Stanley Kauffmann: CSA: Confederate States of America
[Stanley Kauffmann is TNR's film critic.]
CSA: Confederate States of America is an entry in the "what if" school of fiction. (A recent instance: Philip Roth entered that school with The Plot Against America, in which he postulated that Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in 1940.) A new director named Kevin Willmott has made a pseudo-documentary about what would have happened if the Confederacy had won the Civil War and this entire country had become the Confederate States of America.
Willmott, who teaches film studies at the University of Kansas, says that he got his idea from watching Ken Burns's Civil War series on PBS, and his own film has some structural resemblance to the Burns series--sequences of the past, real and enacted, are joined by interviews with modern experts. Most of the "history" is about what happened in the CSA to slaves and slavery. A key moment is the postwar plan of Jefferson Davis, president now of all the states, to bring slavery back to the North. (Historically, it would have indeed been a return.) Davis proposes a tax rebate to businesses and households that buy slaves and use them. Slavery then flourishes--nationally. The CSA soon seeks to expand with a new Manifest Destiny, progressing southward, occupying Central and South America. Much later, when Hitler arises in Germany, he is tolerated by the CSA because of his views on racial purity. So powerful does the Confederacy become that on December 7, 1941 the CSA attacks Japan.
Some of the touches along the way are sharp. Lincoln tries to escape to Canada in blackface. Harriet Tubman is tried and executed. The television commercials that "interrupt" this documentary patronize black people openly, as they were once patronized less openly. Abolitionism becomes a secret conspiracy: a best-selling book is called I Married an Abolitionist. A black terrorist group arises in Canada, and the Cold War is between the CSA and that country. A huge delivery company is now called ConEx.
Willmott's film, which runs eighty-nine minutes, is somewhat longer than it needs to be. Its theme--slavery is secretly acceptable to white people, even those who voice objections--is patent early. He has had to think of gags and gimmicks to keep the picture going to feature length. Less would have been more. Still, CSA has some laughs, most of them bitter.
Read entire article at New Republic
CSA: Confederate States of America is an entry in the "what if" school of fiction. (A recent instance: Philip Roth entered that school with The Plot Against America, in which he postulated that Charles Lindbergh had been elected president in 1940.) A new director named Kevin Willmott has made a pseudo-documentary about what would have happened if the Confederacy had won the Civil War and this entire country had become the Confederate States of America.
Willmott, who teaches film studies at the University of Kansas, says that he got his idea from watching Ken Burns's Civil War series on PBS, and his own film has some structural resemblance to the Burns series--sequences of the past, real and enacted, are joined by interviews with modern experts. Most of the "history" is about what happened in the CSA to slaves and slavery. A key moment is the postwar plan of Jefferson Davis, president now of all the states, to bring slavery back to the North. (Historically, it would have indeed been a return.) Davis proposes a tax rebate to businesses and households that buy slaves and use them. Slavery then flourishes--nationally. The CSA soon seeks to expand with a new Manifest Destiny, progressing southward, occupying Central and South America. Much later, when Hitler arises in Germany, he is tolerated by the CSA because of his views on racial purity. So powerful does the Confederacy become that on December 7, 1941 the CSA attacks Japan.
Some of the touches along the way are sharp. Lincoln tries to escape to Canada in blackface. Harriet Tubman is tried and executed. The television commercials that "interrupt" this documentary patronize black people openly, as they were once patronized less openly. Abolitionism becomes a secret conspiracy: a best-selling book is called I Married an Abolitionist. A black terrorist group arises in Canada, and the Cold War is between the CSA and that country. A huge delivery company is now called ConEx.
Willmott's film, which runs eighty-nine minutes, is somewhat longer than it needs to be. Its theme--slavery is secretly acceptable to white people, even those who voice objections--is patent early. He has had to think of gags and gimmicks to keep the picture going to feature length. Less would have been more. Still, CSA has some laughs, most of them bitter.