Fictional documentary “CSA: Confederate States of America” will be opening in Charlottesville, David Maurer writes:
[Kevin] Willmott wrote and directed the faux documentary, which examines the previous 140 years of American history as if the South had won the Civil War. The modern-day CSA has “Dixie” as the national anthem, slavery is the norm, women can’t vote and any religion not based on Christianity is about to be banned.
By making a movie about “what ifs,” Willmott said he wanted to reveal a sometimes hard to look at view of “what is.” He does this with documentary-style interviews, fabricated movie segments, old government information films, television commercials, stock footage of real historic events and generous amounts of humor.
The movie got a great response at Sundance last year, leading to its simultaneous opening in Charlottesville and Memphis. It’ll show at the Regal on the Downtown Mall on Friday. “CSA” appears to borrow heavily from Harry Turtledove‘s ongoing Southern Victory series, which popularized the alternate history genre and focused on the same topic as the movie.
This was recommended to US in a history class also. I think it would be interesting to see. I am sure the movie will stir up some controversey as it will paint the South to be a place embeded with racial resentment and a conservative bastion…… Way off base ; ) …. The movie will probably reveal that even today we see the effects of the Civi War and the North-South division (Look at elections, how many southerners still refer to northerners as Yankees), not to mentione the legacy of slavery.
It looks interesting. I’ll go for the curiosity factor alone. You might want to check out the trailer at the moviephone website:
http://movies.aol.com/movie/main.adp?mid=19561&date=20051007
It might require a browser plugin though.
For those not familiar with them , I highly recommend the Harry Turtledove books, for those with an interest in “alternate history.” Turtledove depicts a grim universe where after a Southern victory with aid of France and Britain, there are 2 countries side by side mortal enemies. One is reminded of India and Pakistan, partitioned after independence and now ith nuclear missiles pointed at each other.In Turtledove’s universe, the course of the 20th century is altered, to have the USA and Germany as the democracies, and a Nazi-like rule in the CSA, with blacks in the role of Jews, and a Hitler-like figure in control. The last volume ended the 2 sides locked in combat,the parallel to World War II, and working on an atomic bomb.