Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
- 2006
- 1h 26min
Imágenes inéditas muestran el Templo del Pueblo de Jim Jones y la tragedia de 1978 cuando el predicador llevó a 900+ seguidores a Guyana, culminando en suicidio masivo.Imágenes inéditas muestran el Templo del Pueblo de Jim Jones y la tragedia de 1978 cuando el predicador llevó a 900+ seguidores a Guyana, culminando en suicidio masivo.Imágenes inéditas muestran el Templo del Pueblo de Jim Jones y la tragedia de 1978 cuando el predicador llevó a 900+ seguidores a Guyana, culminando en suicidio masivo.
- Premios
- 1 premio ganado y 4 nominaciones en total
- Self
- (as Rev. Garnett Day)
Opiniones destacadas
Well, I wish I could answer these questions after this documentary. But I can't, because despite it's very acceptable technical quality, the choice of a chronological narration doesn't do much to add depth to a character larger than life as Jim Jones was.
The film did a lot to enlighten me in the origins of the church, it's racial integration and also its claims against social inequality. But the character itself remains a mystery to me. His motivations, the techniques he used to control his followers. It is all depicted very lightly and without much intellectual depth. There are moments when some of the cult followers say things about Jones that could be further explored, but unfortunately the director chooses to leave them as nearly an anecdote.
And this is what I think it is the biggest concern I have against this very interesting film. The narration makes Jones appear as an eccentric egomaniac. But the truth is that one hints there was so much more in his plans. It is just not plausible that he just made up the mass suicide- murder idea on the go. There is something utterly well thought out about how everything happened. This is pure evil at work, not very different to the Jew extermination by the Nazis. There was a plan, and I am sure that in this case there was a very well laid out plan. But the film makes it all appear almost as random as the weather.
It is a pity, because the archive footage is varied and excellent. But I can't help but wonder what Errol Morris would have done of this film. Probably a masterpiece, because he would have made what he does best: Portray characters with total precision.
Still, an interesting documentary to watch.
This film is what a great documentary looks like. It goes beyond the headline and dig deep into the story. I begin to understand whom Jim Jones was. I begin to understand why so many people crossed the racial and social boundaries to come together and even devoted their lives to this cult leader and their "church." Many of the cult followers were struggling with the social injustice and racial discrimination in the 60s and 70s. Jim Jones offered them equality and sense of belonging that the society didn't offer. So Peoples Temple becomes their utopia where they could be so happy and united. Only the sad part is that later some of them realize they were betrayed and they had no way out.
This is definitely a great documentary I have seen this year and I surely hope it will get an Oscar nomination.
The whole People's Temple story always struck me as just another of the 60's cult phenomena. We had Rajneesh and his farm, and uncountable other guru's who exploited, and continue to exploit, large numbers of gullible followers. The Moonies are still with us, but well below the radar most of the time.
What's odd about Jim Jones -- to me, anyway -- is that no one really seems to know who this guy really was. This film gives more insight than anything else I've seen or read. It talks about his childhood, which was extremely poor, and his family situation, which was equally grim, so we get some insight there. But he was a very carefully guarded fellow. Always wearing those shades, always talking in the manner of a preacher. But who was he really? What was he like when he took off the robes and had a beer? We may never know. His followers certainly didn't know, and no doubt that's a major part of the problem. There is one scene in this documentary in which Jones is standing at the back of a group of people at a large gathering, and his demeanor reminded me of the dictator in North Korea -- it was that kind of vague, arrogant, totally in control look. Spooky.
The most telling comment in this film was the remark made by one of the PT's former members, who said "No one ever goes and joins a cult. They join a church, or a club." But what is the tipping point at which people can tolerate psychological and physical abuse against themselves and their friends? We don't get an answer to that. The people who made this film didn't have to tell us the answer, but it would have been a better film if they had.
However I did find the repeat use of some archival footage a bit weak, and unless I missed it, it was never explained that the "Planning Commission" was part of the Peoples Temple itself.
Like any good documentary, it left me wanting to find out more, but I did think that it was an omission not to attempt any consideration of what led Jones to turn what had been a beneficial organisation, into a murderous one. Neither does the film attempt to look into how the organisation was run - presumably Jones couldn't have directly controlled the 1,000 inhabitants of Jonestown? The source of the poison and weapons is also a subject that doesn't feature, or the question of what happened to the money afterwards?
Overall this is a really interesting film, especially for those of us who were too young to remember the events.
¿Sabías que…?
- TriviaBased on the same real life events as Jonestown Cult Suicide (2012), Jonestown Massacre: As We Watched (2018), Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), Jonestown (2013), Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007), Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018), Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), The Jonestown Haunting (2020), Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple (2007), The Jonestown Massacre (2016) and Truth and Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost (2018).
- Citas
Deborah Layton: [on Jim Jones's brainwashing of his followers at Jonestown] Every night at some point, his voice would come over the loudspeaker, and he'd say, "I'm sending somebody out tonight. Somebody you know. Somebody you trust. And they're gonna act like they wanna leave. But this is a loyalty test, and you need to turn them in."
- Bandas sonorasWelcome
Performed by the People's Temple Choir
Selecciones populares
- How long is Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple?Con tecnología de Alexa
Detalles
- Fecha de lanzamiento
- País de origen
- Sitio oficial
- Idioma
- También se conoce como
- Jonestown - Från början till slutet
- Productora
- Ver más créditos de la compañía en IMDbPro
Taquilla
- Total en EE. UU. y Canadá
- USD 148,292
- Fin de semana de estreno en EE. UU. y Canadá
- USD 7,482
- 22 oct 2006
- Total a nivel mundial
- USD 148,292