Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple | Rebecca Moore (VI), Janet Shular

Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple | Rebecca Moore (VI), Janet Shular | Remember,remember,the 18th of November

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Jonestown - The Li...

	Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple Rebecca Moore (VI), Janet Shular PBS Paramount, 2007 average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/10/2007 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: Nr

A MUST SEE FOR YOUTH, PARENTS, CLERGY AND CULT FIGHTERS!

This documentary is fascinating with in-depth accounts of the few people who did manage to duck the darkness of a minister gone mad. It presents accounts of temple devotees who didn't go to Guyana in the first place, those who went but escaped the shootings at the airstrip, as well as those who narrowly escaped through the jungle at the time of the poisoned Kool-Aid escapade. Accounts of people who grew up with Jim Jones as schoolmates and neighbors are also presented.
This documentary covers Jim Jones in his childhood, his troubled teenaged years, his years in college, his early days as minister and social activist and in his morally declining years due to drugs, all being capped off with his suicide in Guyana.
The People's Temple began as a result of a vision of a young man who saw the indecency of segregation practiced in various churches. He reached out to the poor and downtrodden and had a vision of an integrated church with outreach to various people who the rest of the world threw away. Everyone was welcome. His church was not a cult----yet. After all, he was a legally licensed, seminary-trained clergyman in the mainline, traditional sense.
Everyone who entered the doors witnessed the tradition of an old-time American religion, complete with hand-clapping, choir, Sunday School and childrens' programs. And over and above all this, a utopia was extended complete with a roof over one's head, free dental and medical care.

It was all too good to be true. The people found a panacea.....but there was a price.

The 1950s drew to a close, and in came the 60s and 70s, and so he thought-"out with the old, and in with the new." Eventually, little did his followers know that what looked like a typical American Protestant religion on the surface would become a front for Socialistic and Communistic ideals-so much so that the Bible was thrown off the pulpit and Jim dethroned the God in Heaven and enthroned himself as the true Messiah. He would drum into his congregation how the "Sky God," would not feed them or take care of them but that he always would, and that if they would leave his church, terrible things would happen to them. (One is reminded of the tactics used by tyrants as Stalin and Tito, for example, who likewise brainwashed people in this fashion. Young children in Communist komsomols were asked to ask God in Heaven to give them candy. Then they would ask Stalin, and candy would come through the rooftop). According to certain sources I've read, the old-time Christian facade was only kept so that he did not have to pay taxes.

What was once a Christian church became his haven and Socialist play pen for woman hopping, drug use and complete tyrannical control. He was God, he was the "chosen one." And ultimately, due to paranoic tendencies, came the "escape" to Guyana. The sad scene of people whose lives were cut short because of a left-winged madman haunts me even today. So much for Communism being the answer to the world's problems. This incident and history show that it's not liberating, but oppressive.

In America, we have over 2,000 sects (based on statistics I read). There could be cults among them. You young people, teenagers and parents and clergy and law-enforcement officers, watch this film. No one should EVER have to go through this kind of brain-washing and oppression. Our American constitution ought to shield us from such tyranny.

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Remember,remember,the 18th of November

"Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" is an illuminating look at the terrible events of November 18,1978,and the circumstances leading to it. The massacre of 900 people at Jonestown happened 3 decades ago, yet it remains relevant today. It's a tragedy that our country still struggles to comprehend. Like Jim Jones' victims who were denied a final resting place until Oakland's Evergreen Cemetery took them in, the tragedy wanders,ghostlike, on the fringes of our consciousness.

This American Experience documentary manages to cover a lot of ground in its brief hourlong time (survivors like Stephan Jones are omitted,as is the murder/suicide of Sharon Harris&her children in Georgetown,or Harvey Milk's praise for the group) It begins with Jim Jones' roots in rural Indiana. He witnessed racism and poverty firsthand,and decided to take them on. He became Pentecostal, then went to California. As a Disciples of Christ pastor, Jones was dynamic. He had somewhat of a Christian commune in Ukiah (he thought it would be a perfect refuge from nuclear war) The former Peoples Temple building in Ukiah is now Redwood Valley Assembly of God. In Ukiah, Jones initiated the "White Nights"--rehearsals for mass suicide.

At first, Jones seemed noble. He championed racial integration,an end to poverty; his church took in the homeless,the drug addicted, the unemployed. He found San Francisco more amenable, making friends with Assemblyman Willie Brown and Mayor George Moscone. It was in San Francisco,he became more radical,cloaking his Communist beliefs in Christian practices (the congregation still sang spirituals,there were still full immersion baptisms) Jones went from being a religious leader to being anti-religion. He told his congregation "We're all [...]",yet proclaimed himself the only heterosexual (while sexually exploiting male&female members alike) Jim Jones' downward spiral into paranoia,megalomania, and self-destruction is at once tragic and chilling. In Guyana,his congregation hailed him as "Comrade/Leader/Our Father." Though Jones once condemned contraception and euthanasia, he forced his followers to commit suicide as he looked on his pavilion. He went from telling his congregation that only God has power over life,to telling them that they had to die,as a "revolutionary suicide."

"Jonestown" is strong in its firsthand interviews with survivors. The survivors recount the torture,isolation,and trauma they experienced. There is still heartbreak. The wounds are still fresh. "Jonestown" offers valuable lessons on the cult of personality,and its dangers. It's a timely warning, thought it happened 30 years ago. Remember, remember, the 18th of November.

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further proof that religion is a load

Jones was one of the best B.S. artists of them all. Should be a wake-up call/eye-opener to anyone who thinks some all-knowing/anointed evangelist is going to show them the way to eternal salvation.

Alas, there will always be enough naive types who will follow a loser like Jim Jones--to their (likely) doom.

It's sad. Jones wasn't/isn't the only lowlife/manipulator out to get what he can out of others.

very Good

I think this was an excellent project, but I really would have liked to see the issue of CIA involvement, or at least the questions surrounding this issue, addresssed even in a cursory manner. I hope more is revealed and that another great film maker is planning another documentary.

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Jim Jones: the man behind the grape.

Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People's Temple (Stanley Nelson, 2006)

Thirty years later, it's still hard for me to wrap my head around the monstrosity that was the People's Temple. Stanley Nelson's documentary does a pretty good job of explaining the how of it, using extensive footage of the Temple and interviews from survivors, But I just can't grasp the why. (I'll attempt not to turn this review into a diatribe against religion, so if it seems a little sketchy, that's why.)

Rather than focusing on what most know of the People's Temple-- the events of November 11, 1978-- Nelson (Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice) goes back to the beginning, examining the life of Jim Jones as he started his small church in Indiana, tracing it through its various moves, and finally ending up in the small South American country of Guyana. Nelson wants to get at what it was about Jim Jones that made him so charismatic, and he does a pretty good job of it. Jones comes off scary, but that has far less to do with Nelson than it does with the fact that it's impossible to look at Jim Jones and not know what's coming; the guy was slick and persuasive, and it's pretty easy to see how he ended up with as many congregants as he finally did. Fascinating stuff, this, and worth your time. *** ½

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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