Jim Jones: From Messiah to Murderer.
An analysis of “Jonestown: Paradise Lost”
“The Peoples Temple was a wonderful mosaic of a whole spectrum of humanity. It was a dream that died on November 18th 1978.”
At some point in your life you may have heard the term “drinking the Kool-Aid”, referring to a person (or group of people) who have an extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would “drink the Kool-Aid” and die for the cause. For those who are unfamiliar with the history of the phrase, you may be wondering to yourselves “where did this expression come from”?
This analysis will be looking critically at the docudrama “Jonestown: Paradise Lost” and will provide a brief history of the massacre and self-prophet who orchestrated the event.
Background
Jim Jones, born May 13th 1931, was an infamous American cult leader who directed a mass murder-suicide of himself and his followers in his commune at Jonestown, Guyana on November 18th 1978.
Jones founded his own pseudo-church in the late 1950’s, named the “Peoples Temple”. After gaining some notoriety and moving around America, he and his followers eventually settled in South America, in a Guyana jungle commune. While Jones called it a church, it was actually his version of a Marxist commune, with a small degree of Christian references thrown into his sermons. After some time Jones abandoned all pretences of Christianity and admitted himself an atheist, using religion as a tool to legitimise his views and beliefs; he was quoted as saying “those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism”.
In the lead up to massacre Jones began preaching of a nuclear apocalypse and often staged bizarre rehearsals for a ritual mass suicide, which he called “White Nights” meetings. After an attack on Congressman Leo Ryan, his crew and 14 ex cult members Jones, fearing the survivors would call in the authorities, initiated his suicide plan and commanded his followers to drink cyanide laced Kool-Aid leaving 913 people dead. He himself died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on the same day.
The Content and the Platform
“Jonestown: Paradise Lost” is a feature length docudrama created for the History Channel in 2007. Produced by Cineflix Productions and Film Afrika and directed by Tim Wolochatiuk, the documentary recounts the final days of Jonestown and the Peoples Temple, tracking the build up to the infamous mass murder and suicides of Jim Jones’s cult followers in the jungles of Guyana where over 900 people lost their lives. The documentary goes beyond ‘official reality’ to take the audience deep into the inner workings of this cult and its chaotic end and features:
· Eyewitness accounts
· Survivor accounts
· Dramatic re-enactments
· Newly released U.S. government information
· Archival footage
· Interviews with family members of those who died during the massacre
Lasting for an hour and forty (40) minutes the docudrama can be found on YouTube via the link below.
Genre, Mode and Audience
“Jonestown: Paradise Lost” is a docudrama with an expository approach, a mode common among documentary film making , sometimes referred to as “the voice of God” mode. An expository approach emphasises verbal commentary, often with a narrator whom in this instance was Ted Biggs.
This mode of documentary is often used to construct a specific argument or a point of view for the audience, with an authoritative voice that explains the topic with corresponding footage proving that what is being explained is factual. The visuals used in the documentary become subordinate to the voice over narration and serve to illustrate or act in counterpoint to what is being said. Throughout the documentary the narrator and participant’s words are complimented by a mixture of re-enactment and archival footage, ranging from news sources to an inside look into both the commune and the aftermath of the tragedy; this being a key convention of expository film making.
The documentary can be considered multi-modal as it uses both audio and visual aspects. Borrowing techniques from fiction film, the docudrama uses orchestral music to evoke an emotional response from the audience. This is particularly impactful when coupled with the archival footage of the victims, the children’s corpses being focused upon specifically. This was done at the very beginning of the production in order to set the tone and illustrate the emotional nature of the documentary.
The constructed audience of this piece would likely be those who enjoy historical or true crime related documentaries. Being made for and by the History Channel, and also appearing on some true crime focused Sky channels, it would reach viewers who have a preference for these types of productions; possibly more so for Americans as Jim Jones and the majority of his patrons were American.
I accessed this documentary via YouTube as a recommendation for the topic of true crime, which is the main topic of content I avidly consume. The algorithm of YouTube, combined with the key phrases tagged in the video’s source code, actively pushes this content to suggested viewers who may be viewing similar content on the website. It stays relevant by encouraging engagement on the video with push notifications, likes and dislikes, as well as commenting.
Narrator and Actors
Similarly to the last analysis I wrote on Shudder’s pilot episode of ‘Cursed Films’, the narrative is predominantly carried by multiple interviewees who were either a part of the cult or were caught up in the aftermath. This documentary, however, uses narration to further address the audience on top of the participants and re-enactments; this was likely done to add a bit more structure to the narrative and help present the story in a linear format.
Most notably featured was Stephan Jones, son of Jim Jones, who tells his story from a deeply personal perspective. At 19 years old he was beginning to question his father’s motives, and admits leaving the commune was a difficult task.
“A guy like my dad found out what you wanted to hear and see and showed it to you… Dad had an uncanny ability to hook into that”.
His story is arguably the most important to the narrative as he is able to provide an in depth, personal recount of what life was like in commune under his father’s rule. He was able to offer the audience something that the other participants were unable to: an inside look at his father’s descent into madness. As such, snippets of his interview began and ended the program, keeping him as the central focus and using him to further entice the audience to watch.
Other participants include Vernon Gosney, an ex-cult member who, shortly after joining, realised that he wanted to leave. However, with rumours and first-hand accounts of abuse from his fellow members, he remained stuck in Jonestown, filled with fear. In his interview he often uses emotive language such as “terrifying” and “hostile” to evoke an emotional response from the audience, almost asking the viewer to feel how he felt during his time there. This encourages a connection between the audience and the participant’s, creating a sense of familiarity and giving the documentary a more personal feel.
Mimesis and Diegesis
A common convention of documentary film making involves using mimesis and diegesis, which can both be identified in this production. Diegesis is the telling of the story, done by the narrator and the interviewees in this case, as their first-hand accounts of the massacre are the main focus of the narrative. Mimesis, showing by means of action that is enacted, is used over the top of the participants stories to provide a visual aid for what is being described, allowing for the audience to digest the information in an easier fashion.
The enactment used in the documentary is why it can be categorised as a docudrama- a combination of elements of both drama and documentary. Different from historical fiction, which commonly uses a historical event as the theme of a fictional tale, a docudrama tends to re-enact an event in a manner that may reflect the point of view of the director, whilst still focusing on the facts as much as possible.
Archival footage is used throughout the program; however it is limited and not in the best quality being as it was filmed in the 1970’s. As such, re-enactment was likely the best chance of providing visual context to the participant’s words.
Setting, Movement and Mise-en-scene
There are multiple locations used in this documentary, the main one being Jonestown’s jungle commune, set in Guyana. This area in particular is focused upon as this is where much of the event and it’s build up took place. The interviewees often mentioned that this was a very remote location, used to isolate the members and keep the commune from prying eyes, this is emphasised by shots taken from a birds eye view to illustrate the vastness of the jungle surrounding this location. The living accommodations in the commune, as shown through re-enactment, are small and cluttered illustrating the chaotic nature of Jim Jones and his cult.
Those being interviewed are shown as being in dimly lit rooms with harsh contrasting light to illuminate their faces. This sets the tone of their interviews before they even speak; we as an audience can deduct from this that their stories are going to be dark, dramatic and shocking to hear.
In terms of the documentaries movement, the participants guided the narrative along with their interviews. While recalling the events that they lived through, re-enacted scenarios are spliced with archival footage to add context to their words, moving the story along and into the next talking point. This keeps the program interesting to watch and keeps the narrative flowing smoothly.
Editing, Pace and Additional Narrative Choices
Keeping with the conventions of a docudrama, this program was made with a degree of creative license with the minor facts for the sake of enhancing the drama. It is edited with minimalist graphics that fade to black before a new scene starts and often incorporates dramatic lighting and intense and emotional music.
Camera angles range from establishing shots to set the scene to extreme close-ups to heighten emotion. Short montages of archival footage are used to introduce the audience to the subject matter before any interviews or re-enactments take place, likely done to help the audience familiarise themselves with the history of the subject matter. It could also be used as a reminder that this was a real life event, which can easily be forgotten when watching the actors play out the narrative.
