In his genius 1985 documentary Sherman’s March, director Ross McElwee follows in the footsteps of a Civil War general’s infamous advance through the Confederacy. Haunted by a recent break-up, the doleful young filmmaker ends up far more preoccupied with finding a girlfriend. The film’s Ken Burns-meets-The Inbetweeners awkwardness and charm gave him a Sundance hit and made it a cult classic (if not especially helpful in understanding the Civil War).
Forty years on, the stunning Remake lays bare McElwee’s own battles, the least of which is a mooted Hollywood remake of his breakthrough doc. A tear-stained, deeply personal and utterly singular documentary, it tells the story of the young son he lost to a Fentanyl overdose, captured via home video footage taken across three decades. ‘It’s been seven years since you died,’ he says in the voiceover, ‘and I still miss you every day’. Throat meet lump.
After Sherman’s March McElwee did find his person – wife Marilyn. They have two kids: bubbly, bright-witted son Adrian and a sunbeam of a daughter in Mariah, who the couple adopts in Paraguay. Those experiences become McElwee’s 2008 documentary In Paraguay. But every experience they share gets captured. He rarely stops filming.
Inevitably, this becomes grating for Marilyn and Mariah, who start to feel like characters in a movie he never calls ‘cut’ on. There’s divorce and then a lonely relocation. Adrian, though, has caught the bug. He grows up wanting to follow in his dad’s footsteps but loses his way, moving to Colorado, filming promo skiing videos and slowly falling into drug addiction.
This is a film you’ll really want to talk about
It’s a funny as well as brutally honest film. McElwee has a Eeyore-ish energy that his friends and family love to send up. His brother and sister, who really deserve their own film, weigh in cheerily on whether he should sign over rights for the planned remake of Sherman’s March. ‘Can the same film bomb twice?’ wonders his brother, mildly.
But mainly, Remake is emotionally shattering, with the grieving McElwee confronting his failure to pull his son out of the mire. Did his own filmmaking obsessions inspire Adrian or infect him? Adrian’s own camcorder footage, spliced into this film, shows how seduced he became by the parties and glamour his dad’s line of work got him access to.
One childhood drawing of dad as half man-half camera really stands out. What barrier did that camera present to just having a regular dad-son relationship? Not one that he can fix in the edit. Lovelorn, thoughtful and deeply moving, this is a film you’ll really want to talk about.
Remake premiered at the Venice Film Festival.