Sherman’s March (1986)/ The Ross McElwee DVD Collection V-D: Part 2. 11:59 PM Frank is late for his meeting. But he makes it. And hasn’t a jacket or a change of clothes. So its cold with the wind whipping 15-20 mph across West Bay. But he makes it. And, they’ve kept his room at the Holiday Inn. So he makes that too. And by the time he showers and re-dons what 24 hours before had been his favorite check-shirt and slacks, his luggage has made it to the hotel. He didn’t think they’d make it. The front desk clerk also has a package for him. It is a book, Les Paradis Artificiels (Baudelaire 1860). It is something of a valentine from Andrea, who thinks of Frank as Baudelaire’s reincarnation; the note enclosed says: “I hope this makes it.” Furthermore, the inscription “with love,” makes Frank both giddy as a schoolboy and tired as the most ancient of men. After all, though he tends to respond to emails and is a tad too open with his schedule than he would prefer, he hasn’t seen Andrea since their heart-wrenching trip to see A Very Long Engagement (Jeunet 2004), last Valentine’s Day. Currently, she is somewhere in Mexico with Frank’s sometimes nemesis, Spike. That makes this some sort of horrible, horrible anniversary. Frank sighs and pulls out his itinerary, only now noticing that his return flight is for March 14, not February 14. (Frank fucking hates Delta airlines!) Delta, of course, believes this to be Frank’s fault and even if they did have another flight out on Valentine’s Day, it would cost an $80 surcharge plus an extra $700 for the fare. The fares are currently jacked up for Valentines, Mardi Gras or Spring break, or all three. It isn’t clear. Frank must get of Florida! There is only car rental in town that both has a car and will send it one way to Norfolk, where Frank has left his Impala. Thanks Budget! What’s more, although, such a rental is a minimum of five days, they will only charge him for the one day it will take him to get there. Frank fucking loves Budget Rent-a-Car! Fucking loves them!

And so Frank is off to plow his way out of the south in a bright red 2006 Ford Focus. But he feels not so much like General Sherman, than Ross McElwee his soft-spoken documentarian (Sherman’s March 1986). Although, Sherman’s March: A Mediation to the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons was re-released on DVD in 2004, First Run Features has recently (November 22, 2005) released a six film, five disc collectors set of McElwee’s films. All of McElwee’s films are personal (and often tangential) in nature, beginning with Sherman’s March, which, though intended to be an exploration of the conflicted figure as McElwee traced his route through the south, instead became a chronicle of McElwee’s strained dating life as he tries to overcome the loss of his girlfriend. The film is honest and often bleak and Frank recommends it, to any woman who wants a peak inside the mind of a man. McElwee is quiet, droll and unassuming with the women he encounters, yet openly eager to consummate a—any relationship, easily falls in love and is obsessed with potential nuclear holocaust. Truly, the dating scene seems pretty wide open and he goes through a lot of women in the space of a 2.5-hour film. From a soul-singing woman who leaves for the road, an actress who leaves him to pursue Burt Reynolds (Deliverance; Boorman 1972), to a wilderness bound grad student who leaves him for the guy in the next cabin over. In short, March, shows, poignantly, all the hoops we men are willing to jump through for sex, companionship, whatever. Even us nice, quiet guys. The women often come-off badly. However, we believe McElwee cares for them all, as he insures us he does. Don’t we all care for someone for some inexplicable reason? Just like Frank cares for the enervating Andrea, who has her Spike and still guiltily pesters him. Frank decides not to think of it but fiddles with the radio and scrawls on his little Budget map song titles he ought to download as MP3’s as he hears them on the radio—such as “These Dreams’ (Heart 1985), and “Time After Time” (She’s So Unusual, Lauper 1983) both of which he for some reason knows all the words to. Grrr. It’s a quick refill on gas and Doritos at the Gator Pit three miles north of Jacksonville, when the hated V-Day finally comes to a close. But there’s still quite a drive ahead…