"Jonestown": If all docudramas were this good ...

The phrase “drink the Kool-Aid” has been a part of our popular lexicon for so long — and like everything else in our culture, deep-fried in irony so that you hardly recognize what it once was — that, in a way, it makes the slaughter of Jonestown seem even more senseless than had it simply sunk into oblivion, like the General Slocum.

  At least that's my reaction to “Jonestown: Paradise Lost,” a two-hour movie from the History Channel that makes astonishingly good use of the docudrama format as it relives the horror we could only imagine when, on that day in 1978, we heard that Jim Jones had led nearly 1,000 of his People's Temple followers to the grave.

  “Jonestown: Paradise Lost” airs opposite “24” at 8 p.m. CT Monday on the History Channel. While no one here is questioning the talent of Kiefer Sutherland, and “24's” Emmy was long overdue, you simply must find a way to watch this movie. I saw the Flight 83 films (including the one Sutherland narrated), and I don't think I have ever been so devastated by dramatized fact as I have watching “Jonestown.”

Rick Roberts plays Jim Jones in the reenacted scenes, which are skillfully braided through interviews and vintage film and audio, including rarely-seen films and audio from the People's Temple archive. Looking like Elvis — another pill-popping megalomaniac who would precede Jones in death by one year — Roberts decisively conveys the drug-induced paranoia that turned a charismatic San Francisco folk preacher into a Koresh figure and Guyana into his Waco.

 

But “Paradise Lost” draws even more emotional heft from three eyewitnesses whose interviews appear throughout the film and each of whom barely escaped the bloodshed of Jonestown's last days: Tim Reiterman, a newspaper reporter who accompanied Rep. Leo Ryan to Jonestown; Vernon Gosney, a People's Temple member who made the full psychological loop that drove him into and then out of Jonestown; and, most heart-breakingly, Stephan Jones, the son of Jim Jones, whose candor and courage helped the filmmakers tell a story of fanaticism and ultimate abuse that will make you never want to use that phrase in jest again.

Besides, according to the Internet, it was Flav-R-Aid.

***

A PBS documentary on Jonestown by acclaimed filmmaker Stanley Nelson will air this spring.

Comments

[74bmw]

Here are other viewing times (ET):

Tu 1/16 1am
Sa 1/20 8pm
Su 1/21 12m
Sa 1/27 5pm

[Lela Howard]

Mr. Barnhart:

Thank you for a heartfelt review of "Jonestown: Paradise Lost." My aunt Mary Pearl Willis was one of many killed that day. I have grown up hearing the "Kool Aid" jokes from people who knew my connection to that horrible day and felt that my aunt and the others did not deserve to be humanized, that sympathy should not be given to them. This is a gross injustice to their memory, lives and the people left behind who miss them everyday. We, the family members and survivors have lived with the jokes, disregard for our loved ones lives and the sorrow of not having an outlet for our grief. This program and Stanley Nelson's "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" are the first to give the much needed respect by portraying them as real life individuals, who wanted better lives for themselves and others. Unfortunately, the ones in charge had other plans, twisting the power they had and evil manifested in the worst way possible. Your review represents the few who get it...November 18, 1978 was a day that should be in history books and studied as to understand where the people, all american citizens, who made up Peoples Temple came from, what in their lives lead them to follow Jim Jones? Why until now the truth about that day has been ignored? Why more were not prosecuted for crimes committed in Jonestown (Larry Layton, an airport shooter, was prosecuted and jailed)? Why so many survivors lived/live in fear because of Peoples Temple. I could go on, but my purpose is to thank you for your review. My hope is that more will watch the program, thereafter, research the events pertaining to tragedy.

[kriselda jarnsaxa]

I taped the late showing of this last night and just finished watching it. Your review is right on the mark. I've seen several different shows on the tragedy - most in an "Investigative Reports" style, providing more of a summary than a real reporting on what happened - but this one packed a great deal more emotional heft, and more detail than any other show like this I've seen.

Thanks for recommending it!

[Gayle]

Where can I get a copy of Jonestown Paradise Lost? I watch this last night on the History Channel. I would like to have my grandchildren to watch it also. Their mother is raising them as Jehovah Witness and this has been a complete nightmare for their father and the rest of our family. Jehovah Witness is nothing more than a cult and their members brainwash others same as Jim Jones did to members of his religion. Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Gayle

[Mark Jeffries]

The History Channel's web site is selling it for $29.95 now for shipment Feb. 28. Don't know if it will have a general release. The URL's www.history.com.

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[Paul]

The actor that played Jim Jones was a very bad choice for one he looks to young to play jones and vocaly was incompetent to resemble jones this as if he was swallowing a hot potato

for the rest it was pretty good