the religion
addict
by Douglas Messerli
Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan
(directors) Marjoe / 1972 [documentary]
There are at least two ways of
perceiving Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan’s 1972 documentary on the
evangelist, faith-healer Marjoe Gortner: to see it as the story of a con-man
revealing his tricks and, in the process, trying to con his new movie audience
into believing him to be a good actor; or to see it as a sad documentary of an
abused child who grew up to regret his continuance of the only career for which
he had been trained. In fact, the human being, Marjoe (much like his “combined”
name, based on Mary and Joseph) encompasses both of these stories, which is
what makes him so interesting to watch.
If Gortner is a con-man, ripping off some of the poorest of
Americans—which, self-admittedly he was, at one point estimating that he had
earned nearly 3 million dollars, much of which his father later absconded with,
leaving him and his mother in the lurch—he also worked incredibly hard and gave
his audiences a great show. As a child, he was tortured by his mother,
smothered in pillows and half-drowned if in rehearsals he forget his lines.
None of the money he earned during those years, he insists, went to his pockets
(although that is obviously to ignore his clothing, meals, and boarding). And,
it is hard to know, given the fact the documentary shows only a few momentary
clips of his childhood Pentecostal gatherings, if he was a truly effective
child performer. But there is no question that the thin, strutting, dancing,
singing, shouting, and praying 27-year-old we observe in the four gatherings
shown in this movie gives the crowd a lot for the 20 and 10 dollars he asks of
them. Along with the choruses, the dancing of attending children and even some
parishioners, as well as the antiphonal Sprechstimme
of the other pastors, the Pentecostal audiences are awarded a grand
participatory theater experience that few Broadway musicals could ever match.
And then, there’s always the chance that the church-goers might get the
opportunity to fall into a trance, speak in tongues, and roll upon the ground
in rapture!
Nonetheless Gortner feels guilty, and takes the opportunity of joining
up with a film crew to reveal both the hypocrisy of his acts and his
manipulation of the believers. In these scenes— wherein Gortner gives up his
secrets of how he has based some of his dancing movements on the performances
of Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones and how to beg for every last penny the
faithful have in their purses and pockets, and provokes others to admit
(forgetting perhaps that they are on camera) how they use the media to
successfully line their pockets with enough money buy Cadillacs, expensive
jewelry, and even virgin land in Brazil—the likeable and charismatic Marjoe
suddenly is transformed into a cynical, girl-chasing, hippie, dope-head who leaves
us cold. In other words, it’s only when he
pretending that we can really like the man; as a real everyday figure Gortner
is a bore.
Wisely, the filmmakers give us only a few moments of the hipster
rolling about on waterbed and speaking empty stoned-out babble with late-night
friends, and mostly concentrate their cameras on his spiritual performances.
Smith and Kernochan, moreover, were blessed with the unexpected appearance of
Gortner’s formerly-preaching father at the final event, where we see the
usually unperturbed Marjoe sitting in near agony over another face-off with the
grandest thief he could have even known—the father that stole not only his
money, but his youth, his love, and, one might argue, left him as the hollow
man he has become.
Despite a great deal of attention this film received upon its premiere
in New York and Los Angeles, which included winning an Academy Award for the
best documentary, the film was not shown throughout most of the rest of the
country, and, with the death of its disinterested distributor, Donald Rugoff,
was almost lost. Sarah Kernochan—apparently the more involved of the two
directors—had only one deteriorated and unusable copy of the film. It was only in
2002, quite by accident, that, while meeting at the building in Marjoe was first processed, someone
mentioned to her that they were cleaning out their archives, where she found a
negative, trailer, outtakes and other materials which allowed the film to be
brought into a DVD. And only recently has the film been recognized for its
quality.
Marjoe Gortner went on to act in 15 later films, but none of them were
of significance; his abilities as an actor, it became clear, were minimal. And
in retrospect, we realize, that the charismatic boy and young evangelical adult
was not acting as much as miming the role of a preacher man. Gortner,
apparently, could perform no other role with such vivacity. Is it any wonder,
as he himself admitted, that, despite is inability to believe, he had become “a
religion addict.” As one woman quietly asked him on his last tour: “Have you
ever thought that maybe Jesus really is working through you?” Marjoe’s seeming
inability to think things out, ultimately, is what leaves a somewhat bitter
taste in this viewer’s mouth.
Los
Angeles, September 17, 2015
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2015).
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