Product Description

Produced for the PBS series American Experience Stanley Nelson's Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples' Temple written by his frequent collaborator Marcia Smith examines the infamous religious cult formed by Jim Jones and the events that led to the group's horrifying mass suicide in 1978. The film traces Jones' history from his unhappy childhood in rural Indiana. Witnesses describe a strange charismatic young man who nursed a seemingly sincere desire for social justice but also reputedly murdered small animals as a child. Jones' desire to befriend people across color and class lines alienated his family and neighbors. Eventually he moved to Indianapolis where as a young Pentecostal minister he started the city's first integrated church. Eventually Jones moved his church to California to escape the racism he perceived in Indiana. In Redwood Valley his church took on a new life and he began aggressively recruiting new members. At first members were required to tithe a percentage of their worth but eventually they were expected to relinquish all of their "worldly goods" to the Temple. In 1974 Jones moved to San Francisco where he acquired some political clout before his high profile caught up with him. Just before a damaging expos was published he moved his people to what was meant to be a "paradise" outside the racism and oppression of America in Guyana. Nelson interviews eyewitnesses including many former members of the Temple and members of Congressman Leo Ryan's staff who managed to escape when the congressman's investigatory visit ended in bloodshed. The film had its world premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.System Requirements:Running Time: 90 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. Rating: NR UPC: 841887052269 Manufacturer No: 705226

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21516 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, PAL, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
Jonestown. Decades after the fact, the very mention of the word evokes grim memories of Rev. Jim Jones, his Peoples Temple, and the horrific suicide of more than 900 followers who accompanied him to Guyana, Jones' self-styled South American Shangri-La. While November 18, 1978--when, following the shooting of California Rep. Leo Ryan (who had come to Jonestown to investigate various allegations about mistreatment of cult members), all those people drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid--is the obvious focal point, producer-director Stanley Nelson's 90-minute documentary also devotes a good deal of time to Jones' personal history up to and including the founding of the Peoples Temple. Born in Lynn, Indiana, he was inspired by the power and authority of the preachers he witnessed, and was at it himself by his early twenties. His own church was fully integrated (he and his wife adopted two Asian Americans and one African American; the latter, named Jim Jones Jr., is among those interviewed for the film). Services were joyous occasions, more like Baptist revivals than the typical white Christian affair, and Jones' followers seemed genuinely devoted, buying into his snake-oil bit (including fake healings) and willingly forking over 20 percent or more of their incomes to him. But after Jones moved the Temple from sleepy Ukiah, California, to San Francisco, the madness began to set in, and just as an exposé of his more unsavory practices (sexual and otherwise) was about to be published, he hurriedly relocated the whole scene to Guyana. Although Jonestown was virtually a prison camp (the mere thought of leaving was blasphemous), they managed to convince Ryan that it was paradise--until the congressman started getting notes surreptitiously passed to him by members desperate to get out. Chaos quickly ensued, and the film's final moments, in which Jones can be heard exhorting his crazed flock to drink the Kool-Aid, are genuinely harrowing. There is ample footage of Jones himself, along with the recollections of Peoples Temple members (including those very few who survived Jonestown) and others. Deleted scenes and an interview with Nelson highlight the bonus material. --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

Reminder of the depths of exploitation
I was in the eighth grade in 1978 when the Jonestown massacre took place and remembered it well from nightly newscasts. I remember how preachers used the Jones tragedy as a cautionary tale against the dangers of cults. The late 70s were a time of mass confusion after the traumas of the 60s, Vietnam, and Watergate, and a lot of these confused people were looking for direction.

This DVD does an excellent job of using archival footage and the recollections of survivors of Jim Jones' sickness and lunacy (including his African-Americn adopted son Jim Jones Jr.). To their credit, unlike most followers of cults and similar movements, no one among his former followers continues to defend him and all seem to accept the reality of how evil he actually was.

As the story goes on, one really feels for the poor blacks, elderly people, and assorted sixties misfits who fall for Jones' baloney. In most cases, its easy to mock the followers of such people as Jones as ignoramuses who should have known better, but to its credit, this film doesn't do that. It makes clear that most of these people were rejected by everyone else in society and Jones was the only one who appreared to acknowledge their humanity, thus they fell for him hook, line, and sinker to where they were convinced to worship Jones instead of God. The scene of Jones telling a cheering crowd not to believe in a God they could not see is really frightening.

The testimonies of former followers to Jones' sexual preversion and vile public sexual humiliation of his flock is truly jaw-dropping. It is noteworthy to consider that he would not get into such antics until long after he convinced his following of his false divinity. All of course led to the ultimate tragedy of convincing his followers to move to a remote outpost in Guyana, South America, and to commit mass suicide.

The Jonestown tragedy has receded in public memory due to the many events in recent history that have eclipsed it, but as Elijah Muhammad's biographer Claude Clegg correctly put it, "In times of crisis, charlatans fare well." This film serves as a timely reminder for succeeding generations to understand the dangers of surrendering one's mind to charasmatic "leaders" and false prophets. Check out Matthew 24:24 while you're at it.

Prophesy of death
Two films came out this year on Jonestown, the Discovery Channel, "Jonestown Paradise Lost" and "Jonestown: The Life & Death of Peoples Temple." The former presented actors in segments and this was a true documentary. This was a horrific time in the history of the Bay Area when one week after Jonestown both Mayor George Mascone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed. The great tragedy in both events was the good intentions that caring people can make to change the world and the vicious response to such an effort. The people of Jonestown shared a vision of a world free from racism and the coming together of loving people for a united good. What happened to them during those years of declining paranoia from the demented mind of Jim Jones is by far the most compelling part of this Greek tragedy. I knew a woman who met Jim Jones and was recruited to go to Guyana. She was like many of the residents, a Black woman, religious and elderly. Her family did not go and they were spared. There were many people recruited to go to Jonestown. Most turned it down. I think many who went were either lost to the cause or so entwined in the thinking of Jim Jones that they could not see the storm ahead. To gain a deeper prospective, read "Deadly Poison," by Deborah Layton. This film gives an excellent overview on a very complex subject and I feel it is an excellent introduction to those who were too young to know about Jim Jones or were somehow not aware of this tragedy. I might add that I was in a cult for a short time and it is unbelievable how easy it is to be sucked in and I am not a weak minded person. Isolated and removed from any outside perspective, it is no wonder that they did what they did. I do think that the most horrific deed in this horrible event was the act of a mother, who was in the capital Georgetown, and who slit the throats of her three children and then her own. She was not even there but she had come under his spell. All in all, quite an unbelievable story.

One of the Most Horrifying Images of the Past!
Jonestown, Guyana tragedy is still one of those tragedies that scare and fascinate me at the same time. The idea of people willingly drinking cynaide kool aid and dying under the burning sun. This DVD edition of Jonestown does not do enough in my opinion to help understand the situation. Deborah Layton's book, Seductive Poison, helped me gain a better understanding of the absolute horrors of Jonestown and how Jim Jones evolved from a good willing minister to a monster. Cults don't just pop up overnight. Jim Jones reached out to the disadvantaged and vulnerable like a predator stalking his prey. Once he lured them under his spell, he stripped them of their dignity, their finances, their free will, etc. It was like he possessed his followers and controled their outcomes. They were beaten, humiliated, embarrassed, and mistreated. Some who left were considered traitors to the church and the cause. This documentary displayed men and women, black and white, who wanted a society where it was more family. Jonestown became an Orwellian nightmare by catastrophic proportions. Could it have been stopped or prevented? Cults like the Peoples Temple start off well-spirited. The people like the members here felt that Jim who was charismatic and charming the pants of anybody lured them into his web. Once under his web, you were robbed of everything that made you an individual. Jim Jones feasted on the souls and the minds of his followers like a drug addict which he later became. The last day was the most horrifying to see those images of people lying together after drinking the poison. Tim Carter, one of the few survivors, recalled his wife and child drinking the poison and dying. Another survivor recalled laying his wife next to her grandmother on the ground. On November 18, 2008, it will mark 30 years of that tragic day. We forget such tragedies like Jonestown and Pan Am 103. Maybe the American public needs to be reminded of these events to help our future. You have to beware people like Jim Jones. I would have liked to see Stephen Jones, his son, in this documentary. I was glad for the final montage of pictures of those who died. They were murdered. They did not go willingly. After all, many of the followers were simply exhausted. In the interviews here, I didn't realize that the People's Temple Members were overworked, exhausted, and felt guilty for being tired. Exhaustion especially by Jim Jones' orders were sheer torture. Imagine being up for days working for your church while Jim Jones lived like a king but yet his followers did the work and weren't rewarded by him. Layton writes a lot more in her book which I recommend since it brings us to understand how she fell for him like so many other followers. Their loss is our loss in America. A third of the victims were children on November 18, 1978. I was five years old when it happened. I'm still haunted by it. I'm still shocked that a congressman like Leo Ryan was gunned down and the guilt of his death was brought upon the members by Jim Jones. The lies of Jim Jones was just outrageous and hard to believe. Layton writes about the white nights that occurred when Jim Jones called everybody to the Pavillion. The brainwashing was constant and lack of contact to the outside world was non-existent. Deborah Layton was one of the lucky ones to get out but she didn't forget the others including her brother who survived and her mother who died a week before Ryan's visit. They didn't mention Sharon Harris who was one of Jones' righthand zealot followers who killed her three children and herself in Georgetown only because Jones ordered her too. The others didn't in Georgetown that included his sons. There is still so much and there was that haunting letter telling us to keep investigating this tragedy to prevent another one. We are foolish to think that we can't be fooled when we know that smart, intelligent, wise, people are equally fooled as everybody else. Jim Jones was a master predator because he sought people who were vulnerable, insecure, ignored, etc. He preyed on their insecurities, isolation, abandonment worse than any predator could do. He robbed so many people of their lives, their homes, their finances, their health, their minds, their souls, and finally in the end, their lives. By the time, Jim Jones orchestrated his revolutionary protest or the mass murder at the pavillion, he had their souls and minds. Their bodies were just the shell that was carrying them around. It was Jones who dictated what they ate, heard, saw, etc. by then. He created a hell on earth that he masqueraded and sold as paradise. When the people came into Jonestown, they had no idea that it was really based more on the concentration camp during World War II. Only in those camps, people had more freedom than they did in Jonestown. Because once you entered Jonestown, there was no way out. We must not forget the lessons of Jonestown even now as if it was distant history.