Wednesday night (August 7) and Thursday was movie day for me at the Salt Lake City gathering of the Sunstone Symposium. This 24-hour period included presentations involving: (1) background information on the television documentary The Mormons; (2) a revisiting of the movie/documentary New York Doll; and (3) a pre-screening and discussion of Richard Dutcher’s latest film Falling. Each was very informative, and occasionally gut wrenching. Each demonstrates the power that film can have in spurring discussion. And, as with all Sunstone activities, each had its share of weird.
I attended 2 of Helen Whitney’s, the guru behind the The Mormons, presentations: one Wednesday night and another on Thursday afternoon, both were marred by technical difficulties. Helen is a good speaker and the first presentation by her was excellent. And at the end she provided some useful observations, three I will mention here: (1) Mormons need to own our beliefs and history; (2) the expression “I know” wrangles people of other faiths; and (3) we appear to be pro-family only as it fits our mold, which includes only “worthy” Mormons.
Helen’s comments about making her documentary were also very enlightening. She takes a great deal of time with her interviews; many frequently last a long time. She is constantly proding her interviewees to “go deeper” or “compress” their responses. Her success with interviews was demonstrated in the second session I attended with Helen. It involved 40-minutes of outtake interviews not included in the documentary. The interviews involved conversion to and deconversion from Mormonism. These were all very gripping. Each person interviewed told very personal stories. And Helen’s skill in getting these very private stories was highlighted. Unfortunately there was no time for questions after the showing.
On Thursday morning there was an alternative intrepretation to the documentary “New York Doll” provided by Dennis Potter, associate professor of philosophy at Utah Valley State College. (For my review of the movie, see an earlier posting on my Blog.) Interestingly, Dennis said that his experience was opposite from that of the film’s protagonist, Arthur “Killer” Kane. While Arthur went from raunchy rock star to sometimes Mormon, Dennis has gone from Mormon to Goth (?): complete with black shirt, torn jeans, and fishnet stockings. This provides him with a unique vision of the documentary. He asserts that David Johanssen (lead singer of the Dolls) is the saving force in Arhtur’s life and not the Mormon Church. The Mormon Church was the regimentation that helped Arthur get over his addictions, but it couldn’t help him escape his past (and that was the tragedy of his life). The role of redeemer was played by David. The Dolls’ reunion tour was, in essence, a funeral, for Arthur’s past. The unfortunate irony is that Arthur’s redemption came so late in his life.
The responder to Dennis’s paper was Michael Stevens, who highlighted several important points. First, he reenforced the notion that Arthur’s fondest moments were of his raunchy days as a rock star, despite his conversion to Mormonism. He pointed out the irony of Arthur comparing his conversion to Mormonism to an acid trip. Second, he pointed out that the church members, including many local officials, were very instrumental in supporting Arthur’s reunion with the Dolls (They also contributed to the financing of the documentary.). They seemed to provide an aura of unconditional acceptance. And third important point that Michael made was about the sacramental power of Arthur’s prayer just before the reunion concert.
After the session on “Doll,” there was pre-screening of Richard Duchers latest movie “Falling.” For this showing there was SRO at Brewvies. The film is visceral, violent, and gripping (I will provide a review in a later Blog entry.). Sean Means calls the movie a “time bomb, one that’s likely to blow the Utah movie scene apart.” But both Richard in his movie and Sean in his review are trying too hard to shock. And therein lies the problem with both. Having said that, I enjoyed (probably not the right word) experiencing the movie. It was two hours well spent. More movies need to be less superficial. However, I cannot recommend it for general audiences, the violence is over the top, the language is intense, and there is some minor nudity and adult themes. If the movie goer can live with these, then he/she should see the movie.
Sean states that “it is a Mormon movie because it deals with issues of faith, particularly LDS faith, in unblinking terms.” Realizing that I have only seen the movie once, I would strongly disagree. The protagonist is Mormon, but he could just as easily be Conservative Christian or Catholic. The main theme of the movie for me is concerns life compromises and the difficulties and situations that arise from them. This is a theme more universal than the issues facing Mormonism. The quirky aspects of the comments made during the QandA session after the movie have been documented by Sean and I won’t repeat them here. But they did illustrate the emotional impact and intellectual value of the movie.
I love well-made movies and documentaries. And your wrong Richard when you say “I know this is not a movie that people will like.” Some will. “Doll,” “Falling,” and “The Mormons” are all worthy examples of excellent filmmaking. They all make us think.
