The film says just as much about the state of American politics, the emergence of a mass media and the perceived sanctity of religion as it does about one of the world’s lesser-known demagogues.
Comment
10/30/06
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
94
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:49
Fresh:46
Rotten:3
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: Director Stanley Nelson avoids editorializing and sensationalizing in Jonestown, letting the CIA photos and film speak for themselves, and giving a voice to the surviving victims.
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis: With previously unseen footage and interviews with former members of the Peoples Church, this documentary explores the events leading up to the Jonestown Massacre in 1978. A cult which developed a... [More]
Director: Stanley Nelson
Reviews for Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Top CriticA gripping, provocative documentary.
10/14/06
Frightening, grueling, and needed in an age where religious fanaticism of all kind reigns...
07/11/07
Click to read the article
04/19/07
Jonestown is a somber and non-exploitive reconstruction of the events that led the members of the Peoples Temple.
04/01/07
Stanley Nelson revisits the 1978 mass suicide of Jim Jones and his flock in Guyana, savoring the horror but offering no new insights.
04/01/07
The combination of these materials and the new interviews reconstruct a story few really know.
03/01/07
As much as it leaves open individual questions of devotion and need, the film does make clear the dangers of seeking solace and identity in the embrace of such a complex ego.
02/24/07
Click to read the article
02/10/07
Ultimately, the film doesn't entirely answer the massive 'why' at the center of this story -- that answer died on that day in 1978 -- but it's a haunting exploration of an event of unspeakable sadness, which still resonates decades later.
02/02/07
It is a frightening epitaph for what is surely one of the 20th century's most heartbreaking cautionary tales against giving one up to the will of another.
02/01/07
A somber, solid documentary [parading] the whole bleak tale before us again, complete with those disturbing scenes of hundreds of corpses in their tees and shorts and flip-flops strewn about facedown in the mud of Jonestown, Guyana.
02/01/07
The last half hour of Jonestown is almost unwatchable. Video footage of the assault on the congressman's delegation gives way to audio of Jones exhorting people to 'die with a degree of dignity' as children shriek in the background.
01/12/07
The documentary, directed by Stanley Nelson, incorporates rare footage and recordings with a history of Jones and the Peoples Temple. The film's planned airing on PBS will expose many more viewers to this important slice of history.
01/11/07
Relying on previously unseen film footage, still photos and voice recordings, Jonestown paints a portrait of a fantastically charismatic preacher.
12/22/06
Jonestown is not an easy movie to watch. But it's a solid presentation of an important chapter in American and religious history. Haunting is the only word that truly fits.
12/08/06
... riveting documentary ...
11/30/06
Nelson gives plenty of time to the intelligent, articulate members who provide riveting details about those days nearly 30 years ago and their reflections now, but he doesn't provide historical context for the events.
11/24/06
Jonestown is a thoroughly conventional documentary...But this familiar format also emphasizes the movie's universality.
11/24/06
Top CriticMore than a record of one horrific moment in history or the cautionary tale of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
11/15/06
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