“Stranger than Vérité”

Sherman’s March – Ross McElwee (1981)

Part confessional, part romance, part anthropological study, Sherman’s March is a difficult film to categorize.

The project was originally conceived as a film about Civil War general William T. Sherman’s destructive “March to the Sea,” but McElwee decided to pursue an alternative, more personal project, after being dumped by his girlfriend in the days before shooting began.

The result is a cinema-verité style documentary in which McElwee stars as himself, a little-known filmmaker approaching middle age with few romantic prospects. The subtitle, “A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation,” sums things up nicely.

McElwee retraces Sherman’s route, stopping occasionally at sites of historical interest, and more frequently to pursue romantic conquests. The film is a road movie of sorts, a study in geography, infrastructure, cars, and people. Like Stephen Shore’s photographs, it is a film that depicts America through a wandering lens.

Sherman’s March is interspersed with a series of confessional monologues in which McElwee relays the challenges posed by the project and speaks frankly about self-doubt and loneliness. These scenes—a man alone in an empty room, talking to a camera—demonstrate a vulnerability and directness of style that has only recently become familiar. In this respect, Sherman’s March is a pioneering work of DIY autobiographical cinema. There is a clear link between the film and the work of contemporary YouTube stars whose daily vlogs prioritize transparency above production value.  

I’m Still Here – Casey Affleck (2010)

In February 2009, Joaquin Phoenix appeared as a guest on The David Letterman show to promote an upcoming film. It didn’t go well. Phoenix was overweight, disheveled, and appeared inebriated. He ignored Letterman’s questions, endured a few taunts about his appearance, then announced that he planned to retire from acting in order to pursue a second career in hip-hop.

I’m Still Here ostensibly documents the actor’s transformation into a musician, but it’s clear from the outset that Phoenix has neither the ability nor the inclination to make this happen. Fans cite the film as a post-modern critique of the cult of celebrity, an indictment of the tabloid press’ willingness to publish any story, no matter how implausible, if they believe it will sell copies. To detractors, the film is a gag that goes too far, less intellectual exercise than self-parody, an unflattering self-portrait which depicts an even uglier reality—the privilege, narcissism, and ignorance of the celebrities themselves. 

The film’s thesis: that the tabloid press will print anything and that a majority of the public will believe them, isn’t as radical Phoenix and Affleck believe. If anything, the filmmakers come across as old-fashioned and the press look like the true post-modernists. They recognize that the truth is malleable, subject to change, and that twists in the plot, rather than the tidy ending, are the real news. The filmmakers' decision to plant and then reveal a supposedly false story doesn’t detract from the press' credibility, it simply gives them two stories to print.

No, don’t watch I’m Still Here for its politics, watch it for Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. He brings pathos and authenticity to a character who is profoundly dissatisfied with his place in life and sets out to change it. Forget about the sly cultural critique and revel in Phoenix’s quixotic dream to play the one role he was never meant to play: that of the hip hop star.