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===Authors A-D=== | ===Authors A-D=== | ||
− | * "Zero stars.... If the Western genre is struggling, it's because of terrible movies like this one." - Jeffrey M. Anderson, ''Combustible Celluloid'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/2007/septdawn.shtml}} | + | <!-- * "Zero stars.... If the Western genre is struggling, it's because of terrible movies like this one." - Jeffrey M. Anderson, ''Combustible Celluloid'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/2007/septdawn.shtml}} |
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* "In its retelling of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, 'September Dawn' takes a mysterious, incendiary historical event and turns it into a one-sided hatefest.... [Director Christopher Cain] relentlessly villainizes those who are historically proven to have participated in the massacre, adding a condemnation of Mormon prophet Brigham Young as the mastermind.... While it portrays interesting and forgotten history, this period piece mostly turns into a biased waste." - David Berngartt, ''The Daily Tar Heel'' (30 August 2007). {{link|url=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/08/30/Diversions/Movie.Shorts-2942770.shtml}} | * "In its retelling of the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, 'September Dawn' takes a mysterious, incendiary historical event and turns it into a one-sided hatefest.... [Director Christopher Cain] relentlessly villainizes those who are historically proven to have participated in the massacre, adding a condemnation of Mormon prophet Brigham Young as the mastermind.... While it portrays interesting and forgotten history, this period piece mostly turns into a biased waste." - David Berngartt, ''The Daily Tar Heel'' (30 August 2007). {{link|url=http://media.www.dailytarheel.com/media/storage/paper885/news/2007/08/30/Diversions/Movie.Shorts-2942770.shtml}} | ||
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* "Zero stars...The vast majority of the members of all religions, I believe and would argue, don't want to kill anybody. They want to love and care for their families, find decent work that sustains life and comfort, live in peace and get along with their neighbors. It is a deviant streak in some humans, I suspect, that drives them toward self-righteous violence, and uses religion as a convenient alibi...There isn't anything to be gained in telling this story in this way. It generates bad feelings on all sides...The Mormons are presented in no better light than Nazis and Japanese were in Hollywood's World War II films. Wasn't there a more thoughtful and insightful way to consider this historical event?" - Roger Ebert, ''Chicago Sun Times'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/REVIEWS/70823001}} | * "Zero stars...The vast majority of the members of all religions, I believe and would argue, don't want to kill anybody. They want to love and care for their families, find decent work that sustains life and comfort, live in peace and get along with their neighbors. It is a deviant streak in some humans, I suspect, that drives them toward self-righteous violence, and uses religion as a convenient alibi...There isn't anything to be gained in telling this story in this way. It generates bad feelings on all sides...The Mormons are presented in no better light than Nazis and Japanese were in Hollywood's World War II films. Wasn't there a more thoughtful and insightful way to consider this historical event?" - Roger Ebert, ''Chicago Sun Times'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070823/REVIEWS/70823001}} | ||
− | * "Jon Voight continues in his apparent effort to prove that he’s the heir apparent to both Bela Lugosi ''and'' John Carradine in the realm of career sense. Just when you thought that ''Bratz'' simply had to represent the nadir of his acting choices, along comes ''September Dawn'' to prove you wrong. Except for the fact that almost no one will ever see this, er, remarkable film, career-wise it’s the cinematic equivalent of playing Russian roulette with six loaded chambers...This doesn’t make Voight blameless, however, since he obviously agreed to be in this thing." - Ken Hanke, ''Mountain Xpress'' (29 August 2007) {{io}}. {{link|url=http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/september_dawn}} | + | <!-- * "Jon Voight continues in his apparent effort to prove that he’s the heir apparent to both Bela Lugosi ''and'' John Carradine in the realm of career sense. Just when you thought that ''Bratz'' simply had to represent the nadir of his acting choices, along comes ''September Dawn'' to prove you wrong. Except for the fact that almost no one will ever see this, er, remarkable film, career-wise it’s the cinematic equivalent of playing Russian roulette with six loaded chambers...This doesn’t make Voight blameless, however, since he obviously agreed to be in this thing." - Ken Hanke, ''Mountain Xpress'' (29 August 2007) {{io}}. {{link|url=http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/september_dawn}} |
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* "While historians are divided on exactly what role Mormon leader and then territorial governor Brigham Young played in the event, Cain and his cowriter, Carole Whang Schutter, have decided that Young orchestrated the massacre out of a combination of religious zeal and paranoia concerning the U.S. government. The point is that this might be true, but it also might not. Choosing to present it as fact guarantees the film a certain tabloid-esque controversy, of course, but it’s a dubious choice that makes the movie play as little more than wild-eyed anti-Mormon propaganda." - Ken Hanke, ''Mountain Xpress'' (29 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/september_dawn}} | * "While historians are divided on exactly what role Mormon leader and then territorial governor Brigham Young played in the event, Cain and his cowriter, Carole Whang Schutter, have decided that Young orchestrated the massacre out of a combination of religious zeal and paranoia concerning the U.S. government. The point is that this might be true, but it also might not. Choosing to present it as fact guarantees the film a certain tabloid-esque controversy, of course, but it’s a dubious choice that makes the movie play as little more than wild-eyed anti-Mormon propaganda." - Ken Hanke, ''Mountain Xpress'' (29 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/september_dawn}} | ||
* "The film’s other attempts to demonize Mormonism (really, what else can you call this?) are equally as unsubtle (in the manner most closely associated with Dr. Goebbels)—that is, when they’re not just peculiar...Ultimately, it’s a toss-up as to whether ''September Dawn'' is more offensive as history, as allegory or simply as lousy self-important filmmaking. It hardly matters since on all three levels the movie smells of herring." - Ken Hanke, ''Mountain Xpress'' (29 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/september_dawn}} | * "The film’s other attempts to demonize Mormonism (really, what else can you call this?) are equally as unsubtle (in the manner most closely associated with Dr. Goebbels)—that is, when they’re not just peculiar...Ultimately, it’s a toss-up as to whether ''September Dawn'' is more offensive as history, as allegory or simply as lousy self-important filmmaking. It hardly matters since on all three levels the movie smells of herring." - Ken Hanke, ''Mountain Xpress'' (29 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/september_dawn}} | ||
− | * Shot in a style that might be termed Americana gravitas, September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials. - J. Hoberman, ''The Village Voice'' (21 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0734,hoberman,77559,20.html}} | + | <!-- * Shot in a style that might be termed Americana gravitas, September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials. - J. Hoberman, ''The Village Voice'' (21 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0734,hoberman,77559,20.html}} |
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===Authors I-L=== | ===Authors I-L=== | ||
* "September Dawn presents a ham-fisted cautionary tale of religious fanaticism that would have been hooted out of even 19th-century theaters as melodrama of the most lurid kind.... Such ham-fisted earnestness does no one any good, least of all those who believe there's a big difference between historical fact and emotional screed." - Chris Kaltenbach, ''Baltimore Sun'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/bal-to.september24aug24,0,1683668.story}} | * "September Dawn presents a ham-fisted cautionary tale of religious fanaticism that would have been hooted out of even 19th-century theaters as melodrama of the most lurid kind.... Such ham-fisted earnestness does no one any good, least of all those who believe there's a big difference between historical fact and emotional screed." - Chris Kaltenbach, ''Baltimore Sun'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/bal-to.september24aug24,0,1683668.story}} | ||
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* "...disturbingly awful..."September Dawn," written by an evangelical Christian, may be the worst historical drama ever made...it trivializes one of America's ugliest and least understood events." - Jack Matthews, ''New York Daily News'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2007/08/24/2007-08-24_westward_woe_in_1857_utah.html}} | * "...disturbingly awful..."September Dawn," written by an evangelical Christian, may be the worst historical drama ever made...it trivializes one of America's ugliest and least understood events." - Jack Matthews, ''New York Daily News'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2007/08/24/2007-08-24_westward_woe_in_1857_utah.html}} | ||
− | * "When watching the screen depiction of a historic event in which 120 people were murdered, giggling is not the appropriate response. But 'September Dawn,' director Christopher Cain's drama set during the Mountain Meadows Massacre, is deserving of derision." - Sean Means, ''Salt Lake Tribune'', (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.film-finder.com/Review.asp?ID=53495}} | + | <!-- * "When watching the screen depiction of a historic event in which 120 people were murdered, giggling is not the appropriate response. But 'September Dawn,' director Christopher Cain's drama set during the Mountain Meadows Massacre, is deserving of derision." - Sean Means, ''Salt Lake Tribune'', (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.film-finder.com/Review.asp?ID=53495}} |
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* "...the movie leaves no doubt at all — using fierce quotations by Young, but using those words wildly out of context..." - Michael Medved, "Hollywood's Terrorists: Mormon, not Muslim," ''USA Today'' (13 August 2007). {{link|url=http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/hollywoods-terr.html}} | * "...the movie leaves no doubt at all — using fierce quotations by Young, but using those words wildly out of context..." - Michael Medved, "Hollywood's Terrorists: Mormon, not Muslim," ''USA Today'' (13 August 2007). {{link|url=http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/hollywoods-terr.html}} | ||
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* "...the clunky, heavily skewed means by which this tale is presented is nothing short of egregious, with its Mormon characters demonized with such laughable gusto, and its Christian victims cast in such a holy, noble light, that the project quickly feels less like an attempt at historical truth-telling than like shameless anti-Mormon propaganda.... This cartoonish demonization persistently seems tied to a religious-political agenda." - Nick Sager, ''Slant Magazine'' (20 April 2007). {{link|url=http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=2925}} | * "...the clunky, heavily skewed means by which this tale is presented is nothing short of egregious, with its Mormon characters demonized with such laughable gusto, and its Christian victims cast in such a holy, noble light, that the project quickly feels less like an attempt at historical truth-telling than like shameless anti-Mormon propaganda.... This cartoonish demonization persistently seems tied to a religious-political agenda." - Nick Sager, ''Slant Magazine'' (20 April 2007). {{link|url=http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=2925}} | ||
− | * "No stars...'SEPTEMBER Dawn" succeeds completely at failure; the unified incompetence of its writing, directing and acting suggest a man who manages to be on fire and drowning at the same time..." - Kyle Smith, ''New York Post'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/08242007/entertainment/movies/pulpit_massacre_has_whiff_of_p.htm}} | + | <!-- * "No stars...'SEPTEMBER Dawn" succeeds completely at failure; the unified incompetence of its writing, directing and acting suggest a man who manages to be on fire and drowning at the same time..." - Kyle Smith, ''New York Post'' (24 August 2007). {{link|url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/08242007/entertainment/movies/pulpit_massacre_has_whiff_of_p.htm}} |
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* "D minus.... Clearly “September Dawn” is constructed as an anti-Mormon diatribe disguised as a historical narrative.... Like most 'historical' pictures, [it] has serious problems in historical terms. But in this case they're exacerbated by the simple ineptitude of the filmmaking." - Frank Swietek, ''One Guy's Opinion''{{link|url=http://www.oneguysopinion.com/Review.php?ID=2230}} | * "D minus.... Clearly “September Dawn” is constructed as an anti-Mormon diatribe disguised as a historical narrative.... Like most 'historical' pictures, [it] has serious problems in historical terms. But in this case they're exacerbated by the simple ineptitude of the filmmaking." - Frank Swietek, ''One Guy's Opinion''{{link|url=http://www.oneguysopinion.com/Review.php?ID=2230}} | ||
===Authors T-Z=== | ===Authors T-Z=== | ||
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If readers are aware of quotes about the film not available here, they are encouraged to [http://fairlds.org/contact.php contact FAIR]. | If readers are aware of quotes about the film not available here, they are encouraged to [http://fairlds.org/contact.php contact FAIR]. | ||
− | ==Box office results== | + | <!-- ==Box office results== |
''September Dawn'' opened on 24 August 2007 at 857 theaters in the United States. It made $601,857 its opening weekend, an average of $702 per theater.{{ref|boxofficemojo}} If we conservatively assume three screenings per day per theater and an average ticket price of $8, that means less than 10 people were in each theater per screening. | ''September Dawn'' opened on 24 August 2007 at 857 theaters in the United States. It made $601,857 its opening weekend, an average of $702 per theater.{{ref|boxofficemojo}} If we conservatively assume three screenings per day per theater and an average ticket price of $8, that means less than 10 people were in each theater per screening. | ||
Only 415 theaters kept the movie playing a second week, and only 26 theaters carried it for its third and final weekend. Total gross for the movie was just over one million dollars, about a tenth of the production costs.{{ref|boxofficemojo2}} | Only 415 theaters kept the movie playing a second week, and only 26 theaters carried it for its third and final weekend. Total gross for the movie was just over one million dollars, about a tenth of the production costs.{{ref|boxofficemojo2}} | ||
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==The film's creators react to criticism== | ==The film's creators react to criticism== | ||
On 29 August 2007, Carole Schutter, creator of the film's story and co-writer of its screenplay, sent the following email to several ex-Mormon critics: | On 29 August 2007, Carole Schutter, creator of the film's story and co-writer of its screenplay, sent the following email to several ex-Mormon critics: | ||
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With the film savaged by critics and drawing a minuscule paying audience, Schutter apparently decided to manufacture a controversy, with hints of a conspiracy, in the hopes of filling a few seats. (Her press release uses the term "controversy" or "controversial" three times.) | With the film savaged by critics and drawing a minuscule paying audience, Schutter apparently decided to manufacture a controversy, with hints of a conspiracy, in the hopes of filling a few seats. (Her press release uses the term "controversy" or "controversial" three times.) | ||
− | The problem, of course, is that there is no "controversy" here. Virtually everyone — with the exception of anti-Mormon partisans — agrees that ''September Dawn'' is a bad film. | + | <!-- The problem, of course, is that there is no "controversy" here. Virtually everyone — with the exception of anti-Mormon partisans — agrees that ''September Dawn'' is a bad film. |
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=={{Endnotes label}}== | =={{Endnotes label}}== | ||
#{{note|worstyear1}}Roger Moore, "Top 5 worst movies of 2007," ''Orlando Sentinel'' (28 December 2007). {{link|url=http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-worst200707dec28,0,6597378.story}} | #{{note|worstyear1}}Roger Moore, "Top 5 worst movies of 2007," ''Orlando Sentinel'' (28 December 2007). {{link|url=http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-worst200707dec28,0,6597378.story}} |
Does the film about the Mountain Meadows Massacre accurately portray the historical events?
September Dawn is not only bad history, it is an altogether bad film. The creators have used negative stereotypes to create a piece of anti-Mormon propaganda for the big screen. They are so committed to their vision of perfidious Mormons, that they can't accept non-Mormon criticism at face value—they "know" their film can't be bad, so it must be the Mormons' fault. But, non-LDS observers and film critics simply recognize the film for what it is—yesterday's shrill anti-Mormonism on today's big screen.
When an independent film company produced a grossly distorted version of the Mountain Meadows Massacre two years ago, the Church ignored it. Perhaps partly as a result of that refusal to engender the controversy that the producers hoped for, the movie flopped at the box office and lost millions.—The Publicity Dilemma, LDS Newsroom, March 9, 2009.
Joseph Smith has ordered us to destroy everything. He is the voice of God. Burn the papers! Burn the papers! Burn everything!—Jon Voight, portraying a fictitious bishop, as he burns the printing office of the Nauvoo Expositor
Burn! Let their lies burn!—Dean Cain, portraying Joseph Smith in "September Dawn"
September Dawn is an ill-informed and poorly-done piece of propaganda. Rating it the worst film of 2007, movie critic Roger Moore wrote:
It is true that a group of Mormons, under the influence of local leaders, orchestrated a cold-blooded massacre of men, women, and children on 11 September 1857. The film's claim that this behavior was typical of Mormons, insistence that Brigham Young ordered or orchestrated the massacre, and its uncritical reliance on the account of John D. Lee are grave flaws.
Furthermore, claims that the Church continues to "suppress" the truth are false. Those wishing resources on the historical facts behind the Mountain Meadows tragedy can click here. A recent article in the Ensign (the Church's official magazine) is available here.
Articles on the film and Mountain Meadows Massacre generally:
Non-Mormon critics have also realized how biased, sensationalistic, and poorly done the film is. A sample of media quotes about the film (quotes are by author's last name):
If readers are aware of quotes about the film not available here, they are encouraged to contact FAIR.
On 29 August 2007, Carole Schutter, creator of the film's story and co-writer of its screenplay, sent the following email to several ex-Mormon critics:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not "direct[ed its] members to help destroy" September Dawn, and has made no comment about the film itself. Virtually all of the critical reviews reprinted above were written by non-Mormons. Instead of taking the criticism of her film at face value, Schutter resorted to paranoid conspiracy theories.
Two days later, on 31 August, Schutter issued the following press release, emphasizing the controversial nature of September Dawn and the supposed Mormon backlash against it:
With the film savaged by critics and drawing a minuscule paying audience, Schutter apparently decided to manufacture a controversy, with hints of a conspiracy, in the hopes of filling a few seats. (Her press release uses the term "controversy" or "controversial" three times.)
== Notes ==
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