Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple
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DVD Cover Information Actor: Hue Fortson Jr., Janet Shular, Rebecca Moore (VI), Stanley Clayton (II), Tim Carter (IX) Director: Stanley Nelson Brand: Paramount DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Format: Color, NTSC, PAL, Subtitled Picture Format: 1.78:1 Running Time: 90 minutes DVD Release Date: 2007-04-10 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Studio: PBS Paramount |
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Movie Reviews of Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple
Movie Review: Tremendously instructive. MUST SEE - but not by young children.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Jonestown" was originally a PBS "American Experience" program. It is presented only in the form of archival footage of the People's Temple and survivor interviews. There are no interviews of sociologists and there is no narration. This format is very powerful.
The DVD has good extras, including a touching interview with the director and some informative deleted scenes. The program has more information about the survivors interviewed during the final credits, so don't turn it off until the very end to see everything.
This program is horrifying and depressing, but IMHO, something that is important to watch because it illustrates very well how religion-based psychological and intellectual submission can, in the space of a few years, turn good people into slaves and good intentions into tragedy. I recommend watching "Jonestown" early in the evening, then watch something fun like "Wallace and Gromit" before you go to bed!
One note of caution. While it might be appropriate - even important - to watch this film with a strong-minded and mature teenager, young children should not be present while it's viewed.
I woke up with the following thoughts the morning after I watched the film (Unfortunately, I did not follow "Jonestown" with "W&G," so I went to sleep very agitated) :
Jim Jones and his People's Temple had a lot in common with many of today's (and history's) religious leaders and religious groups. Do any of these things sound familiar?
A CHARISMATIC AND PATERNALISTIC LEADER offers distressed and idealistic people hope - "new life" - and a profound sense of community. He tells the downtrodden that they are no longer "lost," that they are special indeed. He provides his followers a sense of superiority to the "worldly heathen" - which also instills fear of outsiders. He interprets scriptures, and chooses passages, in a manner conforming to the psychological needs and existing beliefs of his audience. He makes tithing a moral duty and a necessity for full membership. He presents himself literally as a wise and knowing "father," but eventually uses that status as a tool for abuse and self-gratification, sexually and otherwise. He develops an "inner circle" of people willing to do his bidding in an increasingly unquestioning manner. Once a solid group of followers is formed, he begins to teach that to leave the group is to "blaspheme" and that misery will befall those who leave, when in fact the greater misery is found by those who remain.
THE MEETINGS / SERVICES skillfully employ music and rousing speeches to excite the audience. The assembled people are asked to greet and embrace the people around them, which serves to increase solidarity, and whether by design or happenstance, to expose and create discomfort among the hesitant and the skeptical. Phony healings are part of the proceedings.
THE FOLLOWERS are a mix of individuals, but in general are characterized by either very difficult personal/social/economic backgrounds or by a deep sense of idealism. The leader's message promises hope and equality to the former - a feast for their starving psyches. For the merely idealistic, passions for love, community, and justice are inflamed.
Almost all of the followers are essentially decent and good people, but tend to be psychologically needy in one way or another. The tremendous sense of hope, of caring community, and the promise of utopia (in this life or the next) offered by the leader and his belief system causes the followers to suppress whatever critical faculties they might possess.
All of the above describes Jim Jones and his People's Temple. At least some of the above describes a zillion other religious groups, though of course very few come to such an horrific end.
However, if you watch this film, consider the point at which the People's Temple situation began to produce more harm than good. I think that point came long - very long - before the Kool-Aid was prepared. In fact, it came at a point where thousands - maybe hundreds of thousands - of churches, mosques, and synagogues operate every day - where doctrine, community, and leadership become more important than reason and reality. This is the point where, to be precise, the people become "as children" or "humble sheep."
Also, this program serves, in my opinion, to bolster the contention, recently made most vigorously by author Sam Harris, that religion is, and has always been, the most effective vehicle of mindsets that lead to senseless violence. Terrible ideologies and "leader worship" sometimes come in secular form, but history and any daily newspaper both show that nothing creates dangerous zealots like the idea that one is doing "the Will of God" on your way to heaven.
In the case of the People's Temple, Jim Jones skillfully combined his charisma with a Christian/socialist ideology - a devastating mixture long before the final Kool-Aid was prepared. But without his Pentecostal training, his ability to claim the authority of God (indeed, to be God), and without the concepts of heaven and hell, his reign would very likely have ended far sooner and with far fewer than 909 deaths.
The physicist Stephen Weinberg said, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." I would add only the words "almost always" before the words "takes religion."