September Dawn

I have been hearing many bad reviews for this movie, panning it for a perceived 'blanket condemnation of the Mormon Church.' What so many of these reviews refuse to take into consideration is the actual character of territorial Utah in the 1850s and the rest of the historical evidence.

The plain simple fact is that Utah at the time WAS full of zealous religiosity. Every statement made by Brigham Young in the movie comes from his published sermons. Utah territory was a harsh and repressive society, and the movie portrays this accurately.

This movie is in NO WAY a blanket condemnation of Mormonism, though it IS a condemnation of the Mormon Church *IN THE 1850s.* To say that this movie portrays them like "homesteading Nazis," is completely unfair.

John Voight's performance gives a perfect example of the sort of character found in Mormon authorities in the period, while his sons show us some of the various types of dissension, the outright rejection, and the horrified self-loathing obedience.

The only thing I can see wrong here is that they could have put some hostile people in the wagon company, as undoubtedly there would have been. I can understand why they did not however, in order to drive home just how terrible this massacre was. Whether or not Brigham Young was directly involved in the events is up for debate, but there can be no doubt that the teachings he espoused and the environment they engendered were a significant part of what caused the massacre.

In short, most of the negative reviews come either from Mormons or people who have very little background with regards to the history of Territorial Utah

I am feeling so much better now that I've seen September Dawn, an "inspired-by-true-events" fiction about the massacre in 1857 of Christian "immigrants" on the Mormon Utah land as they passed through to California. The Mormons did it, with the complicity of Native Americans. But whether Brigham Young ordered it is still arguable.

I feel better because midway through the year I found the year's worst film. This bastard child of Little House on the Prairie and Lifetime Channel is so full of clichés and obvious Mormon baiting that the descriptor "art" should never be uttered about it. "Inspired by" the true events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, in which 122 "gentiles" were exterminated, Almost every scene is larded with clichés, not the least being the shameless ones with the Romeo and Juliet knockoffs who exclaim more than once never to have "met anyone like you" before, or the progressive woman who wears pants and a gun who doesn't like the current rest on Mormon land and is the clear choice for hatred by the mad Mormon, Jacob Samuelson, played with scene hunger by Jon Voight (his bad-guy goatee is hilarious).

That the massacre occurred is not in doubt. That it happened on September 11 seems to enchant the producers as if this tepid melodrama could in any way be spoken of in the same breath as 9/11. Why this film was made at all is beyond belief. Perhaps I should ask Mitt Romney why.

This is a story that needs telling, and perhaps a bare documentary would have gone unnoticed. I was bothered, however, by the introduction of an unlikely horse-breaking scene, a subsequent act of remarkable generosity, and a love-at-first-sight romance. These run counter to the actual events and distort the nature of the massacre. Apart from that I liked the portrayal very much. It does a good job of portraying the distrust the Mormons had of the rest of the nation, including the government, of their resentment toward Missouri and toward the mob that murdered Joseph Smith in Illinois, and the failure of the government that had him in its custody.

Although the movie was shot in Alberta, the scenery is not unlike that in the Mountain Meadows area, except, of course, for the lake or river in which the young emigrant was able to bathe. I could be mistaken, but I don't think there is one.

If memory serves, president Buchanan was using the Mormons as "Wag the Dog" Scapegoats to distract the country from the political tensions that eventually led up to the Civil war. This is why he sent a good fraction of the US army into an invasion of Utah. At the time, the military was about the only US institution representing both North and South.

Buchanon's hope was that by demonizing the Mormons ( especially over the practice of polygamy ), he could unite the country.

IIRC, Buchanan and Brigham Young were personally-acquainted and on good terms. So the use of military force in a situation that could have easily been solved politically made the Mormon leadership even more paranoid.

Again IIRC, an important source of income for the Mormans was resupplying immigrants. Slaughering your customer base is not a good business practice.

I find it quite odd that so many folks have slammed this fine film. A masterpiece, no. A hateful 'attack' on Mormons, hardly. I know for a fact the LDS doctrine outlined in the film is what 'the church' holds. Why is this historical film off limits, I don't get it. The actors all did a credible job and Terrance Stamp was wonderful.This is a true Hollywood story. It is based on a real event. The Mormons murdered those folks on the meadow. It is no indictment on every living member of the LDS than a film about the crusades impugns every Catholic.The ending was a little over the top but it was a fine love story. All in all I have seen few films bashed this terribly that were so very good.