History Film / ShermansMarch

* ExtravertedNerd: [=McElwee=] often comes across as this. Like when he's following around Pat the would-be actress, who is way out of his league. Or when he's sitting in his father's basement, having come home from a costume party, still in his Confederate officer outfit.

* CrazySurvivalist: Cynthia, the second woman Ross takes a fancy to, leads him to a compound being built by some crazy racist survivalist kooks. They're building a tennis court, so they'll have something to do in the aftermath of nuclear war.

As [=McElwee=] himself explains onscreen, the film was originally meant to be a documentary about, yes, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shermans_March_to_the_Sea William T. Sherman's march to the sea]] through Georgia in late 1864, and his follow-up march [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinas_Campaign through the Carolinas]] in early 1865, which concluded with Confederate surrender and the end of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. His original idea was to retrace Sherman's route and document the lingering effects of the campaign on the area.

* TheChanteuse: Joyous, bass guitarist and singer, first introduced singing with a band in a parking lot, and later shown singing in a nightclub. She hangs out with Ross for a little while before heading to New York to advance her music career.

* NoEnding: Back up in Boston after his tour of Sherman's march and his encounters with various women, [=McElwee=] gets a teaching job and starts auditing a music class. Two minutes before the end of the film, he notes that his music teacher is very attractive. He says that he asked her if she'd like to go see a movie--and the credits roll.

* TheMatchmaker: Ross's old friend Charlene, a middle-aged schoolteacher who tries very hard to hook Ross up with Dee Dee. She expresses great impatience at Ross's insistence on filming everything.

* NewAgeRetroHippie: Winnie, who lives on an island off the coast of Georgia, indulging in nude sunbathing on the beach, milking her own cow, and talking about her "hippie lifestyle".

* TheCameo: None other than Creator/BurtReynolds, whom [=McElwee=] tried to film on a couple of previous occasions but missed. Finally he tracks Burt Reynolds down to the set of ''Film/CannoballRunII''. Security escorts him away and tells him he'll be arrested if he comes back.

* FalseRomanticLead: Ross himself, oddly enough. He comes back to Wini's island to find out that she has taken up with Michael in his absence and is no longer interested in him. He goes to meet his old friend Karen, but she's with a new boyfriend and isn't interested in him either. The scene where Karen leaves for a party with her boyfriend, ditching Ross who winds up hanging out with her roommate, is painful.

However, shortly before [=McElwee=] was to start his project, his girlfriend up in New York dumped him. [=McElwee=] finds himself unable to focus on his topic, and instead winds up documenting his own life instead. Specifically, he documents his disaster of a love life. As [=McElwee=] more or less retraces Sherman's route, he meets various women and becomes enchanted by them, only to be rejected.

* TheCameo: None other than Creator/BurtReynolds, whom [=McElwee=] tried to film on a couple of previous occasions but missed. Finally he tracks Burt Reynolds down to a public appearance. Security escorts him away.

* ShortTitleLongElaborateSubtitle: The actual title is ''Sherman's March: A Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation''.

As [=McElwee=] himself explains onscreen, the film was originally meant to be a documentary about, yes, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman's_March_to_the_Sea William T. Sherman's march to the sea]] through Georgia in late 1864, and his follow-up march [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolinas_Campaign through the Carolinas]] in early 1865, which concluded with Confederate surrender and the end of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. His original idea was to retrace Sherman's route and document the lingering effects of the campaign on the area.