Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)

For better or for worse, Oak Street Cinema (nestled on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota) is one of only five theaters in the United States showing the Stanley Nelson directed "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple". Upon entering the theater, overheard was a fellow patron inquiring of the girl tearing tickets, "...so how's the movie?"; to wit she replied, "I haven't watched it, but I hear it's depressing.". Her information was accurate indeed.

Skipping ahead because there is without doubt a general cognizance about Jim Jones and the eventual mass suicide at the "jungle utopia" in Guyana, I can only add I wasn't fully prepared for what the film had to add to the story. The never-before-seen film footage and audio was orthodox for a Jonestown chronicle, not that I'm well versed in Jonestown lore, only it ran rather vanilla in terms of new information on the subject. It was the cumulative effect of the footage, audio, pictures, and testimony from former Peoples Temple members which gave me a sick feeling as the conclusion unfolded. Example: the little known visit by an entourage of United States officials and media including U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan. Ryan initiated this visit under the pretext that family of Temple members were being held against their will; a secondary reason was tax evasion charges stemming from Jim Jones' affiliation with the San Francisco Democratic Party, who appointed Jones as San Fransisco's Housing Commissioner due to his (supposed) instrumental help in "getting out the vote" for the eventual winning mayoral candidate. Ryan's arrival to Jonestown created a tempered intensity inside the town as several members slipped notes to the small contingent of accompanying press saying they wanted out — these notes were soon discovered and delivered to Jones. Audio directly from that fated afternoon is tough to listen to and the events immediately following, as recounted by the only two survivors of Ryan's entourage, prompting a type of brutality that seems irreal.

Of course, it's the surviving members (and deceased, for that matter) that make this film. As a loose point of reference, Christopher Lasch's book "Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations", recounts a former Weatherman member who, upon her (inevitable) disenchantment with the the group's leadership to which she had fundamentally surrendered to, remarked that she 'didn't care what the group did, only that she was bathed in attention, ...[she] felt omnipotent when surrounded by the group leaders.'. This insight, for me, added to the films narrative of how people were sucked into Jones' visions of utopia and how a perfected world should work. But in the end, it's just a control freak named Jim Jones preying, patronizing, then forcing his will and his own brand of sadism on vulnerable men, women, and children.

"You don't need to worship me.  All I want from you is to do right.  Feed my children — Do something about the misery around you — Take care of the animals.  I don't care whether you like me, call me Jim Jones, call me asshole ... if you want to call me God, then I'm God.  I don't care what you call me.  Call me Father.  Call me mother.  Call me hermaphrodite.  Call me queer — call me whatever you want, ... just do what's right.
Do what's right."

- Jim Jones, transcribed Jonestown Audiotapes.

I think that excerpt speaks for itself. Jones preached community, love, and commitment to his followers — with himself as the source and foundation — only his was a one-way street of sorts that required absolute and rigorous obedience; a dichotomy which members realized much too late, or alas, not at all. To open the film a former member declares: "Nobody joins a cult; nobody joins something they think is going to hurt them.", and it's difficult to sit and watch that very thing happen.