THE ROSS McELWEE DVD COLLECTION

Six Films Including Four Never Before Released on DVD! Plus One Hour of Exclusive Bonus Material!

TITLES INCLUDED:

CHARLEEN, 59 minutes, 1978
One month in the life of Charleen Swansea, North Carolina poet, mother, beloved teacher, eccentric, romantic, and complex star of McElwee's Sherman's March.

BACKYARD, 40 minutes, 1984
The result of McElwee turning his camera on his family and their neighbors, the film is a humorous and poignant look at odd moments in a genteel Southern town.

SHERMAN'S MARCH, 155 minutes, 1986
Chosen by the Library of Congress as a "historically significant American motion picture," Sherman's March, one of the first high grossing documentaries ever, is "an autobiographic quest for true romance: filmmaker Ross McElwee, camera in hand and eros on his mind after an old girlfriend deserts him, trains his lens with phallic resolve on every accessible women he meets along the original route of General Sherman's Civil War March." (Pat Graham, Chicago Reader's Circle)

TIME INDEFINITE, 117 minutes, 1993
McElwee, Charleen Swansea, and several other memorable characters you met in Sherman's March invite you to pick up their story in Time Indefinite, McElwee's hilariously profound sequel to his much-beloved, critically acclaimed hit. When McElwee announces at the family gathering in South Carolina that he's going to marry a nice Jewish girl from Boston, the results are memorable. A series of unexpected bumps along life's road add a poignant, wistful quality to McElwee's chronicle.

SIX O'CLOCK NEWS, 103 minutes, 1997
McElwee pursues murder, mayhem and catastrophe the same way he pursued southern women in Sherman's March. Made after McElwee becomes a father and finds himself at home watching a lot more TV, he becomes obsessed with the nightly tales of calamity reported on by the local news. This fascination soon turns into another cross country journey to unearth the full stories of those affected. As McElwee pursues this project he also finds himself in Hollywood preparing to direct a feature based on a fictional character much like himself.

BRIGHT LEAVES, 105 minutes, 2004
McElwee family legend has it that the Hollywood melodrama Bright Leaf starring Gary Cooper as a 19th century tobacco grower, is based on McElwee's great-grandfather who created the famous "Bull Durham" brand. Using this legacy as a jumping off point, McElwee reaches back to his roots in this wry, witty rumination on American History, the tobacco business, and the myth of cinema.