C.S.A. The Movie

http://www.csathemovie.com/

"CSA: The Confederate States of America, through the eyes of a faux documentary, takes a look at an America where the South won the Civil War. Supposedly produced by a British broadcasting company, the feature film is presented as a production being shown, controversially, for the first time on television in the States."

I saw posters of this movie plastered on 14th Street in NYC tonight and decided to check out the website. At first I was a bit skeptical because I couldn't recall a AH movie of this scale before. Sure, I've read a lot of books which were brilliant IMO (two of my favs: The Years of Rice and Salt, The Civil War Series by Harry Turtledove) and have read MANY of the posts here on this site (some of which were highly detailed and sounded very plausible), but a movie? That could pull off telling a story of counter-factual history that would sound believable?

The site has movie trailers, a timeline, and behind the scenes clips. The movie seems interesting enough, so I plan on seeing it in the future.

What do you all think about this? Do you think that this movie is an accurate depiction of what could've happened if the South won the Civil War?
 
seems like a super flimsy excuse to comment on modern politics. more of satire than real AH, that said, some of it looks darn funny:D
 
Well, the timeline is utterly implausible. "CSS Maine" - why the hell would the CSA name a warship after a New England state? WW1 is ignored for whatever reason, but there still are Nazis in Germany? Still a JFK assassination in 1963, and a McKinley assassination? Oh no, looks like a "first try timeline" from some AH novice.:(
 
sikitu said:
Well, the timeline is utterly implausible. "CSS Maine" - why the hell would the CSA name a warship after a New England state? WW1 is ignored for whatever reason, but there still are Nazis in Germany? Still a JFK assassination in 1963, and a McKinley assassination? Oh no, looks like a "first try timeline" from some AH novice.:(
The movie is not supposed to be a serious AH, it looks very satirical.
 
They appear to be marketing slaves in the 21st Century as well... and this after Britain and France assist them in winning at Gettysburg. Yet Grant surrenders to Lee at Appomattox in Virginia two years later? :confused:

Definitely not serious AH. In fact, it will probably end up giving people the wrong idea about alternate history in that a POD will kind of change things, but events and people will be largely the same. Like the British North American General Pershing leading an expeditionary force to France to fight in a Great War that started after Archduke Ferdinand was killed, or Mao leading a Communist guerrilla war in a TL where China colonized the New World and vassalized Europe.
 
Jesse said:
The movie is not supposed to be a serious AH, it looks very satirical.
Actutally I think it's a least a semi-serious look at what the CSA would be like. Of course since we go through AH on a daily basis here we can enough poke holes in the movie to make whole new movie.
 
I know that you guys could tear this movie's script up real good. Even now, after reading everyone's responses, I asked myself "Why would ANY of the states in the Union agree to join the Confederacy after losing the Civil War?"

[SIZE=-1][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]Maybe a movie director or writer who sees this movie and is a fan of AH -- and is offended by its lack of historical context -- will go out and decide to make an accurate AH movie based on the Civil War. :rolleyes:[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE]

Too bad the people who made this movie didn't read anything by Harry Turtledove or [SIZE=-1][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1]Peter G. Tsouras, but like Jesse and SkyEmperor said, this movie is satire at its best.


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Been posted a few times. Not much in the way of AH, really really silly but the trailer is funny. Wonder when its out...
 
I saw a book (didn't get it though) that looks like this movie was based on it. CSA is big and prosperous. USA is crummy and depressed. Yet they havent fought since 1864... hmmm... :rolleyes:
 
It looks as if the United States doesn't exist in this timeline. Apparently the South took over the entire country, renamed it the Confederate States of America and reintroduced slavery to the North. New England would have loved that. :rolleyes:
 
Oh, it could have happened. Someone nearly wrote a book about it:

Challenger 2 Tanks of the South! :D

Only 9 more years to build that time machine...
 
GBW said:
It looks as if the United States doesn't exist in this timeline. Apparently the South took over the entire country, renamed it the Confederate States of America and reintroduced slavery to the North. New England would have loved that. :rolleyes:
Going by the Cotton Curtain referance I'll take it that they diassymbled it into individual states and have been annexing them slowly...
 
Gedca said:
Actutally I think it's a least a semi-serious look at what the CSA would be like.
What's your basis for saying that? The reviews I read suggested it was a "mockumentary", and the descriptions of what's shown in the movie sounds like it's using the fantasy world of the C.S.A. mainly as a vehicle for satirical commentary about racism and the black experience in the U.S., not as a serious attempt at plausible alternate history...for example, from this review:
Kevin Willmott's "C.S.A." starts out with what appears to be your typical schmaltzy TV commercial for life insurance.

A suburban dad. A little girl learning to ride her bike. Swelling music. And an unctuous male voice reaffirming the enduring value of "the master of the house protecting his family and his property."

On the word "property" the image cuts to a young black man doing yard work. Then the logo appears for the Confederate Life Insurance Company.

Welcome to an alternative universe in which the South won the Civil War. Slavery is still a going concern, the C.S.A. is officially a Christian nation (after much debate Congress decided that Catholicism was a Christian faith, but Jews have been herded onto a reservation on Long Island) and Elvis has fled to Canada where he can sing "race music" without fear of arrest.

We're all familiar with "mockumentaries," those satiric faux documentaries. But Willmott, who teaches film and television at the University of Kansas, has created a whopper. Yes, "C.S.A." is funny, but it's also unmistakably angry as Willmott rewrites history to make us look at ourselves through new eyes.

A rough cut of "C.S.A." debuted nearly two years ago at the Halfway to Hollywood Film Festival, but the screening at 6:30 tonight at the Crown Center Cinema -- the kickoff event of this year's KAN Film Festival -- represents the final cut of this 90-minute effort.

The premise is that this is a special night of TV programming in the Confederate States of America. A long-suppressed BBC documentary about the isolated C.S.A. is finally being aired, with commercial spots purchased by such products as the Shackle (an electronic device to monitor wandering domestics), a "Cops"-type TV show called "Runaway" about slave catchers, and Contrary, a drug that tames unruly servants though it comes with a list of scary side effects: "Not meant for slaves who are nursing or about to drop a litter."
Or this one:
A sharp-witted satire, “CSA” applies a blend of whimsy and reality — the moon landing with the Confederate flag on the lunar surface, D.W. Griffith making his greatest film about the capture of “Dishonest Abe” Lincoln, who fled to Canada in blackface via Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad after the Union fell.

By hypothesizing about what might have happened, the film becomes a disturbing reflection of racial strife that lingers today.

Hollywood will not touch such issues meaningfully, leaving it to black indie filmmakers to fill in the gaps, Willmott said.

“Without that true mix of a wealth of images, people just start to think that we’re real funny. And we are funny, but we’re also very serious, too,” Willmott said. “In terms of drama from the black experience, that’s the bar that hasn’t been crossed, stories involving aspects of the black experience that are not as fun and not as convenient. If we can break into that arena, then we’ll really be getting somewhere.”
Criticizing a movie like this for historical implausibility seems about like criticizing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for scientific implausibility.
 
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Roedecker

Banned
SilentMage said:
What do you all think about this? Do you think that this movie is an accurate depiction of what could've happened if the South won the Civil War?

Not really, there is no way slavery could have lasted until today. I figure it would have been abolished by the mid 1890s at the latest. And that by now, blacks would make up the majority of the CSA.

Either way, it's still interesting. Thanks, SilentMage. But I do wish it was a serious scenario instead of being an obvious comedy routine.
 
Jesse said:
What's your basis for saying that? The reviews I read suggested it was a "mockumentary", and the descriptions of what's shown in the movie sounds like it's using the fantasy world of the C.S.A. mainly as a vehicle for satirical commentary about racism and the black experience in the U.S., not as a serious attempt at plausible alternate history...for example, from this review: Or this one: Criticizing a movie like this for historical implausibility seems about like criticizing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for scientific implausibility.

Jesse,

Having seen it, you are pretty close to correct there as to what the movie actually is. What it is not is AH, at least not what the majority of us would consider AH. And having seen it, I give it 2 thumbs down and a complete waste of money (and I went at matinee prices).
 
A movie by spike lee about the CSA would probably be as flattering as Schindlers List was to nazism, but thats just my opinion.
 
SionEwig said:
And having seen it, I give it 2 thumbs down and a complete waste of money (and I went at matinee prices).
Was that because you were disappointed at the AH content, or do you think it fails as a satire too? Can you compare it to the kind of satire of racism seen on Chapelle's Show, for example? That's what the trailer sort of reminded me of, although maybe without the same level of comedic cleverness...
 
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