Mormon Cinema update

Several months ago I wrote a little essay/ vent about the current condition of Mormon Cinema. Please take a few minutes to read it if you haven’t already. Church Ball and the Death of Mormon Cinema

Well now it seems that the very director I was quoting as the only one with any vision at all for the genre’ has decided to leave the very genre’ that he essentially founded. Please read Richard Dutcher’s “parting words to Mormon Cinema."

If I were a more cynical man it would be easy for me to jump up on a soapbox and say, “See I told you so.” However I’m far too saddened by these events to do that. The truth is I was hoping that somebody would rescue the genre’ and prove my musings to be too pessimistic.

Dutcher phrased it much better than I could. However we both identified the root of the problem as film makers relying on LDS members to support the films simply because they were LDS films. As long as these film makers continue to rely on the charity of members for their support they are no better than the government funded artists who sell painters drop cloths as art and make million of dollars for something that blownotherwise would have gone to the garbage bin.

I will continue to hold out hope for the eventual survival of Mormon cinema. I‘m just not sure where to look now that its brightest candle has been extinguished by mediocrity and ambivalence.