Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple Page #8

Synopsis: Featuring never-before-seen footage, this documentary delivers a startling new look at the Peoples Temple, headed by preacher Jim Jones who, in 1978, led more than 900 members to Guyana, where he orchestrated a mass suicide via tainted punch.
Director(s): Stanley Nelson
Production: 7th art
  1 win & 4 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.9
Metacritic:
79
Rotten Tomatoes:
94%
Year:
2006
86 min
Website
436 Views


shield of protection around you.

And I just looked at him

like he was totally insane.

Congressman Ryan was

directly across from me,

and I saw this Temple member

walk up behind him

and he was actually

crying and shaking

and all of a sudden,

he pulled out this knife and said,

All right, motherf***er,

youre gonna die.

We all jumped on him,

and there were just screams of horror

everywhere.

We heard this great uproar

in the pavilion and the truck stopped.

Then, shortly thereafter,

Congressman Ryan starts walking out

in this bloodstained shirt.

Those of us in the news media

viewed Congressman Ryan

as a form of protection,

a shield of the United States.

What happened there

in those few moments

made it clear that nobody was safe.

I went back to my cottage.

All I wanted to do was

see my wife and my son.

Gloria and I were laid down

on the cot and we just held each other

and I said, You know,

I think we may all die.

And she said, she kind of looked at me

and then she looked down at our son,

who was playing on the floor

with the toys,

and she said,

Youre scaring him.

I had literally opened my mouth

to say we need to leave,

when there was an

announcement on the loud speaker,

Will everybody report to

the pavilion for a meeting.

We drove back

to the airstrip, Port Kaituma.

All of a sudden, we saw a dump truck

from far away arriving to this airstrip.

We realized these people

catch up from people from Jim Jones,

theyre very close lieutenant

to Jim Jones.

These three guys,

they get off the truck

and walk around this area

as though they were

looking for somebody.

They looked in peoples faces.

They stared at us for a little bit,

but they didnt say one word.

They didnt ask anything.

Right away,

they walked back to the truck.

They drove this truck

all the way across the airstrip

and stop on this side of the plane,

so literally

they cut us off from the jungle.

We never know theres people

hidden inside the dump truck.

The moment it stopped,

they start shooting right away.

Everybody ran toward the plane,

on this side of plane.

They try to hide

underneath the wheels.

Then the Congressman ran under

the plane, and I sort of followed suit

and got behind one of the tires.

All you can hear is the gun

"pop, pop, pop" goes off constantly.

We lie flat on the tarmac

at that moment.

But shortly afterwards,

I heard my partner, the cameraman.

He yelled, Oh sh*t. He said he got...

he got shot. He was sitting up.

There were people

tumbling and yelling

and letting out cries

as they were hit.

I was hit in my arm and wrist.

I felt a tremendous explosion,

right next to my head.

I got a tremendous pain

ran through my arm and on my shoulder.

I was really shaking,

but I didnt move.

I took the pain and hold still.

I was lying on my side,

pretending that I was dead,

with my head down.

And...

they came and shot me

at point blank,

point blank range.

I remember someone coming to me

and telling me that

Congressman Ryan was dead.

But I was at a point where

I didnt know

how much more time

I was going to be alive.

The guns dead and all we can hear

this one engine was still running.

So all you could hear

the engine noise. And thats it.

We walked up to the pavilion

together, with everybody else.

It was very quiet.

It was very somber. It was very sad,

but it wasnt a death march.

The congressman is dead!

You think theyre going to

allow us to get by with this?

You must be insane. Theyll torture

some of our children here.

Theyll torture our people.

Theyll torture our seniors.

We can not have this!

He said, Well, we got to go.

We got to get out of here.

We got to... we got to go to sleep.

Get the solution together.

If we cant live in peace,

then lets die in peace.

Maria Katsaris walked up to him

and whispered in his ear,

and he looked at her and said, Is there

anyway to make it taste less bitter?

And she said,

No, no apparently not.

And he said, Is it quick?

And she said,

Yeah, its supposed to be quick.

Anyone that has any

dissenting opinion, please speak.

When we destroy ourselves,

were defeated.

We let them,

the enemies, defeat us.

On the last day of Jonestown,

Christine Miller stood up and said,

I dont want to die here.

Why are we going to throw

all this away? Weve worked too hard.

I look at all the babies,

and I think they deserve to live.

I agree, but also they deserve

Whats more, they deserve peace.

We all came here for peace.

Is it too late for Russia?

Shes calling Jim Jones

on some of the things that

he has promised them

that they were going to do.

Jim had promised, as an

alternative to them dying in Jonestown,

that they could go

to the Soviet Union.

Im listening to you.

You asked me about Russia.

Im right now

making a call to Russia.

What more do you suggest?

Eventually, the rhetoric

ratchets up enough

that she is shouted down.

Christine, your life

has been extended to today.

That youre standing there

is because of him.

Thats when I noticed

that there were armed guards

that had kind of taken positions

up around the pavilion.

Im thinking,

Where did all of these

f***ing guns come from?

Jones came down off the podium

and he said,

Hey, we got to do this.

We got to... we got to go,

that if we dont go this way,

we going to go like this.

They were coming,

taking like newborn babies

out of their mothers arms.

Mother, mother, mother,

mother, mother please.

Mother, please,

please, please dont

Dont do this!

Dont do this!

Lay down your life with your child.

But dont do this.

There was a young kid,

his name was Sunny

and when he came inside,

he bumped into me.

At that same time,

hes falling to the ground

and hes going into convulsion.

Hurry, hurry, my children, hurry!

All right, let us not fall

into the hands of the enemy.

Hurry my children!

Hurry!

I grabbed the kid

from the shoulders up,

and in that process of

taking him out of the pavilion,

this kid died in my arms.

I mean, I just felt

the life go out of him.

To me... at that point,

I knew that this sh*t was real.

Die with respect,

die with a degree of dignity.

Its nothing to death, its just

stepping over into another plane.

Dont, dont be this way!

I aint never used

the term suicide,

and Im not gonna never

use the term suicide.

That man killed... was killing us.

As I walked up

to the back of the pavilion,

I saw a woman named Rosie

on the ground crying,

holding her dead baby.

There were maybe eight

or nine other people who were dying,

or in the process of dying.

Inside, I just wanted things to stop.

Please, just let me catch my breath,

let me figure out

whats happening here.

I looked to my right

and I saw my wife,

with our son in her arms

and poison

being injected into his mouth.

My son was dead and

he was frothing at the mouth.

You know, cyanide

makes people froth at the mouth.

My wife died in my arms

and my dead baby son

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Marcia Smith

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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