The Cult of Personality in Movies - Movie Review Example

If you see me as your saviour, I'll be your saviour. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God” Hue Fortson, Jr. quoted Jones. Jim Jones wanted to be Christ. In the early 70’s in his book Letter Killed, he started to criticize the Bible for gender & racial discrimination and preach that he is a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

In spring 1976 Jim started to confess openly that he is an atheist. He was losing his capability to be a leader due to his dependence on drugs and mental sickness. His behaviour was really disturbing.

Before the mass suicide, many people in his community were stating they did not want to die with The Temple, but Jones did not want to let people make their own decision, he was persuading them: “Don't be afraid to die; it is just stepping over into another plane. We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world”.

Jim Jones had a high level of intellect, getting almost the best grades in his class and was always the best student in public speaking. In his childhood, he was an insatiable reader and especially liked the writings of Stalin, Hitler and Machiavelli. His friends remember Jones as a "really weird kid" who was "obsessed with religion... death”.

Jim liked the communist regime and was associating himself with communism since his youth. During his later years, he was very aware of the disadvantages of blacks and was encouraging them to be more militant in the fight for their civil rights. He was keeping it a secret that the gospel he was preaching was communism.

In April 1955, Jones and about twenty members founded a new Pentecostal group The People's Temple. They were promoting the idea of a social gospel, setting up a child adoption foundation, a free restaurant and a social service centre.

In 1959, The People's Temple joined the Christian Church and was called People's Temple Christian Church Full Gospel. During the years members of the congregation went through persecution and aggression. Swastika fired shots near their living places were common things. Jones decides to move to Ukiah and followers started selling everything to migrate. In July 1965 they moved, with the hope to have their promised land. But since Ukiah was not a good place for recruiting followers, Jim chooses to move to Redwood Valley, Jones’ and his family's place. At last, in 1969 the church opened up, set up a solid foundation and succeeded in attracting important people.

In 1970 the Temple opened in San Francisco and it started to grow very rapidly, reaching 3000 members at one point. In 1977, due to a heavy media storm, Jones with their followers migrated to South America anticipating finding their “paradise” in Guyana.

While I was watching the Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple documentary, I had many contradictory feelings. On one hand, there is a charismatic person with an earnest aspiration for societal fairness, who is encouraging people with different skin colours and societal stratums to befriend each other. On the other hand, there were sick feelings that were coming from seeing how all those good intentions ended up in a horrifying mass suicide, with many women and children involved. Also, why was intelligence so much on their case? And at the same time, it is terrible to even imagine how one person, because of his arrogance and unwillingness to listen to others, arranged such a massive massacre of people including children. They had a church, but the only cult person was Jim Jones; nobody talked about God, only about him and how wonderful that place was. The only words that were pulsating in my head after watching this documentary were: “Senseless waste. What a senseless waste?!”