Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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Dr Moore
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

Post by Dr Moore »

Kishkumen wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 2:25 pm
I want to see Under the Banner of Heaven, but a lot of people who have seen it admit that the script is pretty awful.
It could be better. But honestly, super hard story and context to capture on film. I’m enjoying it despite the cringe script moments and not infrequent cultural parodies. The story arc itself makes the intended meta points very effectively in my opinion.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

Post by Doctor Scratch »

Dr Moore wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 6:29 pm
Kishkumen wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 2:25 pm
I want to see Under the Banner of Heaven, but a lot of people who have seen it admit that the script is pretty awful.
It could be better. But honestly, super hard story and context to capture on film. I’m enjoying it despite the cringe script moments and not infrequent cultural parodies. The story arc itself makes the intended meta points very effectively in my opinion.
I've been enjoying it, too--it's a well-made show. The LDS characters refer to "Heavenly Father" way, way too often, but for the most part, I think its depiction of Mormonism is pretty spot-on. The fact that the "hive mind" over at SeN is nitpicking and whining about it shows you how close to home it hits, I think. And there have been some priceless moments. I LOL'ed at the moment in the most recent episode where one of the Lafferty's Stake President rolls into the police department in an attempt to intervene in the investigation so that "this won't embarrass the Church." LOL! Classic. I also think that the show's depiction of LDS religious cheerfulness/enthusiasm--and the way it can border on zealotry--is just about perfect.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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Dr Moore wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 6:29 pm
It could be better. But honestly, super hard story and context to capture on film. I’m enjoying it despite the cringe script moments and not infrequent cultural parodies. The story arc itself makes the intended meta points very effectively in my opinion.
I think there are more references to "Heavenly Father" in Banner than there was use of the F-word in Deadwood. Very cringe-worthy almost everytime I hear Pyre utter "Heavenly Father."
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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Adding DP's response to the thread (since he seems to be chiming in on almost every new thread here now):
DP wrote:On a predominantly atheistic message board that I watch — largely because I’m a constant (by which I mean daily) target there — someone raised a question about whether the Witnesses theatrical movie or the Hulu/FX miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven is more “accurate.” (Given the place where it was posed, the answer to that question was, of course, never seriously in doubt. It would be rather like proposing “Is Dan Peterson a ridiculous, incompetent, unprincipled, and malicious mediocrity?” as a topic for debate before the house. I mean, such a question is scarcely worth asking.)



One of the brighter participants there responded that, of the two films, Under the Banner of Heaven is more accurate.



Why? Partly, he says, because the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon were just a small group. And that, of course, is true. Including Joseph Smith himself, there were only twelve of them — the same number that typically serve on a jury in the United States. (American juries are sometimes entrusted with decisions of great import, even life and death.) And there were only about sixteen or eighteen of them altogether, even if we include the informal or unofficial witnesses. So, yes, just a small group. But still far more eyewitnesses than are typically needed to establish even a very weighty fact in court. Another reason for dismissing Witnesses as inaccurate is that the Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, he says, were “unreliable.” (He offers no evidence or argument for this characterization, which, for the record, I declare to be false, baseless, and unjust.)



His more interesting objection, though, and his principal reason for deeming Under the Banner of Heaven to be accurate while dismissing Witnesses as inaccurate, is that Under the Banner of Heaven involves no “supernatural” events. Which is true.



That’s an obvious and revealing example, of course, of how assumptions (or “prior commitments”) influence and constrain our judgments, no further thought or investigation required. (If I’m convinced that the earth is only six thousand years old, no amount of fossil evidence is likely to persuade me of Darwinian evolution. If I’m absolutely certain that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election in a runaway landslide, I won’t be convinced by any number of investigations purporting to demonstrate that he didn’t. If I know for sure that COVID-19 is fake news and/or that a secret cabal of pedophiles are running the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, in fact, our government in general, I’ll find reasons everywhere to justify my views and to dismiss any and all evidence to the contrary.)



I’m reminded of the atheistic historian Dale Morgan (1914-1971), who was once something of a fashionable darling of cultural Mormons. In 1945, he wrote a letter to the believing Latter-day Saint historian Juanita Brooks in which he stated the fundamental issue with unusual frankness and candor: “With my point of view on God,” he said, “I am incapable of accepting the claims of Joseph Smith and the Mormons, be they however so convincing. If God does not exist, how can Joseph Smith’s story have any possible validity? I will look everywhere for explanations except to the ONE explanation that is the position of the church.” (Dale Morgan to Juanita Brooks, 15 December 1945, at Arlington, Virginia. Transcribed in John Phillip Walker, ed., Dale Morgan on Early Mormonism: Correspondence and a New History [Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986], 84–91. The quoted passage occurs on page 87.)



But, taken simplistically and in isolation, the same standard of judgment — non-“supernatural” accounts are, by that measure alone, always and everywhere to be preferred to “supernatural” accounts — would also suggest a reason for approving the superior accuracy of D. W. Griffith’s classic (and deeply racist) 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation and Leni Riefenstahl’s famous 1935 Nazi propaganda film Triumph des Willens (“Triumph of the Will”). Neither of these cinematic landmarks, so far as I can remember, invokes the “supernatural” or claims to depict explicitly divine actions.



I guess it’s a matter of what one’s worldview counts as acceptable.
More postmodern relativism from someone who supposedly advocates for absolutes, at least when it comes to morality...

It's telling that DP has to resort to relativism to defend the ridiculous claims of his religion.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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Not sure I understand why Dan would try arguing against my points. Unless he intends to argue that faith has zero relevance in the principal Witnesses storyline, ie the supernatural events they purportedly witnessed.

The central events in Banner — good Mormons turned fundamentalist who committed atrocious murders — have been established through due process of law. I don’t know if “100%” can be asserted, but pretty close.

What percentage gap does faith fill when it comes to the witnesses seeing actual plates, presented by an actual angel sent by the one and true actual God? I dunno. It seems like, given the evidence, even if I truly still believed, the role of faith is probably something like a 50% gap filler. If for no other reason than that it is through a spiritual feeling experience with the Book of Mormon that underpins the choice to view evidence about the witnesses in a generous, believing light, as opposed to skeptical.

Quibble about the 50%, but the question was which film is more realistic, not by how much. Whether you think the role of faith fills a 50% gap or 20% or 10% or 5%, etc etc, my point still stands undefeated by Dan’s faith-filled challenge.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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I was disappointed that the baptism interview was not portrayed accurately. I was waiting for the little girls to be asked if they masturbate.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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I want to know how closely the film follows what factually happened. I am guessing that Bennett draws our attention to elements of the series that are not reflected in the facts but inserted to add suitably authentic color to the show. This, however, is where a lot of mischief can occur. If, in the name of adding authenticity to the show, the makers are guided by every questionable thing that happened in Happy Valley, then it is likely that the script will start to look very inauthentic, or, to use a familiar metaphor, more like a caricature than an accurate portrayal of life in "Zion."

Honestly, that is what this sounds like to me. Sure, folks here can chuckle and say, "Wow, this is so accurate, I remember "X" incident that is exactly like what appears in the series." Yeah, the people who made this thing may have packed the show with this kind of stuff.

Another, similar metaphor would be to take a famous actor, and instead of applying makeup in a way that hides their less flattering features, the makeup artists goes out of their way to amplify those features in order to make the person look humorous or ugly.

This kind of thing happens all the time. I recall how crazy lots of us, including me, became when Mitt Romney was running for president. You would have thought that Jim Jones' milquetoast cousin was running for high office. Sure, John Jones may not be crazy himself, but, then again, he does have that crazy Jim for a cousin. Who knows what he might do? Let's spend all of our time thinking of every worst case scenario.

Suddenly we heard a lot about Mitt's "magic underwear," how Mormonism is racist, how he is "not really a Christian," how he does "whatever the Mormon prophet tells him," and how he thinks he will "save the Constitution when it is hanging by a thread." While not completely detached from reality, I suppose, it is just a concatenation of bogeymen and funhouse-mirror possibilities that is mostly aimed at discrediting Romney as a serious candidate. It's an effective way to use religious identity as an informal litmus test for presidential eligibility.

My bottom line: UTBOH sounds to me like an exploitation film. I guess that's to be expected. That is a thing, and lots of minority communities are treated in this way by filmmakers. Whether it is Native Americans, Amish, Jews, Travelers, Roma, etc., the non-normative community with "different" (i.e., "weird," "exotic," "scandalous") practices and beliefs is going to be exploited for the prurient interests of normies, that is White Protestant Christians and their White Secular Protestant colloraries.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

Post by Doctor Scratch »

There are definitely some departures from Krakauer's book--notably the detective character played by Andrew Garfield. In essence, Garfield's character is used to contrast the "wholesome," family-oriented version of Mormonism with the more hardcore, violent, historically-based fundamentalism that is embraced by the Laffertys. The point is to show the various "flavors" of Mormonism, I suppose--its range. Personally, I don't think that Garfield's character comes across as a doofus, or anything like that--I think he's a sympathetic protagonist, but YMMV. But overall, the material dealing with the crime and the Laffertys seems to stick pretty closely to Krakauer's account.

I would say that the Mopologists' reaction to the show is similar to the way they reacted to those TIME/Lightbox photos. The photos didn't show Mormon folks in the "correct" light, so they went ballistic.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

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Yeah, I can see that. The TIME/Lightbox incident was pretty embarrassing, on the whole. More embarrassing than the suggestion that Mormons were Appalachian rubes was the reaction of the apologists to this less than squeaky clean and upwardly mobile representation of Mormon life.

Honestly, most depictions of Mormons in popular entertainment are cringey in one way or another, positive or negative. It makes for a must-see train wreck, kinda like the Depp-Heard proceedings. It is so gross on most levels, but try to tear yourself away once you have taken a nibble.
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Re: Which Is More Accurate, Witnesses or Under The Banner Of Heaven?

Post by Moksha »

Doctor Scratch wrote:
Wed May 18, 2022 6:51 pm
... the episode where one of the Lafferty's Stake President rolls into the police department in an attempt to intervene in the investigation so that "this won't embarrass the Church."
I could see MD&Ders trying to memorize the lines so they could use recite them in real life.
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