Setembro Negro

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 can appreciate your comments and I believe your comments were constructive and neutral. When I saw the movie I thought it was very interesting, insightful and thought provoking. I also thought about it as a viewer on the outside of the Mormon faith looking in, as obviously biased and based more on butts in the seats, cash in the bank, then the little details of historical accuracy, or fairness. I'm certainly not going to spend hours, days and weeks researching what happened 150 yrs ago, I just don't care in this day and age enough. What I did find in fifteen minutes of searching the "Net" is that this group of Mormon's did not for the most part follow the advice of it's leadership on all matters. They kind of ran their own little rodeo hitting the highlights of the faith. Their main leader Brigham Young, three hundred miles away in Salt Lake City was aware of the problems and contention in the area between these two groups. When my respect for the writers and directors fell through the floor was when I read on multiple web-sites and some historical records, that Young sent a message to the local leaders, to calm down, think rationally and to let the group go in peace. This letter arrived two days late. Someone posted on the web, comments claimed to have come from him (Young) that he made in his later years, saying how much he pained over those events that transpired and that, had they had the telegraph, it wouldn't have happened. Yea, maybe he's lying, maybe he delayed the letter just enough to clear his conscience and avoid responsibility, maybe. Just the simple fact of how they (film makers) portrayed Young and failed to mention this letter would have changed my fillings of the movie and of the production staff. This movie might as well have well been made by Michael Moore. Same one sided story telling. It was a nasty event, shouldn't have happened, the responsible parties should have hanged for it. This move should have been more balanced and not such a one sided "Hatefest" film preying on emotions, and religious hate to fill the seats. Heck, I paid.

9/11, but century and a half before the recent one. Back in 1857, in Utah, a group of settlers was killed by local Mormons. This movie tells a story about more than a hundred men, women, and children who lost their lives in the horrifying massacre. It's not a masterpiece of cinema, but it is definitely worth your time.

7/10

I was about to disregard this movie and thought that maybe I'd check out what people have written about it on IMDb. Frankly, to any one that is not Mormon, the thorough and complete disgust I see on this site from people who are very obviously from the Mormon community doesn't dissuade me from watching this movie, it actually encourages me. When people take so much effort to convince you not to watch something, I for one, think it's probably worth watching. I have watched it now and I must say, it wasn't the awful movie we are made to believe it was by the people posting on this site. To the contrary, I found it a very powerful and compelling movie and I'm glad to have watched it. I will certainly do some historical research to see where the alleged biases come in, but I have a feeling the movie will certainly not be quite the fiction that some of the posters have made it out to be.

My actual rating would have been a 6 or a 7 at best, but since there are people (I would assume those in the Mormon community) trying to bring the rating down simply because it shows a group of their people in an unfavourable light, I gave it a 10 to balance it out.

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.