Product: Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Rating: 3.0
Well made, but biased and leaves alot out
There are 2 polarizing views when it comes to historical analysis of Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. On the one side are psychologists and the anti-cult movement, who view Jim Jones as a sociopath/megalomaniac and openly criticize Peoples Temple for it's destructive cult practices dating at least as far back as its time in Ukiah, California and possibly Indiana. Then there is the other side, the Pro- New Religious Movement (NRM) scholars and people that tend to paint a positive picture of Peoples Temple and its social activism, and view Jonestown as a Utopian vision that merely went wrong in the end.It's important to keep in mind that this film was made in collaboration with Rebecca Moore and Fielding McGehee, who run the Alternative Considerations of Jonestown website at San Diego St. University. Although their site is a great resource for documentation of Peoples Temple & Jonestown, Moore and McGehee are known to be firmly on the side of the pro-NRM movement (and as the sister of 2 of Jones' closest aides, Moore can hardly be relied upon as an un-biased source of information).Although this film does try at times to present a balanced view of both sides, it is clear that it glamorizes the utopian vision of Peoples Temple and leaves out many key facts about its many disturbing and illegal practices, especially in the Ukiah years. For instance, there is no mention of the 1972 series of articles by the San Francisco Examiner and Indianapolis Star that exposed Jim Jones as a fake and described Peoples Temples' practices of psychological cruelty toward its members, its financial improprieties, its infiltration of local government and its general terrorizing of the Ukiah community. The film supports the misconception that the 1977 New West magazine article was the first public expose on Jones and PT, and that is simply not true. If not for the long line of California media and politicians siding with Jones and covering up the evil side of PT, the Jonestown massacre could have been prevented, and that is not addressed at all by this film.There is literally no mention of the word "cult" or any distinct analysis of the mind control techniques used by Jones and his henchmen to control the individual lives of Temple members and not allow any dissention or defection. Interviewing experts on cult leaders and cult behavior would have given the film more balance and informed the viewer that despite the good intentions of its members, Peoples Temple was in practice the very definition of a destructive cult.What worries me about this film and other more recent analysis of Peoples Temple and Jonestown is the revisionist history that seems to going on, whether it be by religious scholars praising PT as a legitimate "new religion" while brushing aside its long history of cultic practices, or the mainstream media's sensationalist portrayals of a madman who simply commanded his "robots" to commit suicide. This film for the most part takes the side of the former, although to its credit it is more thorough than your typical TV documentary on this subject.I'm still waiting for the definitive documentary that explores in depth all sides of Peoples Temple. The closest thing to that in my mind is the book "Raven" by Tim Reiterman, which I would recommend to those who want to explore more about Peoples Temple/Jonestown.