Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

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Dr Exiled
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

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Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 12:37 pm
Aristotle Smith wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 4:34 am
Can it? Has it? If so in which areas?

This is a sincere question. Perhaps worthy of a separate thread.

Also not trying to provoke. It's not obvious to me that they can or can't. For example, if someone were to say, "Jehovah's Witnesses can produce greatness" there are several reasons I would doubt that. But if someone says, "Judaism can produce greatness" it's utterly believable. It's already happened and will happen again.
Jehovah’s Witnesses did produce greatness. His name was Prince, and he was a towering musical genius.
I don't see how belief in religion has anything to do with producing or not producing "greatness." It seems the supposed "greatness" would come despite religion, as religion is so confining in its demands to believe in myth as reality. However, if it is true, then cannot belief in other non-religious fairy tales have the same effects? Maybe other factors such as devotion to study, reason, hard work, and in the case of Prince, devotion to sexual themes in his music is what really is behind the greatness?
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
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Kishkumen
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

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That’s a stunningly bizarre response, Dr Exiled, given the global history of the arts and the role of mythology and religion therein.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by Sledge »

drumdude wrote:
Definitely might explain why he doesn't have the "EVs shot first" victim complex that Mormons are raised with. Completely ignoring the history of Mormon violence against non-Mormons in the early church years.
You have a severe misunderstanding of history, my drumdude. Mormon violence happened because people were violently kicking Mormons out of everywhere they attempted to settle (in a free country).
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by drumdude »

Where did they attempt to settle, Sledge?

Shortly after what Mormons consider to be the restoration of the gospel in 1830, Smith stated that he had received a revelation that the Second Coming of Christ was near, that the City of Zion would be near the town of Independence in Jackson County, Missouri, and that his followers were destined to inherit the land held by the current settlers.

June 6, 1831
If ye are faithful, ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies.
1833
Community leaders and officials sign demands for Mormon withdrawal.


All that land in that free country, and Mormon God (Joseph) told them they needed to take other settlers' land and turn it into a theocracy. Those poor, poor prosecuted Mormons.
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by Tom »

Doctor Scratch wrote:
Fri Jun 11, 2021 9:19 pm
Reading the most recent "SeN" post, you would think that Witnesses is impressive based on its standing relative to other movies that are out. It's ranked 6th, after all!
One note about the box office chart posted at SeN showing Witnesses in sixth place on June 8: that must have been a preliminary list. For one thing, Spiral and Dream Horse should be on the list ahead of Witnesses. See https://www.boxofficemojo.com/date/2021 ... di_table_3 Second, Box Office Mojo indicates that Witnesses has never been higher than seventh.
“But if you are told by your leader to do a thing, do it. None of your business whether it is right or wrong.” Heber C. Kimball, 8 Nov. 1857
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by Gabriel »

Mormon Art reached its pinnacle with Battlestar Galactica.
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Kishkumen
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

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Gabriel wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:08 pm
Mormon Art reached its pinnacle with Battlestar Galactica.
I'm a fan!
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by Dr Exiled »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 3:09 pm
That’s a stunningly bizarre response, Dr Exiled, given the global history of the arts and the role of mythology and religion therein.
There are a bunch of atheist artists that are "great" in the art world like Matisse and Monet. So, perhaps it isn't "stunningly bizarre" to think that maybe just because religion and myth had an outsized influence in the past that necessarily other forces weren't at work contributing to the supposed "greatness" of which you write. Maybe the "greatness" happened in spite of the overly controlling religious environment? Maybe even greater works would have been created sans religion?

Anyway, I was looking for an explanation as to why you think the way you do. I studied the sciences and then went into law. I didn't have the humanities education that you did. But if you simply want to rest on your assertion then that is your prerogative.
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by Kishkumen »

Dr Exiled wrote:
Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:46 pm
There are a bunch of atheist artists that are "great" in the art world like Matisse and Monet. So, perhaps it isn't "stunningly bizarre" to think that maybe just because religion and myth had an outsized influence in the past that necessarily other forces weren't at work contributing to the supposed "greatness" of which you write. Maybe the "greatness" happened in spite of the overly controlling religious environment? Maybe even greater works would have been created sans religion?

Anyway, I was looking for an explanation as to why you think the way you do. I studied the sciences and then went into law. I didn't have the humanities education that you did. But if you simply want to rest on your assertion then that is your prerogative.
You know, no offense, Dr Exiled, but you can be a little thin skinned sometimes. I can too, but still . . . .

In any case, I really don't sympathize with the assumptions that inform your questions here. Religion is not an entity that exercises agency. It does not control people. It is an intellectual category constructed to make sense out of a collection of human ideas and practices that more or less appear to fit together. Among those ideas and practices are expressions of great artistic creativity and skill.

We can discuss the latter phenomenon in shorthand by talking about the genius works that have been produced by tradition A or B, but it makes little sense to ask whether great works of human creativity would exist without those cultural traditions. I suppose they would, but, really, who cares? The simple fact is that the vast majority of works of human creativity over the course of millennia have sprung from traditions in which myths and spiritual practices were simply a fact of life.

I am not interested in theorizing the existence of an ideal utopia in which "religion" does not exist and yet the greatest works of genius abound. Richard Dawkins is no more prescient on the future super arts of his ideal world than Spencer W. Kimball was.

To clarify what I was getting at for our present readership of committed anti-religion ideologues: I think people emerging from the Mormon tradition can make great art that is informed by their Mormon experience, and I look forward to seeing it. This does not mean that other traditions can't do the same, or that atheists can't do the same. I am sure they can. But they weren't the topic I was writing on.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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Re: Which is the Better Film: "September Dawn" or "Witnesses"?

Post by drumdude »

Religious artwork is beautiful and captures the imagination thousands of years later.

I would not put Witnesses (2021) anywhere near that category. When it is released on video, the videos will end up on Goodwill shelves after their faithful owners have died and their families discard the film. Even here outside of Utah, the shelves at Goodwill are littered with disposable LDS books and videos.
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