Posted on 08/23/2007 5:45:11 PM PDT by Reaganesque
"This handsome indie Western damningly recounts the 1857 slayings of 120 settlers passing through Utah, but the didactic presentation, grim speechifying and tacked-on love story all signify a less-than-healthy regard for the audience's intelligence."
Variety Justin Chang
1/4 "The film feels less like historical drama than a venomous religious tract printed on celluloid." Minneapolis Star Tribune Colin Covert
"September Dawn has the ham-fisted lyricism of political ads and pharmaceutical commercials." Village Voice J. Hoberman
"When the movie isn't doling out ham-fisted history...it gives us magnificent vistas of a pristine prairie...and there's a deep sweetness to the subplot of Jonathan and Emily falling in love." Film Journal International Frank Lovece
1.5/4 "When watching the screen depiction of a historic event in which 120 people were murdered, giggling is not the appropriate response." Salt Lake Tribune Sean Means
1/5 "It has the chilling certitude of the self-righteous." Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore
2.5/5 "The real problem is that September Dawn isn't a very good movie. It moves too much like a public-school history pageant and gives us mono-dimensional characters who speak dialogue that fairly reeks of printer's ink." Arizona Republic Richard Nilsen
1/5 "The jarring MTV-style filmmaking is so distracting and the 'messaging' so unsubtle that after two long hours you find yourself leaving the theater with a massive headache, wondering when you started to hate Mormons." Orlando Weekly Brett Register
1/4 "Forget Grindhouse. September Dawn is the year's first honest-to-goodness exploitation flick." Slant Magazine Nick Schager
1/4 "Bombastic, slow-drying dramatization with lead-weight dialogue and a turgid romantic subplot." Newsday Gene Seymour
D- "Has serious problems in historical terms. But in this case they're exacerbated by the simple ineptitude of the filmmaking." One Guy's Opinion Frank Swietek
"Even if one gets past the movie's controversial depictions, there is the matter of its second-rate, made-for-television fare -- the poor battle choreography, the wooden editing and the cheesy writing." Washington Post Desson Thomson
2.5/4 "If September Dawn is a kind of Western, it's a Western utterly devoid of heroism or the usual archetypes. But the core message transcends time: Hatred laced with religious fanaticism is a toxic blend." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Dave Tianen
1/4 "Doesn't even measure up to an episode of your typical, cowboy TV show from the Fifties like Roy Rogers or The Lone Ranger. Get my drift, Kimosabe?" NewsBlaze Kam Williams
Click here for links to the full reviews.
“Your postings are the best short history course I have read in a long while, you are doing a great job of conveying the feel of the times, and context for the events. Thanks, I think you are making many of us want to look deeper into the roots of this group.”
Your reward for being nice to me is a juicy link that goes into racism - I think on both sides, in Jackson County. It is Parley Pratt’s history and is obviously pro-Mormon to the hilt, except he is fair enough to quote the antis (unlike some here). The kicker is that after quoting a letter from the antis accusing the Mormons of being anti-slavery, good ole Parley says why no, they hadn’t allowed more than five or six blacks in. Interpretation is up for grabs.
Parley Pratt, Mitt’s great great grandad /polygamist /murderer/ wife stealer / Apostle / probable Danite.
[Fourthly, concerning free negroes and mulattoes.—Do not the laws of Missouri provide abundantly for the removal from the state of all free negroes and mulattoes? (except certain privileged ones;) and also for the punishment of those who introduce or harbor them? The statement concerning our invitation to them to become Mormons, and remove to this state, and settle among us, is a wicked fabrication, as no such thing was ever published in the Star, or anywhere else, by our people, nor anything in the shadow of it; and we challenge the people of Jackson, or any other people, to produce such a publication from us.
In fact, one half dozen negroes or mulattoes, never have belonged to our society, in any part of the world, from its first organization to this day, 1839. ]
http://www.boap.org/LDS/Early-Saints/PPratt-pers.html
If you like one sided histories that are slanted against Mormons then FC is your guy. I've seen post after post of his refuted by LDS apologists but FC refuses to accept anything coming from them.
...you are doing a great job of conveying the feel of the times, and context for the events.
He certainly does convey the feelings of those who are against the Mormons. What about the other side of the story?
Thanks, I think you are making many of us want to look deeper into the roots of this group.
Please take the time to get a balanced picture of these events. There were over 30,000 Mormons living in the Nauvoo area at the time of Joseph Smiths assassination. The bulk of the church ended up going west to escape the "fellowship" of their neighbors in Illinois and Missouri. Take some time to find out what their stories were.
Here’s some advice, take it or leave it. There once was a group of believers in God who didn’t agree with doctrines that they perceived a threat to their beliefs. One of their own gave this group some very good advice. I suggest you follow it yourself, before you burst a blood vessel of something. ;-)
Acts 5:
38 And now I say unto you, refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught:
39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
BTW, no one is out to get you. I suggest you look in the mirror and/or read your posting history and decide whom is out to get whom.
They apologized well over a hundred years later. They denied it happened for years. Lee wasn't even prosecuted until 17 years after the massacre.
How many times was the monument desecrated?
I'm not sure what you mean by that last sentence.
“He certainly does convey the feelings of those who are against the Mormons. What about the other side of the story?”
That’s not really my job now is it, to do your work for you. But that said the last link I gave was pro-Mormon from Parley Pratt, a better link than any of you have given so far. Your side never bothers to quote from original Mormon histories, I’ve been waiting forever for one of you to step up to the plate. But all I get is blah blah Bigot blah blah blah Hitler blah blah Big Bad Meany.
My position, as is the position of Reed Peck and others, is that Smith and the inner circle were the nutjobs and most of the followers were just out to get along. Far West was thriving and a part of the local community - until Smith turned up on the lamb from Kirtland. Nauvoo was up and running and doing fine until Smith made his power grab with Hyrum.
So sure, there is two sides to this history. The reason I’ve been one sided is because the apologists on this site REJECT EVERY NON-MORMON TESTIMONY I PRESENT! And I mean reject EVERYTHING! So why should I provide both sides under those conditions? ? ? ? Where I am in a lose lose situation if I try to present both sides?
And talk about presenting only one side, I do post Mormon quotes, more than anyone else ON YOUR SIDe. And you NEVER quote from the exMormon “Apostate” material, or the state of Missouri archives.
So, you guys are the big flaming hypocrites suggesting I’m not even handed when all you can present is “it’s true because I felt a burning in my bossum” arguments while rejecting everything the opposition said.
“LOL! You say you don’t loathe anyone, and yet in the same breath you say JS loathed a whole group of people who didn’t believe like him. You can’t have it both ways.”
Sure I can. I loathe people who loathe other people so much they’d put their mortal souls in danger by running a scam like the BOM. There you go, got it both ways.
“Here’s some advice, take it or leave it. There once was a group of believers in God who didn’t agree with doctrines that they perceived a threat to their beliefs. One of their own gave this group some very good advice. I suggest you follow it yourself, before you burst a blood vessel of something. ;-)
Acts 5:
38 And now I say unto you, refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught:
39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”
Good advice, perhaps it applies more to you than me. If I’m wrong, I’ll fade away (about the same time someone finds the Golden plates)
“BTW, no one is out to get you. I suggest you look in the mirror and/or read your posting history and decide whom is out to get whom.”
I’ve been called a bigot so many times by you people I can’t count, and the last attack was to try to equate me with Hitler. So I think many are out to get me, despite their pious denials.
“BTW, no one is out to get you.”
Yeah sure:
[Calling all bigots! Calling all bigots! Sharpen your shivs and bring your cudgels. We’re about to do God’s glorious work! Hallelujah! Let’s bash some Mormon heiney for Jesus!]
That is so bogus FC this was NOT about another faith, this was about the Mobocrats who were renegades, men who were wolves similar to the KKK, and the Danites were no better, the good folks in the community did not agree with the violent of those who did dastardly deeds.
You did not live under those situations nor in that day and to hear you tell it meaning you are making this personal which being Lutheran did not even effect your life, (just becaues you happen to have some bad business dealings with someone who is LDS, Lutherans don't have crooks either I guess to hear you tell it!)you know all about it because you read some anonymous speculation on the internet.
Quick Answer: Who Were the Danites?
The Danites were a secretive group of Mormons organized and apparently abolished in the same year, 1838. They were founded by a man, Sampson Avard, who was striving to use the Church as a tool for power. Members were bound by oaths of secrecy to support what appeared to be a good cause, the defense of the Church in a time of mob persecution, but ultimately Avard sought to manipulate the Danites into a tool for retribution and violence. While much has been written about the Danites, it appears that they played a relatively minor role and their secret purposes were opposed once they were exposed to Joseph Smith. On the other hand, Joseph supported Avard's group for their openly stated purpose of helping to defend the Saints, and may have erred in not recognizing the dangers inherent in such an organization or the threat posed by the ambitious Avard.
Joseph was not the mastermind behind the Danites, but he gave them at least partial support initially, and his encouragement of militant action to defend the Saints may have made it easier for Avard and his Danites to flourish.
I do not accept the allegations that a violent group of secret Danites persisted for years as an approved tool of the Church - I find such claims to be without merit, though it has been the stuff of numerous movies, novels, and stories - all at least partly fictional. (For an example of rehashed modern allegations, see Wild Bill Rides Again: The Tanners on the Danites - an excellent article by Russell C. McGregor.)
Much of what anti-Mormon critics think they know of the Danites and Joseph Smith's association with them comes from testimony of Sampson Avard, who saved his own skin when he was arrested by testifying against Joseph Smith, the one whom the Missourians really wanted. Avard said Joseph was the one behind the Danites, that he was guilty of many great crimes against the Missourians, and that Danites swore to kill any who revealed their secrets or fought against Joseph Smith and the Church. For his traitorous and false testimony, Avard was released and Joseph was imprisoned for the next six months in terrible conditions in the Liberty Jail. If there were any truth to common rumors about the Danites or any truth to Avard's testimony against Joseph Smith, one would think that Avard would have lost his life for telling all. But, of course, Joseph had no such intentions. Avard was merely excommunicated for his apostasy.
Regarding the Danites, Mosiah Hancock, son of Levi Hancock, one of Joseph Smith's body guards, had this to say regarding the Danites:
Some people tried to class the Mormons with the Danites. The Danites were of a different stripe, however. The Danites tried to hold an outward friendship for the Prophet, and for the teachings of the Savior, but it was not skin deep. They tried to get a hog's office among the Saints, which proved their love for 'loaves and fishes'. They usually got a few traps that no decent devil would be justly proud of. Oft times they would locate a dwelling in a neighboring town on the prairie or in the woods. There they would let their bottom door swing in for all sorts of low-down characters to meet; where they could always boast of a deck of cards and a candle; and felt themselves safe from official scrutiny. They usually had plenty of horses when needed; and they were quite able to get up and speak in prayer meeting. They were hale fellows, well met with the black-legs and the apostates of the country. They would pay some tithing in order to pave the way for them to get benefits; and they would say, "Hurrah! for Mormonism" when they were around the Saints, and then some black-leg who belonged to the same gang would bawl out, "I'm a Mormon"! They have always been a clog in the Church and a clog in the counry wherever they have been. --Autobiography of Mosiah Hancock
Amazing, you are the first one to offer anything substantive AT ALL to what I’ve been posting. I don’t think you got Joseph Smith off the hook, he wasn’t known as General Smith for nothing and he had lead the aborted raid on Jackson County. But I do commend you highly for citing some original testimony. I’ll take a look at it as time permits.
It would be nice to have a chronology of how the details unfolded and when each event happen to lead up to this over those years, maybe the whole story was never known until years later!
It would be nice to have autopsies and also DNA done on all who claim to be family members to separate those who have Just Cause, from maybe those who are professional agitators!
I being a convert have no in-depth investment but I like to see all of the t’crossed and i’s dotted.
Than lets discuss the how and what led up to these events!
Just in these last 50 years I have witness in the world how people will take a horrifying sitution and pile more on to stir up their cause.
“I stand by my original post suggesting to ansel12 that there is two sides to this story and that some balance would be required to come to a full understanding of the events in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Utah. You readily admit that the history you are giving is one sided and by definition incomplete. I really don’t see what your beef with me is.”
I’ll accept the above statement. My beef with everyone on the Mormon side is I’m expected to provide sources on both sides, while they invariably reject outright anything produced by ex-Mormons or Gentiles. That is a suckers game I won’t play.
But having made my point, in the future I’ll throw in a little bit more of the other side for balance, as I did with the Parley Pratt opus (though it raises the big racism issue, it is an apologist piece).
Two sides:
[In my best WWF intro voice] In this corner, we have dozens of well-armed Mormon militia flanked by Paiute Indians. In the challenged corner, we have at least 18 4 & under kids (17 survived); several other dozen minors; dozens of more women; and the rest father-dads...not all well-armed at all.
Is that what you mean by two sides?
Can you tell me what a wagon train from Arkansas has anything to do with Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Utah? Can you tell me how these folks were in any way threatening like the folks in Ohio, Missouri or Illinois that you elude to?
The ONLY WAY that you (& others who keep referencing TOTALLY SEPARATE incidents in Ohio, Missouri, Illinois) can keep trying to get away with this "two sides" friction fiction is to assume that somehow these Arkansas Gentiles were linked up as part of the grand persecuting conspiracy that also involved locals in three other communities (Kirtland, Jackson/Zion, and Nauvoo).
I've got news for you: There was no grand Gentile conspiracy on the part of settlers in Kirtland, Jackson/Zion, and Nauvoo.
That is pure friction fiction. Folks back in the 1830s and 1840s were quite isolated one from another, for one thing. You keep wanting to reduce this to "two sides" when in fact, it was a "multiple cube" kind of thing. Roll the dice when #1 comes up, that represents the Kirtland folks. #2=Jackson/Zion area folks. #3=Nauvoo folks. #4=Arkansas Wagon Train. #5=LDS folks who initiated violence in Missouri. #6=LDS who were victimized in more than one place. In other words, it's not a two-sided die; it's at least six sided...
Finally, major problems for LDS did not kick into high gear in Nauvoo until Smith & his cohorts brazenly broke the law & engaged in trespassing & vandalism. Someone who is mayor of the city & in control of a militia group & is running for U.S. president--all earmarks of most of Smith's "Nauvoo experience"--hardly made him a minority picked-on voice during his time there.
As for Missouri, there was two-way blood letting initiated by both sides (with LDS getting the worst of it both initially and in the final blow). But I'm not sure if it was all that more significant than what we've heard in history about the Hatfields and the McCoys going at it re: an ongoing feud.
Basically, where I would say that LDS have a legitimate beef about Missouri was the overall treatment they rec'd from the state leaders there. After violence opened up there, the state leaders should have done more to offer local LDS protection. But again, these state leaders were not in cahoots with anyone from Ohio or Illinois. (So stop reducing this thing to "two sides" as if everything was a conspiracy...interesting that much of all you read on "September Dawn" threads is the supposed "conspiracy" of a release date to coincide with Mitt's run.
#1: What would you think of a, say, Roman Catholic diocese, that took two years to release a few priests from their callings, and another 11 years to ex-communicate them, oh, let's say for "minor dabblings" in mass murder? Exhibit #1: Isaac Haight, the hate Mormon.
The church doesn't excommunicate someone for murder unless there is a confession or conviction in a court of law. It is not the job of the Church to dig into the lives of members and try to find some cause against them.
#2: You said it was the job of law enforcement officials, not the church, to find the perpetrators. Well, again, what if a local diocese knew that a local RC church included dozens of mass murderers? (You mean, no action, no investigation would even be launched? That would be the job of only "law enforcement officials"? And if that's the case, how is it that Haight & Lee got ex-communicated 13 years later--if the role of investigation belonged to law enforcement alone?)
#3: The fact that Governor Cumming (at the behest of U.S. President James Buchanan) declared amnesty for all hostile acts by any persons in the course of the Utah War hindered efforts to fully investigate and prosecute the crime. Many legal authorities considered MM covered by this amnesty.
Any real case of even suggested "amnesty" needs to have real people involved. You can't have phantom victims, and you can't have phantom combatants or perpetrators (combatants if a war covers them; perpetrators if not). The fact that we had mass Utah cover-up of the victims; and the fact that we had no combatants or perpetrators step forward to personally claim the umbrella of war, suggested a phantom apologetic on your part.
Ok, I think I remember: It’s like a flooded slot, with lots of tree drebris in places?
BULK??
What percentage is THAT??
The ones that DID remain - did THEY get 'fellowshipped' as well??
Take some time to find out what their stories were.
I think the 'stories' from the RLDS (them who stayed behind) would be quite telling!!
At least that's what the Fancher bunch was TOLD!
"We'll protect your back as you pass thru."
Mormon definition of words was different even back then!
Couple interesting sites on Death Hollow.
There is also a Litttle Death Hollow across the Escalante, and apparently another Death Hollow somewhere up around the San Rafael Reef. But I don’t know anything about that one.
Death Hollow apparently changes character dramatically from year to year as a result of flooding. Sometimes a fairly easy trip, sometimes quite tricky.
http://www.australianaddiction.com/Visit_DH.html
http://www.toddshikingguide.com/Hikes/Utah/Escalante/Escalante12.htm
I think you're missing a major point. At the time of MMM and for quite a few years thereafter, there was just no distinction in UT between the Church and secular authorities. It was an outright theocracy, mitigated somewhat at times by the federal and military authorities. The same men held Church, militia and territorial offices simultaneously, as was the case with those who planned and perpetrated MMM.
If there was a conflict between Church and secular authorities, there is no question the Mormons would obey the Church.
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