PBS's 'Mormons' is independent, church points out
 
By Scott D. Pierce
Deseret Morning News
 
PBS's two-part, four-hour documentary "The Mormons" doesn't air until the end of the month, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is already trying to make it clear that the church itself did not produce the film.

"We simply want viewers to understand that the church is the subject of this film, not its producer," LDS Church spokesman Michael Purdy said. "This is an independent production."

While the church cooperated with award-winning filmmaker Helen Whitney, it exerted no editorial control over "The Mormons" and did not help fund the project.

A posting on the church's Web site, www.lds.org, warns, "PBS film likely to cause debate," and goes on to say that "a few (unidentified) scholars, including some who appear in the documentary ... raise concern about what they feel is a disproportionate amount of time given to topics that are not central to the Church's faith."

While rough cuts of Part 1 have been shown to a few people, no one has yet seen a completed version of "The Mormons," which is scheduled to air April 30 and May 1 on PBS. Whitney was unavailable for comment Monday because she is still busy editing Part 2 of the four-hour documentary.

The major points of contention as outlined on the LDS Church Web site are polygamy — both as practiced early in the LDS Church's history and as practiced by "present day polygamous groups that have nothing to do with today's Church" — and the Mountain Meadows massacre.

An unidentified scholar "said the film provides a distorted and highly unbalanced account of Brigham Young" and events surrounding the massacre.

Local historian Will Bagley, who is interviewed in the documentary, told members of the media at the Television Critics Association press tour in January that the the LDS Church "cannot let go of the attempt to blame somebody else.... They cannot follow the evidence that leads to the very top" — a view that is not shared by all historians or by the church itself.

Whitney, an Emmy- and Peabody-winner whose works include "The Monastery," "The Millennial Pope" and "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero," has made it clear that "The Mormons" will include comments from the LDS Church's critics as well as its faithful members.

While insisting she was "respectful," she told the Deseret Morning News in January that the documentary would not be "uncritical."

"Certainly, you're going to hear a lot of positives about the church," she said. "But you're going to hear negatives as well. I'm bringing both to you."

"The Mormons" is the first co-production between the two award-winning series "American Experience" and "Frontline."

"It is our conviction," says "Frontline" executive editor Louis Wiley, "that our two series will succeed in informing a wide audience about the Mormons. Throughout the series, church leaders, historians, scholars and dissidents tell the fascinating and sometimes controversial story of a religion that overcame many obstacles to become one of America's fastest-growing.

"While we understand the high level of interest in and concern about the series, we hope that viewers, Mormon and non-Mormon, will withhold judgments about our project until they have had a chance to see it for themselves."

Purdy said that that's exactly what the church is doing — neither endorsing nor condemning it.

"We expect that the film will contain many voices on the history and doctrines of the church," Purdy said. "The big question church members have is whether these programs will come close to capturing the essence of how Latter-day Saints define and see themselves.

"Will members look at these films and say, 'Yes, that's me,' or will they say, 'Even after four hours, they missed the point'?"

E-mail: pierce@desnews.com
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Tuesday, April 10, 2007
 
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