James Warren Jones was born in a small town in Indiana in 1931 to James and Lynetta Thurman Jones. Those who knew him as a child described him as a strange kid. Eventually, in the fifties, Jones would find his calling as a preacher and eventually would start his own church, which would soon become known as The People's Temple. Although the set up shop in Indianapolis, Jones would move the church to California and eventually call San Francisco home. Of course, as we all know, in 1977 Jones and many of his followers would move to Guyana where they started a commune style settlement named Jonestown. In 1978, Jones convinced his followers to drink Flavor-Aid laced with deadly cyanide. Nine hundred and nine of his followers died that day, as did Jones, in one of the largest mass murder-suicides in the history of the world.

Jonestown – The Life And Death Of The People's Temple is a fascinating documentary that covers the rise and fall of the Reverend Jim Jones by way of interviews with actual former People's Temple congregation members, people who knew Jones growing up, archival photographs and film clips. Produced by PBS for the American Experience series of documentaries, the film is directed by Stanley Nelson. It's a very well structured piece of cinema that begins by exploring Jones' early days in Indiana, how his home life was unusual and how he didn't quite fit in at school. We learn briefly that he sold monkey's door to door to raise money before eventually getting into the ministry and it's interesting to hear from those who wear around Jones in his early days in the church. They describe him as charismatic, enthusiastic, and more importantly, quite blind to race. Jones was a pioneer in breaking down the walls of segregation in the church and it was this that allowed him to amass a big following with African Americans. It was also this that lead to his decision to move the People's Temple from Indiana to California, as apparently he felt he needed to live in a more progressive community that wouldn't be as upset over racial integration as the one he was currently in.

Many of his followers went with him to California. Many sold their belongings and their homes and gave the money to Jones who in turn made sure that they had food, clothing and shelter. Church members were looked after and in return they worked long hours resulting in a lot of sleep-deprived people who were more or less under Jones' complete control. As the church grew, Jones' personality became more and more bizarre and more and more megalomaniacal. He started faking faith healings, his sexuality became stranger and stranger and he was supposedly indulging in both hetero and homosexual acts with members of his congregation. Despite this, Jones was becoming more powerful and more influential each passing day. He was hobnobbing with activists and prominent politicians and had taken on quite the celebrity status. Soon enough, however, what appeared to be a well-meaning activist church started to rapidly morph into something far more bizarre and disturbing. Jones began to refer to himself as an amalgam of different deities, and his faith healings became more absurd. Eventually, the People's Temple started cutting itself off from mainstream society until Jones finally convinced a number of his followers to move to Guyana with him (he was having a little trouble with the I.R.S. and fleeing the country made that easier to deal with). The started a settlement there, named it Jonestown, and things became even more unusual. Jones started taking drugs and insisted that his followers do as well and he was becoming more and more disillusioned, referring to himself as Christ. While this was going on, a select number of people who left the People's Temple started talking to the authorities about Jones' plans for a mass suicide. These pleas fell on deaf ears until finally a congressman named Leo Ryan was disturbed enough by what he'd heard that he flew down to Guyana to check things out for himself. Ryan didn't make it back and the same day he was shot by some of Jones' personal guards, the mass suicide plan was carried out to fruition.

Nelson's film explains all of this in quite a bit of detail over its ninety minute duration. The interviews with the former members of the People's Temple are the highlights as they provide formerly unheard insight into the more innocent times as well as a sinister foreshadowing of what would come later. There are also some truly terrifying clips of Jones in action, obviously manipulating his congregation and at times quite out of his mind. It's all very well put together, very interesting, and quite disturbing. Fictional retellings of the Jonestown events have been made into films like Guyana and Eaten Alive but this documentary take on the events is far more chilling than any work of fiction could hope to be because it's not exaggerated, it's not exploitative and it's probably as close a look at what actually happened and what lead up to it than anyone would really want. It makes very real the scope of the tragedy that occurred in Guyana, never making light of anything but at the same time, not pulling any punches either. It doesn't make for very uplifting viewing, but it certainly is compelling.

Video:

The 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is decent when you take into account that this documentary has been put together from various different sources. The newly shot interviews look great, while some of the archival footage, much of which is four decades old, looks a little rough. Nothing is unwatchable, however, and there are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts or edge enhancement to complain about.