Enter a room with a camera on your shoulder, especially a 16mm movie camera, and whatever you want to film will be instantly ruined. Self-conscious people will object or flee. Who would ever just behave normally? Ross McElwee pulls off this miracle in Sherman's March. The camera is always there as he meets women set up by his relatives or his hilarously frank matchmaking teacher friend. The camera even seems to attract a potential girlfriend, an aspiring actress (naturally) who just happens to swim by Ross'es canoe or rollerskating when he's filming in the street.

Unprepossessing and unassertive, Ross is almost as passive as his camera, which has to be the only explanation for the wonderfully candid scenes here. He gets his subjects to accept his camera as him, and he must have perfected a way of talking to a person while free-holding the camera off to one side. The nicely-framed shots show most of his subjects freely conversing with him, unseen off to the left. We only catch a few glimpses of Ross in mirrors, and in a couple of shots where he turns the camera on himself to explain his current state of romantic confusion. The signature shot has his subject leaning in to give Ross a kiss off-camera, leaving the view to bob momentarily with an empty frame.

Ross's family sets him up with a lively and rather exhibitionist actress, who he accompanies to the big city for agent interviews and auditions. She's the only one on camera who we feel might be "performing" for Ross, and after a time, she exits the picture.

Ross then hooks up with a dark-haired woman with a daughter. She takes him to a costume party (he dresses as a civil war officer) and out to see some survivalists. Without a hint of irony, McElwee's camera reveals them to be isolationist nutcases who think that they have a right to live apart from society and its laws. Like many of the southerners, they feel that the civil war was righteous cause. One woman offers the wisdom that she's no racist, and that the whole slavery question shouldn't be a big deal. She wouldn't force anything on anyone - if people want to be slaves or don't want to be, that's their choice!

There are side adventures about fixing up an old Red MG car, and Ross'es constant dreams about his private obsession, nuclear war. The survivalists rationalize their activities as a reaction to those Communists who can't be trusted.

Ross then takes up more seriously with an interesting woman who lives a rustic life and talks about her past adventures in college, where her only interests seemed to be linguistics and sex. She's a mellow charmer who can make a pleasant picnic out of a five-mile forced hike on a muddy road. Ross doesn't like the ticks but he really likes her. Unfortunately, when he comes back after a separation she's acquired another boyfriend, a disagreeable development that happens more than once.

The central part of Sherman's March features the delightful Charleen Swansea, a close friend who makes it her business to lecture, push, shove and hector Ross into getting serious with the women she finds for him. Some of her harangues about romance and what women want are priceless. The main female she finds for him is not at all bad looking, but Charleen introduces them with helpful little phrases like, "Now I expect you two to be married before Christmas!" She also neglects to mention the fact that the girl is a devout Mormon and wants a husband who will "bring the priesthood into their home." This girl is also stocking up on survival necessities, not for a nuclear war, but in preparation for the rapture of her church'es "final days."

It's all southern accents and interesting people. As the actress leaves to go try and find Burt Reynolds in the city her mother makes a a scene, bursting into tears because her daughter's life is so out of order. The daughter smiles. Mom does this all the time. Charleen accompanies Ross to civil war monuments that would have meaning in that unfilmed docu about General Sherman that McElwee is supposed to be filming.

Ross alights on another girl, a singer, and follows her around as she practices and dresses for various engagements. But the magic isn't there either and she follows through with her plans to go to New York. Like several of the others, she exits by car waving goodbye. We almost wonder if Ross'es presence is what made her decide to go!

Ross gets most serious about another girlfriend from the past with whom he tried to connect several times in the past. As always happened before there's another man to whom she bounces back, leaving Ross in the lurch. This time Ross is the one who feels the strong attraction, and he philosophizes about his predicament - you can't talk somebody into loving you. She's the only one he pressures, and the only one who tells him he has to turn the camera off.

Miraculously, it all holds together and does turn into a portrait of modern Southern Womanhood. Ross is himself originally a southerner, but he seems to lack whatever's required to please these particular women. Perhaps Charleen is right. When we last see him, Ross is back in Boston and smitten by a music teacher. Life goes on.

Just about the only people that McElwee's camera doesn't charm is the entourage of star Burt Reynolds, in town shooting a film out in public. They treat him like a dog in the manger when he tries to get Burt to talk on camera. Here's the ideal male for many of the southern women Ross encounters, and we see them shamelessly throwing themselves at him, ecstatic just to be in his presence.

First Run Features' DVD of Sherman's March augments the film with some well-chosen extras. The actual feature looks as good as its 16mm roots, with variable color and sound. Most of McElwee's camerawork is excellent under the circumstances, and his framing always gives us a feel of these southern towns and country houses. One one of my DVD setups, some scenes had a pulsing in the focus - every couple of seconds the picture would go slightly indistinct. The effect is hard to see on another monitor, and I'm unsure whether it is part of the original photography, a fault of transfer or encoding, or just a tic with my particular player. I only noticed it for a few seconds here and there.

The disc comes with a Ross McElwee text bio, a photo gallery to help us keep the players straight, and an amazing letter by General Sherman to the mayor of Atlanta, where he offers polite regrets to explain that he won't change his mind - the whole population must leave while he burns the city. There's also a nice interview piece with Ross that brings us closer to date with him - showing the woman he eventually married and his kids. He made a movie about the marriage and expected it to be light and happy, but only recorded a number of personal problems. McElwee's docus are the perfect example of "life being what happens while one is busy making other plans."

The box text mentions "selections from other McElwee films." I didn't find anything like that in the special features menu.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Sherman's March rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Good
Sound: Good
Supplements: Bio, interview excerpt with Ross McElwee, photo gallery, General Sherman letter
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: April 17, 2004