Sherman's March (with guest Ethan Weinstein)

Sean and Cody are joined by literature student and documentary expert Ethan Weinstein for a bizarre journey into the heart of Southern womanhood with a side order of nuclear holocaust anxiety. In the classic 1986 documentary Sherman’s March, filmmaker Ross McElwee sets out to make a movie about the lingering effects of the Civil War scorched-earth military campaign that made the name William T. Sherman into fightin’ words south of the Mason-Dixon line. But he quickly gets sidetracked as a gaggle of white Southern women with various quirky hang-ups parade past his all-seeing camera. Environmental issues discussed include the real Sherman’s legacy of destruction, nuclear waste and ecological problems in the modern South, the anti-nuclear protests of the 1980s and cross-generational anxiety about atomic war and, by extension, climate change.

How did a movie about the historical Civil War morph into a reality show about the pitfalls of modern dating? Why is there so much toxic waste in the South? Where does traditional white Southern womanhood come from? Why did millions of people take to the streets in 1982 to protest nuclear weapons? What’s the “Red Tide” scenario? Why did Burt Reynolds’s career take a nose-dive? Where’s Ossbaw Island and who lives there? How do you get distribution for an independent documentary? What’s the appropriate thing to say to a woman who announces she’s not wearing underpants? Why are the hosts reviewing a documentary when they told you in Episode 12 they wouldn’t be reviewing any more documentaries? All these questions are ready to rip through Georgia and the Carolinas like Sherman’s army in this unusual episode of Green Screen.

Sherman's March (1986) at IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091943/ Sherman's March (1986) at Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/shermans-march/

Next Movie Up: The Wicker Man (1973)

Additional Materials About This Episode