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CSA - The Confederate States Of America
2004
Kevin Willmott's funny and alarming mockumentary, CSA - THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, springs from an ingenious premise: the South defeated the Union army and won the Civil War. The film presents itself as a British television series about the history of the CSA In Willmott's faux history, British and French troops joined .. Read more
| Starring | Charles Frank, Shaun Toub, Jeris Poindexter, Rhonda Stubbins-White |
|---|---|
| Director | Ken Willmott |
| Genres | Documentary, Drama |
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CSA - The Confederate States Of America
Kevin Willmott's funny and alarming mockumentary, CSA - THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, springs from an ingenious premise: the South defeated the Union army and won the Civil War. The film presents itself as a British television series about the history of the CSA In Willmott's faux history, British and French troops joined with the Confederates to rout the Northern armies. With Lincoln jailed and Jefferson Davis in the White House, the CSA goes on to invade Mexico and South America, sides with Hitler in World War II, and builds a giant wall between itself and Canada. Breaking up the 'history' lesson are commercials from the modern day CSA, slick ads for the Slave Shopping Network (imagine QVC pitching 'pickaninnies'), and Coon Chicken Inn (an actual 1950s restaurant). Presented by Spike Lee, CSA - THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA clearly has done its historical homework. Though the film will invariably be linked with such mockumentaries as WAITING FOR GUFFMAN and THIS IS SPINAL TAP, Willmott's film is not character-driven (with the exception of the privileged and smug presidential candidate, John Ambrose Fauntroy V, played to perfection by Larry Peterson), and the jokes are much more historical and even academic in nature. Willmott clearly knows the hidden truths of the real African-American experience, and the movie's most startling and disturbing moments are when the 'parallel universe' seems awfully familiar. One of the most unnerving scenes is an advertisement for 'Runaways', a TV show about catching runaway slaves that looks almost identical to COPS. Other times, the humour is so broad and audacious that the film shares similarities to the should-I-laugh-or-grimace comedy style of SOUTH PARK. However, unlike SOUTH PARK, Willmott has a real agenda: beneath the wit and the quips, he launches a powerful attack on both the CSA and the USA.
| Starring | Charles Frank, Shaun Toub, Jeris Poindexter, Rhonda Stubbins-White, Gloria Stuart, Sean Blake, Rupert Pate, Ryan L. Carroll |
|---|---|
| Director | Ken Willmott |
| Studio | PALISADES TARTAN |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 29 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Documentary, Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 13 Nov 2006 Production year: 2004 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (4)
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The mock documentary CSA....is a provocative piece of counter-factual history predicated on a Confederate victory in the American civil war
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You wont have seen DW Griffiths The Hunt for Dishonest Abe, the 1955 paranoia chiller I Married An... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful member's review
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25 out of 32 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
compulsory viewing
Throughout, the satire is incredibly close to the bone, and all the better for it. It should alarm anyone that all the archive footage this fictional documentary uses is in fact real, including scenes of black slaves penned with cattle and vicious police brutality meted out to black rioters. That this alternative history seems so alien and yet is so recognisable eloquently makes the film’s many points about contemporary America.
The makers are clearly aware of how the documentary genre can disable our critical faculties, with experts wheeled out to make prosaic statements sound grave and important, irrespective of how ludicrous they are. This is certainly an important corrective to the Michael Moore School of documentary-making where truth becomes malleable and subject to some fairly wacky political views.
For the first time ever, I actually sat through the whole DVD commentary in which the director explains a lot of the history behind his alternative version and his reasons for shaping his counter-factual as he did. This constitutes almost a film in itself, and is well worth a look.
In all, a highly intelligent and often darkly amusing take on American society, politics and history. Seeing one interviewee after another blithely accept slavery and show off-hand disregard for the idea of abolition should make us think carefully about the ideas that are our own golden calves.
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- aneurin from Oxford
- Posted 25 Apr 2007 14:51
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Most recent members' review
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14 out of 17 people found this review helpful
[Highly rated reviewer]
Very Disappointed
A great idea poorly executed. The 'documentary' itself would be boring to watch even if it was about real events, its just like every other run-of-the-mill history program ever made. As it is, a history lesson in history that never was, it is both boring and pointless.
The reason I give this film 2 starts rather than 1 though, is the commercial breaks interspersed in the film. These are all quite funny, and paint a lighthearted, but at the same time quite scary, picture of what the USA could indeed be like had the Civil War gone the other way. If only the main feature had been more of an analysis of how modern society in the Confederate States of America would have run, with only a bit of fake history for some background, this could have been infinitely more enjoyable.
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- Xythe
- Posted 06 Nov 2007 12:55
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Kevin Willmott's funny and alarming mockumentary, CSA - THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, springs from an ingenious premise: the South defeated the Union army and won the Civil War. The film ... -