MCN LAFF Profile: Stanley Nelson

Stanley Nelson
Jonestown:
The Life and Death
of People's Temple

"Holy shit, they're here to see my film"

Stanley Nelson has just crossed Wilshire on his way to the Majestic Crest and caught sight of a line that's not quite round the block for a screening of Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple that will sell out.

"Sorry, I gotta do this," he says and goes up to a woman in the cue and asks her what's playing. He nods and we resume our walk. "I love film festivals. Documentaries just don't get this kind of attention otherwise."

Nelson made the profile of Jim Jones and his controversial sect for PBS's American Experience. It's had great success on the festival circuit and will have a theatrical release this fall prior to its television broadcast.

"We'd done a portrait of the Emmett Till murder for them and after it aired they asked if there was anything we were working on that they might get involved with," he says. "I'd just heard a radio documentary that featured a lot of former members and mentioned that project as a possibility. They loved the idea and suddenly we were doing this film."

The filmmaker points out that having financing for a documentary at the outset is a great luxury. He smiles when he says that among other things this was one of those rare instances where he could make a production schedule and keep to it. There was no knocking on doors for money, no demo reels or spiriting away of resources from one project to bridge gaps on another.

Jones was an ordained minister in the Disciples of Christ who began preaching in Indiana back in the 1960s. He had a social mission aimed at the sick and unemployed that evolved into a congregation composed of African Americans and what we used to call hippies. The People's Temple eventually settled in San Francisco but by the mid-1970s his image had changed from bold, charismatic reformer to that of a dangerous, possibly shady and egomaniacal cult leader. When it appeared that he and his movement might be targeted for criminal investigation, everything was packed up (seemingly overnight) and relocated to the jungles of Guyana.

Most people assume they know the saga. A key figure in Jones's organization returned with tales of abuse and descriptions that painted the agricultural compound as a latter day concentration camp. California Congressman Leo Ryan went down to see for himself and when he departed with 11 members, a faction of the temple arrived at the airstrip and gunned him down along with three journalists. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Jones led the group into a mass suicide in which more than 900 people died; many by drinking punch laced with cyanide and other drugs.

"I knew that story," says Nelson. "But when I heard that radio program I started to think maybe that was only a small piece of it. These people were very moving and even today you can see that many still believe in the dream. It was a very eclectic group and I figured that if I could give some sense of what drew them all into it I'd have a pretty good film."

He says it was the Temple and not Jones that he wanted to profile. But he's quick to add that as much as he and his team wanted to play down the obvious influence of the group's leader, Jim Jones was the proverbial 500 pound gorilla in the room.

Nelson pulls out a flyer for the film and thrusts it up to the interviewer's nose. "He was Elvis." There Jones is, clad in white robes with a scarlet scarf and holding a microphone. He is at once preacher and entertainer commanding a room with the force and will of his personality.

There were other conscious decisions made that were kept and shaped the film. There would be no narration and it would not employ historians to provide rear view perspective. He also decided not to push survivors of the Temple to go before the cameras. He was confident a sufficient number would want to talk. Jones's biological son did but his adopted one did not. And many that participated donated insider footage that had been collecting dust in closets and attics for decades.

"Time is a great healer," Nelson observes. "A lot of these people hadn't been able to talk about their experience. They'd lose their job, put friendships in jeopardy or it was just too sensitive a subject for them. I think we got that."

When we get to the theater, there are associates, friends and a few former Temple members waiting for Nelson. Everyone has seen the film before at private screenings but want to see it again with a regular audience.

The mood is buoyant and I ask those that were "there" if they could see the end of The People's Temple and its founder back in 1978. One nods and says, "You can't see it in the film but we were like that old TV show F Troop. Jim wanted us to be some crack, elite team but we were misfits and screw ups that had to be bailed out every time. I think he got confused about his vision and the reality of Guyana and I knew it was time to get out. A lot of friends and family weren't so lucky."