Doc Corner: 'Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are)'

By Glenn Dunks

A movie called “Civil War” could really be about so many things. I immediately assumed a film about January’s insurrection had been produced, edited and released in just nine months’ time. What an achievement! It’s a surprise then to discover that Civil War (or, Who Do We Think We Are) is about the actual civil war. The one about the North versus the South. The one about slavery (depending on who you ask). The one they made Gone With the Wind about. It’s almost quaint in that regard.

No matter what it is or it isn’t about— the contemporary political space may not be the film's focus but its heavily on its mind --  it’s a good movie. Civil War finds interesting crevices within which to explore education and class-driven divides and the way the war's lessons are taught and absorbed by the next generations. Spoiler alert: it’s not entirely comforting...

Director Rachel Boynton does strong work showing where some parts of society are succeeding at confronting past prejudices while others, well, are not. As someone who is not American and was not privy to its education system, I can’t say I came to Civil War with my own lived experience of the issue. Although trust me when I say Australia has its own issues with how its history pre- and post- European settlement is taught. Nevertheless, anybody who has watched the news over the last 12 years since the election of Barack Obama can say that certain ideas remain entrenched within American society.

Boynton uses that landmark moment in the history of the (so-called?) United States of America as something of a dividing line. It covers a lot of subjects, gliding through hot button subjects and subject-based diversions with relative ease and structural grace. The director herself is often heard asking subjects, young and old, questions. She's probing to get them to think outside of the text books (for the high school students) or the ideology (for the adults). This yields interesting moments but ultimately adds little. The amount of time spent with those who speak about how they, too, would fight for the South because their land was being invaded (not because they owned humans as property) speaks to how uninteresting that sort of was-it-about-slavery-or-wasn’t-it rhetoric is in 2021.

But the director and her editors, Steven J. Golliday and Mark Juergens, do frequently latch onto threads that clearly strike their interest and which open the feature up. There’s the young boy from the nation’s oldest school who bucks the trend of his seemingly more progressive classroom (and the teacher who admires his thoughtfulness if not necessarily its results). It holds its gaze on other (white male) students who have half-formed ideas; one of the movie’s more interesting frictions comes from watching these moments and wondering which side will they eventually lean towards as they learn and grow and see more of the world. Likewise, several group gatherings seen throughout always feel like they could tilt into something far more harmful. Maybe the film’s best passage is its least connected as a detour to a rail-side moment to the Clinton Riot Massacre of 1875 offers a surprising and somber glimpse into the possibilities of a changing tide.

Towards its climax, Civil War lands upon a quote from its most wonderful subject, a teacher at Boston Latin School, that sums it up best: “It’s a revelation to me that no matter how much information you present, sometimes people are going to hear it the want to hear it and they won’t budge.” Its final moments really do suggest that there is still an inherent interest in learning about America’s past. But, yes, how people take it is an entirely different matter altogether.

Release: In select theatres now. It will be screening on MSNBC on October 24.

Oscar chances: It has a lower profile, but despite the documentary branch’s more international bent as of late, the win by American Factory suggests an interest in continuing to explore intrinsically American subjects.