AllMovie

Twenty-two years after the fact, the Civil War still exercises a great deal of influence on American society. This the premise of Ross Spears' feature-length documentary Long Shadows. Using then-and-now photographs and vintage correspondence, Spears traces the vestiges of the bloody campaign to the present-day south. He also interviews several prominent writers, intellectuals, politicians and political activists. Among the on-screen participants in Long Shadows are Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Penn Warren, Chicago-based raconteur Studs Terkel, and former president Jimmy Carter.