From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V2 #235 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Friday, December 26 2003 Volume 02 : Number 235 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 23:07:54 -0700 From: Christopher Bigelow Subject: [AML] (DesNews) _GET THE FIRE: Young Mormon Missionaries Abroad_ Filmmaker's mission: an elder's life Documentary follows 3 LDS missionaries By Carrie A. Moore Deseret Morning News Any Utahn who knows a family that is sending a young LDS missionary into the "field" probably understands at least a little bit about proselyting work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's an assignment people are often curious about when they learn a young adult has volunteered to leave home, job, school and friends in order to share their faith with the hope of saving souls. The intrigue usually grows when it becomes known that missionaries and their families foot the $10,000-plus bill in preparatory and living expenses so they are able to serve. For New Yorker Nancy du Plessis, those questions grew into a two-year odyssey that has resulted in a documentary film on life as an LDS missionary. The hourlong film, scheduled to air Tuesday, Dec. 23, at 11 p.m. on KUED-Ch. 7, is a highly condensed package of footage. Du Plessis said she shot 12,000 minutes of film during a 26-month period that follows three LDS missionaries from the day they opened their mission calls at home in Salt Lake City through their goodbyes at a German airport as they prepare to fly back home. "GET THE FIRE: Young Mormon Missionaries Abroad" also features excerpts of interviews with former LDS missionaries who have left the church but reflect on their mission experience and share their feelings - some positive, some negative. In the Beehive State, missionary life has become so ingrained a part of LDS culture that feature-length movies on the topic have raked in some real cash by combining a believable story line with inside humor that some missionaries and their families can relate to. Add those to the LDS Church's own video efforts to promote missionary work, and the portrayal to date has been largely positive. Du Plessis had no such agenda when she began, she said. Rather, she was simply intrigued by a young woman from America who was serving an LDS mission in Germany, and from their conversation decided others would be interested in what missionaries do and why they do it. Nancy du Plessis Getting permission for the filming wasn't as difficult as some might anticipate, she said. She contacted the church's Public Affairs office, and they agreed to help her find three missionaries from Salt Lake City who would be serving in Germany. "I said originally that I wanted to show the experience of one missionary, but the church wanted me to agree to throw away the material if my subject did not make it to the end" of the mission, du Plessis said. The film's first producer agreed, with the stipulation that the crew would follow three missionaries, rather than one, to reduce their chances of having to scrap the project. "There was no agreement about what would and would not be filmed," she said. Du Plessis didn't want to miss any part of the experience with Elders Jake Erekson, Brady Flamm and Matt Higbee. "I wanted to be present for the opening of the mission calls, so when the Public Affairs office was locating missionaries, I said I just need you to be aware of the fact that I need to be there for the opening of the letters, because I'm not staging anything - this is an observational film." Du Plessis said she "can't say definitively how families (of the three young men) reacted" to her request. She met them before the mission letters arrived, in the company of officials from Public Affairs, but said she wasn't apprised of any discussions that took place ahead of time. "They were all very nice to me and we got along very well. I don't know if they did it under pressure or if they genuinely were interested or excited." Having filmed them at every stage of the process, du Plessis said the fact that she is an American living abroad definitely helped ease whatever angst her subjects may have felt. "I think there was a certain feeling that, 'Wow, she knows where we come from.' I'm also a native English speaker and they didn't talk with many people who were except other missionaries." Footage includes shots inside the Missionary Training Center, the mission president's home, the missionaries' apartments and even inside the homes of "investigators," or people who agreed to let the missionaries come in after they knock at the door. The missionaries are filmed holding street meetings, tracting from door to door, making door approaches, starting conversations on the train, and even talking with family and friends back home. Du Plessis said for the most part the missionaries were cooperative, but "sometimes it depended on their moods." "It was generally a good relationship. A couple of times I think the companions were leery of being filmed, and that was the reason some shoots didn't work out at the last minute." Other shots themselves were last-minute. For example, "Elder Erekson called me up one time and said, 'I just had the most incredible conversation.' I said wait a minute, let me get the camera. He was stationed 30 minutes by train from Munich, so I got on a bike and went to the train station to meet him and he told me about this fantastic conversation. I think that is definitely an indication that we had good relationship." The filming proceeded for 14 months, until one church "authority" told her he "didn't want me to make the film . . . He basically said 'I've got to see it.' And I said I'm very sorry but this is an independent project that's been going on for 14 months already, and as an independent project I can't show it to you." He then told her she couldn't use any of the footage with him and his wife while he was visiting Munich. "I believe he applied pressure to everyone else after that," and she said she got "no further support from the church's public relations department at that point." Just when it looked like she might have to scrap the project, an opportunity to work on another film came along. Time passed and "when I finally got back to (the missionary film) things had calmed down" and she was able to finish filming. "But it was not without some difficult months," du Plessis said. She raised money for the film gradually, first getting several European TV stations interested, which she believes created confidence in the Utah Humanities Council, "which gave me a small amount of money just to say 'we think it's a nice idea.' " She got a good chunk of money from New York State Council on the Arts, and was able to pitch the project to someone from PBS, who suggested she get in touch with ITVS and its "Independent Lens" division, which supports independent documentary filmmaking. "I had to survive two rounds and 11 experts" while the concept was considered, "then they agreed to give me the (bulk of the) money. They are concerned about supporting subjects that don't get that much coverage and felt religion generally doesn't get that much coverage on TV. They liked my subject." Cost of production came to about $280,000, she said. What happens to all the leftover footage? Du Plessis said the agreement with Independent Lens is that it won't be used to make another film "because they gave the lion's share of the money and consider it to be theirs" in part. In addition to following the missionaries through a "Mormon rite of passage," du Plessis said she chose her "post-mission" subjects from those she came to know in New York. There was no attempt to segregate them by their responses to their mission experience, either good or bad, she said. As for the overall film, "I've been told that it's fair . . . that it feels like a feature film. Many people have the idea that documentary has to be boring." She hopes people "enjoy watching it and that they would feel on one hand they are being entertained while also getting a lot of information." "I have had a couple of people identify themselves as Mormons and say they enjoyed the film from other screenings in Europe. I hope that will be the case in the U.S. as well." For more information on "GET THE FIRE!" see the Web site at www.pbs.org/getthefire. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:01:20 -0700 From: Clark Goble Subject: [AML] Personal Literature Site Hmm. The list seems a tad dead this month. [MOD: Mea culpa!] Just in case things do come back, I thought I'd mention that I've come out with a literature blog to complement my philosophical blog which probably is a little interest to most. I plan on focusing a lot on my favorite poems and books which range from the more traditionally artistic to more popular works of literature and film. Anyway, if you not only don't find me monotonous and pretentious but even enjoy reading me at times you might want to check it out. No comment fields in the site yet. (Coming soon) However feel free to email me if you want a comment put on the blog. http://www.libertypages.com/clark/Literature/index.html - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 13:31:24 -0700 From: Margaret Blair Young Subject: Re: [AML] AVERY, _From Mission to Madness_ (Review) I have a couple of questions for Sam Brown, who has some medical knowledge which probably makes him a bit of an authority on the sorts of things I'm going to ask, all of which relate to his review of _From Mission to Madness_. What exactly did previous generations mean by "brain fever"? Since my great great grandmother (BYU President George Brimhall's first wife) was institutionalized for 40 years with "brain fever", I have long wondered what all it encompassed. It SOUNDS like encephalitis, but it seems to embrace all mental illnesses as a generic catch-all. Was there an actual fever involved in the cases, or was this the term applied to anything from neurosis to psychosis? My sister is convinced that Emma Smith suffered from PTSD and that her emotional state and the huge stresses she endured during her last pregnancy were responsible for David Smith's eventual mental illness. I believe there is medical evidence that a mother's own mental/emotional state can and usually will affect the child she is carrying. Verification anyone? [Margaret Young] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 23:51:04 -0700 From: "Scott Parkin" Subject: Re: [AML] Eric Samuelsen on Singles Ward Eric Samuelsen wrote: >>> Well, I emailed John, basically saying that life is too short on this bad ol' world to have enemies, and did he want to have lunch some time. He said yes, and we had some good Mexican food, and a very pleasant couple of hours together, found we had much in common, cordially agreed to disagree about some matters, and to find a way to work productively together on other matters. Without getting too specific, I just found it a positive experience. So maybe we can get along even with folks we've criticized. We would seem to have a religious requirement to at least try. <<< Which apparently proves D. Michael's point. Slam someone and you end up friends; try to defend them and you get slammed. I have to admit that I don't see the logic of it, but the evidence is irrefutable. I stand corrected. I stand down. Scott Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 07:34:12 -0700 From: Thom Duncan Subject: Re: [AML] The BoM Code Tony Markham wrote: >On the History Channel this past weekend, sandwiched between Soviet UFO >Conspiracies and Nostradamus, was an intriguing, if sensationalized, >account of the Bible Code. It's a cross between using Kaballa and >computer matrixes in order to discover word combinations that have an >apparent coded link--or not. > >Most of you will have heard of the Bible Code, and if not, a Google >search of the same will surely tell you more than I possibly could. But >my burbibg question is have the geniuses up at FARMS or the BYU >Math/Computer Science Department tried anything like this with the Book >of Mormon? > The inventors of tihe Bible Code, in their book, about it, go to great lengths to show that the BofM can't be scripture precisely because of the Bible Code, so I don't think the FARMS foks will be going down that road. Which is no great loss. Doing a search on the Bible Code on the Web will show you may sites that refute it. Personally, I don't think it's valid from what I've read. Thom Duncan - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:16:27 -0600 From: "webmaster" Subject: [AML] _Funky Town_: Free Video for AML-List Members Latter-day Saint BYU film school graduate Matthew Janzen, who now works in the Hollywood film industry, is the director of two short films which won festival awards around the country a couple years ago: the very funny film noir musical "Funky Town" and the dead-on accurate and very fresh and funny silent film "The Salesman." These two films are being released on commercial video and DVD this month. Janzen, in conjunction with his distributor LDS Video Store, is making this video available for free to everybody on the LDSFilm.com mailing list. Shipping and handling is free. The only requirements to receive the video are that the recipient be a current subscriber to AML-List, and the recipient agrees to return the self-addressed stamped response form which has about 7 multiple-choice questions about what they thought of the video. Both films star Lincoln Hoppe ("the Tommy Lee Jones of the LDS film world") in a major supporting role. One quick way to conceptualize "Funky Town" is to think of "The movie Chicago as made by BYU film students." If you order the free video, your contact information will not be added to any kind of mailing list, and you will not receive other emails or mailings from Janzen or LDS Video Store. I have personally watched "Funky Town" and "The Salesman" many times, simply because I find these two short films so entertaining. "Funky Town" is 25 minutes long. "The Salesman" is 17 minutes. If you would like to receive and watch the "Funky Town"/"The Salesman" video, featuring two films by talented LDS filmmaker Matthew Janzen, you can email your name and address to: kim@ldsvideostore.com Include the words "free Funky Town video" in the subject line. The DVD is not being offered for free. This offer is valid only while supplies last. Preston Hunter, LDSFilm.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 10:26:51 -0700 From: Steve Perry Subject: [AML] LDS Christmas Music (was: Sam PAYNE, _Angels in the Snow_) Hi Listers, Scott Bronson gave a positive mention for "Angel in the Snow," a new CD from Sam Payne. You can hear excerpts from the CD ("We Three Kings," and "All the Christmas They Need" ) at: http://www.meridianmagazine.com/radio In fact, it's a 24-minute Christmas feast of music and interview with The Small Torres Guitar Duo from Boston, Sam Payne from St. George, Amy Osmond & Cate Todd from Philadelphia & Bountiful, Ryan Shupe & The Rubberband from who knows where, and some live stuff recorded on the spot with Jericho Road. (Now available in Quicktime and RealAudio for 56K modems, too.) Merry Christmas! Steve Perry - -- skperry@mac.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 09:48:45 -0800 From: Jeffrey Needle Subject: Re: [AML] The BoM Code Have you read the book "The Signature of God"? It's about wordprinting, I think, and may come close to what you're trying to learn about. Incidentally, inasmuch as you describe the folks at FARMS as geniuses, I suspect you wouldn't have a real interest in *anything* they might have to say . - ------------------ Jeffrey Needle jeff.needle@general.com or jeffneedle@tns.net - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 22:58:14 -0700 From: "Scott Parkin" Subject: [AML] BLACK, _Pride and Prejudice_ (Movie Review) Pride and Prejudice. Written by Anne K. Black; directed by Andrew Black; distributed by Excel Entertainment. 2003; 104 minutes. I was pretty sure I didn't want to see this movie. A Mormon romantic comedy...set at BYU...based on a beloved Jane Austen novel...by a director making his first feature-length film. There were so many ways it could go wrong; so many chances to fall short. I saw it anyway. And I'm glad I did. They pulled it off. Mostly. This was a fun, entertaining film that I will be happy to see--and pay for--again when I take my wife to see it next week. Obligatory Plot Synopsis ======================== The plot is well-known to most readers. Elizabeth is an independent, intelligent, single young woman in a community where single young women are expected to marry as soon as they can arrange a suitable match; at 26 and single, she's well outside the norm. The film explores how Elizabeth and her roommates Jane, Lydia and Kitty deal with the collision of social pressure, the Mormon meat market at BYU, and a wide variety of approaches to the fundamental problem of how to find and marry the man that will help them realize their individual goals. Elizabeth and Darcy are the marquee couple. Each of our heroines finds, wonders about, loses and/or recaptures the assorted objects of their attentions in a series of usually humorous, sometimes painful, and always revealing events as each learns more about their counterparts and themselves. To say more would be to give away the end, but as this is a feel-good romantic comedy and most of us have probably read Jane Austen, I suspect there won't be many surprises. Quick Review ============ This was a fun movie, and one that I heartily recommend to anyone who likes romantic comedies. It has personality, wit and a sense of humor that will appeal to a fairly wide range of viewers. Most importantly, it has heart--and that (along with a modicum of filmmaking talent) is all you can ask for in a romantic comedy. This movie supplies both in generous quantities. Short recommendation. See it if you're inclined to like romantic comedies. It has some rough spots and a huge death wish scene, but in the end it fulfills its promise to me as a viewer and succeeds on its own terms. Two Films in One ================ The second half of this film is nearly perfect; the first half nearly drove me from the theater. Separating the two halves: the dreaded Death Wish Scene. The first half of this film absolutely dragged as it tried to establish both its own personality and those of its characters. I think it fell very much short on both counts. The key to a romantic comedy is that you need to like the main characters. Yes, they're flawed and relatively obnoxious. Yes, they're usually more than a little self-absorbed and often arrogant about their own romantic value. But they need to be fundamentally likable or there's no one to root for. I didn't like either Elizabeth or Darcy when they were first introduced. Elizabeth was just as quick to judge, mock or condescend as Darcy was. I thought she was particularly cruel to Collins, and her behavior at the party seemed as self-centered to me as Darcy's was. It took me until well after the half-way point before I began to find anything appealing about her beyond the Barbie-factor and the fact that she was clearly supposed to be the good guy. Darcy was simply mean. His rapid judgments and public attempts to injure people (including Elizabeth at the beginning) put him past the point of merely abrupt or direct, and well into the unforgivably nasty category for me. To make it worse, Elizabeth herself casts a shadow on him that I don't think is ever dispelled. When asked why she doesn't like him when he seems to be quite charming with his rich friends, Elizabeth says something to the effect of "Anyone can be charming for their friends; it's how they treat strangers that reveals their true nature." And Darcy spends the first 30 minutes of this film being an absolute jerk to strangers. Then the Death Wish Scene happens where both Elizabeth and Jane go to pieces because they've each lost their respective boyfriends. They spend a week in full-blown orgy of excessive ice cream, pizza and poor housekeeping that made both of them seem far from the intelligent, self-assured heroines they were alleged to be at the start. After they're pulled out of self-pity by their friends, the film moves quickly through a series of well-handled, punchy scenes that firmly establish everyone's good (and bad) points and moves strongly toward a climax where the stakes are high, the motivations are pure and there's finally someone to cheer for. It's almost as if you saw the film's producers gaining in confidence as they went. At the start it seemed hesitant and unsure of its own identify; by the end it had moved firmly--and successfully--into being a strong romantic comedy. Intrusions ========== I thought there were too many intrusions into the story by the filmmakers. The epigrams with quotes from the novel (complete with chapter and verse) wore on me after the first few, and the stop-action photography every time someone drove somewhere just annoyed me. I know--it's a way of showing that this is a fun, light-hearted film. For me it was intrusive and broke the illusion of the film. Which is not to say that I thought it should all be taken out. Far from it, I thought the little Mitty-esque daydreams were clever, funny and revealing. The epigrams were great when they were the only intrusions on the films movement. But for me the first half of the movie was damaged by too many of these kinds of intrusions. Too much winking and nudging and not quite enough story. A Latter-Day Comedy? ==================== This film bills itself as a "latter-day comedy" and I'm not quite sure why. I accept the idea that modern Mormon social pressure to marry maps well to Austen's 1800s British society, but for me that connection was simple window dressing that never really played out in the action. Yes, Collins is a caricature of the socially retarded RM who tries to use scripture and the Ensign to spiritually browbeat women into marrying him while jotting down his goals in his planner. But beyond these Provo/Utah/Mormon in-jokes, I didn't see anything particularly Mormon about how the characters interacted, how the plot developed or how the jeopardy escalated. It was a straight, mainstream-style romantic comedy that had to pick a backdrop and happened to use Provo/BYU. It could have been set anywhere for all the use it made of specifically Mormon themes or situations. Which is not a criticism of the film. I don't particularly care whether it contained Mormon elements or not; it worked as a romantic comedy and that all I can ask for. But when the filmmakers subtitle it "a latter-day comedy" they make a promise to me as a viewer. I don't think they followed through on that promise. What I can't figure out is why they even made the claim, or why they shoehorned in a couple of Mormon in-jokes to validate the claim. Reiteration: See It =================== This film has a fair number of evident flaws, but none of those things were critical (though a scene near the end where Las Vegas police cars arrive on the scene, but the words "Provo Police" are clearly visible on their doors made me laugh out loud). Sure these little flaws annoyed me to varying degrees, but this films strengths far overshadow its occasional weaknesses. In the end, this film succeeded on its own terms. Some of the cinematography was very nice, the editing seemed to get better as the film went along (though the sound was pretty weak throughout), and the writing was strong once it stopped setting things up and just told the story. Sure, there were some intrusions that I thought broke the illusion, but the overall effect was of seeing a solid young filmmaker whose talent evolved literally before our eyes. This was a fun film. See it. But more importantly, pay attention to Andrew Black as a filmmaker. He's got the talent and he's not afraid to take a few chances. He's earned my trust, my loyalty, and my ongoing interest with this very solid first feature film. Scott Parkin - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V2 #235 ******************************