Sometimes the story behind something is more interesting than the something itself. And there is no better example of that than the independently produced documentary An Audience of One, premiering this weekend at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, TX.
Made by Mike Jacobs, the something that An Audience of One is about is described as…
A Pentecostal minister receives a vision from God to create an epic science fiction movie based on the bible story of Joseph, sending he and his followers on a journey of extreme faith.
Click here for a 10-minute audio interview on NPR with the director of the documentary, and the preacher turned wannabe director.
The trailer that’s at the link provided above for the festival is in MPEG4 and Quicktime, which are both problematical formats, so I’ll post it here in friendly Adobe Flash video.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/AudienceofOne.flv 400 300]
Yeah, ah know…it’s more a Southern thang…
I wouldn’t be surprised if down in Louisiana, after services with snakes in ’em are over, the snakes end up in the gumbo….
Uuuum-Uuuuum!!!! Beaucoup good!!! (I’m just KIDDING!!! However, folks in Louisiana do pride themselves on their culinary creativity of the ingredients in their own particular recipes for gumbo!)
By the way…Here’s a weird fact for ya…If you HAVE to kill a rattlesnake…Or, you come across one already dead…did you know you are STILL not safe??? Well, it’s true! There is a reflex action in the head that can trigger a bite and injection of venom, for a certain period of time after a snake’s death. I am absolutely serious about this. I’ve read this caution numerous times since moving to rattlesnake territory, not to try to “pick up” a dead rattlesnake with your hands to drop it nearby out in the desert, for the other animals to eat. (You do know that roadrunner birds can attack, kill and eat them, don’t you?)
Well, I guess that’s our “strange nature story” of the day! HA!
It sure seems to me there’s a lot more ego than God in Gazowski’s vision of movie-making. I saw my share of Pentacostals during college who (thought they) were speaking in tongues, but I never saw any snake handling. I think that’s much more a Southern thing.
I dunno about this one…I don’t think having faith means throwing your brains away!
Maybe this pastor shoulda just wrote a script, and tried to connect with filmmakers more experienced than he is, whether they are independent filmmakers or not. Hey: he himself said “Dream big!” So why not start with, oh, Meb Gibson, and work your way down the ladder with rejections, from there? Why try and reinvent the wheel in filmmaking, being a novice at it, instead of collaborating with people who really know what they’re doing?
Or maybe this pastor shoulda wrote it as a stage play first, running it first in churches, then small secular venues, and work his way up from there? Guage whether his script is being well-received or not, BEFORE jumping into a screenplay version of it… Do script re-writes, if needed. If this pastor had a “hit” stage play, his chances of getting sensible, reliable funding to turn it into a screenplay would be much enhanced, right?
The pastor himself said that either his film is going to be great, or a huge flop. What a GIGANTIC waste of money, that could be used for many more constructive things, if the film does flop!! !So I think it’s irresponsible to take that kind of risk.
Just because this pastor thinks he had an inspirational message from God, doesn’t mean “stepping out in faith” relieves the person of the responsibility to THINK: “Okay, am I SURE? What’s the BEST way to make this possible? Am I meandering OFF the path? Where might I need to make readjustments in this idea, to make it work? Does this have to be produced NOW, or is the time not yet ripe for it?” (God’s timing and our timing are not at all necessarily the same thing!)
It bothers me because part of it sounds like this minister is a flaky nutcase of a guy. He himself suggested that “maybe he’s crazy” to be pursuing this. If this whole thing blows up as a big disaster, it only confirms in the minds of a lot of non-church goers the poor view they already have of Christianity. (And there are many legitimate criticisms to be made of the ways in which organized religion is often practiced.)
…I hope this Pentacostal pastor isn’t one of those SNAKE handlers!!!!! Fortunately, I beileve they are a slim minority of fundamentalists Christians!!!