ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

The year was 2000 and I was eighteen and graduated from high school, doing my usual bizarre number of heavy participation in LDS activities while attending my evangelical Christian youth group. I’d just finished the LDS high school seminary program and was starting Institute when I heard about Richard Dutcher’s God’s Army from one of the many LDS-themed message boards I frequented, so I made a date to see it with some LDS friends. I expected it to be campy and preachy, naively shiny and happy, like Legacy. What I got was a completely unexpected delight, a memorable look into the lives of those poor LDS missionaries I’d so often annoyed. The fact that God’s Army kicked off the once commendable but now troubled genre of Mormon cinema has become film history, and it didn’t take long for Dutcher to be hailed as “the father of Mormon cinema.”

Dutcher’s second offering in the Mormon film genre, Brigham City, did not fare so well. The PG-13 rating upset a lot of the intended audience, as did the accompanying story about an LDS rapist and serial killer. Critics simultaneously panned the murder mystery plot, the result being that both groups largely missed the point of the movie which made folks like me like it so much: it’s a beautifully moving tribute to both the power and flaws of a heavily religious culture when faced with cold, unrelenting evil. It captures so many quirky aspects of Mormon culture so well, and at the same time tries to deal with some heavy situations stemming from LDS doctrine. If you were a serial killer living in a religious culture that teaches murder is an unforgivable sin, how would YOU feel?

I was excited when I heard about his Joseph Smith film project. Even as an outsider who rejects what Joseph Smith claimed and taught, I feel like there had to be something spiritually amazing and even uplifting about Smith’s journey to produce a religion like Mormonism, and while films like Legacy willfully ignore all the controversy surrounding Smith’s life, I knew that Dutcher could find a way to incorporate the controversy and still make it spiritually moving. I went on to share in Dutcher’s disappointment when his funding got cold feet and the production fell apart.

States of Grace I have not yet seen although I should have, and that’s because I remembered reading an interview with Richard Dutcher where he said he did not want to make God’s Army 2 and would only do so to try and get funding for a better project. Since then I’ve heard very good things about the movie and would like to see it, but it will have to wait until I can purchase the DVD.

And then came the bombshell: Dutcher was leaving the LDS church and Mormon cinema, he announced in a letter to the Daily Herald in April 2007. Latter-day Saints were understandably unhappy. Some called Dutcher “arrogant” while the usual adage about sin being the true reason for his apostasy was quickly thrust on the table. As one example see the response by Kieth Merrill, who made the church-sanctioned Legacy and The Testaments. I haven’t seenThe Testaments, but I agree with Dutcher on Legacy: “polite, remedial and not-so-factual recitation of Mormon History” just about sums it up. Finally, Dutcher has recently opened up to the LA Times and said a bit more about the story of his departure from Mormonism.

I’m eager to see what Dutcher can and will do now that he’s no longer exclusively bound by the tolerance of popular Mormon culture. I’ve yet to see Falling since I have not heard of it playing at a theater near me yet, and will probably have to wait until it comes out on DVD, but you might say I’m a pre-fan of it. Evangelicals are not so different from Mormons when it comes to whether or not we should watch rated R movies. Some of us find immense spiritual value in stories with rated R material, and some of us don’t. I’m obviously of the former position, and if there’s anyone I trust to make a movie with rated R themes that is spiritually powerful and moving, it’s Dutcher.

And oh my gosh… his upcoming Evil Angel has VING RHAMES in it!!1! I’m so there.