElwee’s lens. McElwee’s original intent to focus on the Civil War leaked through in his documentary about his present day love life. He even compares himself to Sherman, which is one of my favorite scenes. 

Whether McElwee intended to or not he constantly explores, what I like to call, the two planes of the South. The South consists of and operates on two parallel but inconsistent planes. One plane is the reality of the South and the second plane is an idea of the South founded on the first plane. The second plane is a persons view of the South based on a few radical actions or events (realities) that have been blown-out-of proportion through self-marketing to encompass all actions and events of southerners. Southerners have a deep respect for their history, which keeps them rooted in the past. This pride for history lead some southerners to resist change and fight for their old timey traditions, causing a self-made southern image to emerge that people use as a lens for the entire South.

            When considering this idea of the two-planed South it is not completely weird that McElwee intermixes his love life with the Civil War. This is because the Civil War, in some parts of the South, is still so very real for southerners that it affects their present day values and ideologies. McElwee even does this in the above scene where he compares himself to Sherman and the audience gets a glimpse at how this affects him. So, by mixing the reality of the South with the fantasies of the South, McElwee was able to grow and learn more about himself, apparently his love life, and the South. One theme then, that I believe was unintentionally done, was to inspire an audience to take their own journey (camera or not) and learn something about themselves by considering their own realities and fantasies about the South and pitting them against the realities and fantasies they meet along their journey through the South.

            Taking a note from McElwee I am going to take my own March through the South to reconnect with my long-lasting love the Civil War. While my infatuation with the Civil War is motivation, I believe that the Civil War is so romanticized in the South that it will be a good way to pit my ideals about the South with the realities and fantasies I find. My journey through the South will end at my main destination Charlotte, North Carolina since that is where Ross McElwee is from I would like to see how his upbringing might have influenced him to make this documentary. Along the way I will be visiting towns that are home to Civil War battlegrounds, museums, monuments and more. By unearthing realities and fantasies of the South I will be able to grown and learn about myself. I am a true blue southerner and so to fully understand the culture, which has shaped who I am, I would like to fully explore its many plains, crazy people, and deep rooted ideologies.