Product: Jonestown - The Life & Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Rating: 5.0
Watch In Tandem With A Few Other Pieces Of Information Available On The Net
"Jonestown-The Life and Death of The People's Temple" is the best of the documentaries about Jonestown available. It is less sensational than the "made for TV movie specials" I have seen on this subject. "Jonestown" contains great footage of Jim Jones preaching and children singing "Welcome" in the San Francisco location. As with most PBS documentaries, the information is presented in a straight-forward style, without commentary or question. Most important to the documentary are the interviews with Jonestown survivors. Their stories do the most for explaining what happened and why they were drawn in to the church.But this documentary has a lot of holes in it. Many of the deepest questions that remain about Jonestown are not answered by this documentary. The interviewer does not ask one survivor to explain his/her escape. One interviewee explains how he was next to his wife and baby when they were given the cyanide flavor-aid. His wife died in his arms. From that point you never hear what happened to him or how he escaped death. Another survivor says a kid bumped into him, fell to the ground and died. He then comments "then he knew it was real". But we never hear how he gets away if there were people with guns keeping him and everyone else in.Curious about these unanswered questions, I went digging around on the net and was very suprised at the information I found. The most illuminating piece of information available is something called the "Jonestown Death Tape". This is a tape of the temple meeting after the Senator was killed. If was released, with 900 other tapes, by the FBI last year. You can listen to the tape on many sites, or you can read a transcript. On the tape, temple members discuss the death of the Senator with Jim Jones for about 45 mintues. I was always under the impression that most people were coerced into killing themselves. Amazingly, most peoople profess to being happy to die. One lady even stands up and asks that her child Teddy be given something now and she will be satisfied. Many members express disappointment over the white people that deserted with the senator's group. The desertion makes them doubt their noble experiment in equality and race relations. Many people say they have no life back in San Francisco. They tell "father" he gave them the best days of their lives. You can also hear the full exchange between Christine Miller and Jim Jones that is mentioned in this DVD. Christine Miller is not immediately shot down when she brings up her questions about Russia on the tape even through the interviewees in this documentary state that she is.Despite the morbidity, the tape is a good thing to listen to before or after you watch "Jonestown". The death tape addresses the questions left unaddressed by the Jonestown DVD, but be warned that it will leave you with other questions unlikely to be answered until all information about Jonestown is declassified. For example, Jim Jones makes statements on the tape that leave you wondering if the victims found with gun shot wounds or needle marks weren't given them after voluntarily drinking cyanide so that Jim Jones could make it seem like he and his followers were attacked and be viewed as martyrs. We'll never know because autopsies weren't performed on the bodies. And many people on the tape mention 1200 people being in the temple that day. What happened to the other 300? How did the 16 escape? Why does Jim Jones whisper to his assitant that "they only have 40 minutes left"? The questions go on and on.Be warned, the tape is not for the faint of heart. It contains the clear cries of children dying while temple members discuss their situation. But you will hear how and why 900 people died in Guyana that day. Amazingly, they weren't bullied. A lot of group mentality took over. Also, you'll hear clear parallels between Jonestown and Waco. You'll hear Jim Jones telling his followers they are in a "compound situation" and everyone decides they are willing to take their own life rather than face attack. From there it's not difficult to imagine what happened at Waco. Both Waco and Jonestown came under scrutiny because of custody battles. Did Jonestown clearly foreshadow Waco?