The South Never Plays Itself

Since The Birth of a Nation became the first Hollywood blockbuster in 1915, movies have struggled to reckon with the American Southas both a place and an idea, a reality and a romance, a lived experience and a bitter legacy. Nearly every major American filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter has worked on a film about the South, from Gone with the Wind to 12 Years a Slave, from Deliverance to Forrest Gump. In The South Never Plays Itself, author and film critic B. W. Beard explores the history of the Deep South on screen, beginning with silent cinema and ending in the streaming era, from President Wilson to President Trump, from musical to comedy to horror to crime to melodrama. Beards idiosyncratic narrativepart cultural history, part film criticism, part memoirjourneys through genres and eras, issues and regions, smash blockbusters and microbudget indies to explore Americas past and troubled present, seen through Hollywoods distorting lens. Opinionated, obsessive, sweeping, often combative, sometimes funnya wild narrative tumble into culture both high and lowBeard attempts to answer the haunting question: what do movies know about the South that we dont?