Guest Editorial: Saying no to DiCaprio

There is a man who once slept the night inside a dead horse, threw lobsters at FBI agents and drew Kate Winslet like one of his French girls. He now wants to make a film about Jim Jones.

It is a compelling story. The Indiana-born preacher founded the People’s Temple in 1954 based on radical Christian Socialism and moved it to California in 1965. After rumours of abuse and, increasingly mistrustful of the American authorities, in 1974 he decamped to the wilds of Guyana with his followers, mostly urban African Americans, to create an agrarian utopia – the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. At first it was seen, even to US embassy officials, as quite the success. However after several relatives com-plained of the mistreatment of members, Jones turned increasingly paranoid and following a visit by US Congressman Leo Ryan, who was killed at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones poisoned his congregation with cyanide-laced “Kool Aid” before shooting himself.

In all 919 died on November 18 1978 in what is still the biggest “mass murder suicide” in history. And it happened here, on Guyana’s soil even though almost all Guyanese had known very little about the church’s activities beforehand. Many only found out when – having heard American military helicopters flying overhead towards the remote camp near Port Kaituma to retrieve the bodies-  they were shocked to read of it in the newspapers. This was not the time of social media – #jonestown #koolaid.

The power of cinematography with its emphasis on imagery and emotion to shape perceptions and insert favourable narratives about how the world should be ordered cannot be overstated. A Hollywood blockbuster movie spans the world like some cultural missile, cir-cumventing the elites and landing directly on the masses. Since World War II the US government recognised the opportunities and dangers the medium presented, setting up the Bureau of Motion Pictures, to review scripts and censor any that offered unfavourable portrayals of America. This would continue into the McCarthy era with the blacklisting of suspected communist actors and directors. Nowadays none of this is necessary as Hollywood gladly plays its part. Its treacly glorification of the American military is abetted by the Department of Defence which allows access to military facilities for films that reflect well on the country’s armed forces.

At the same time Hollywood skews images of countries into the most simplistic caricatures, a most recent example being the Netflix series “Narcos Mexico”.

The Jim Jones story shares characteristics with Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel “Heart of Darkness”, whose main character, an ivory trader called Kurtz, creates his own kingdom in then Belgium Congo, and is worshipped by “the natives” before eventually turning mad. The Francis Ford Coppola movie “Apocalypse Now” borrows the character and name, Colonel Kurtz played by Marlon Brando, a rogue American soldier who sets himself up in war-torn Vietnam committing various atrocities as he also descends into madness. Closer to home Paul Theroux’s novel “Mosquito Coast” (and film) narrates an eccentric American inventor who settles in Honduras with a bizarre plan to deliver ice to indigenous people, with tragic consequences. All three fictions share themes of the central white character turning mad in a foreign jungle with the natives marginalised to playing extras looking on as utopia turns to dystopia.   

No wonder Leonardo DiCaprio wants to make this movie. It is, to use a well worn expression, “a no brainer” and it is also not surprising that reaction on social media here was the hope that it might be filmed locally so that as in real life Guyanese will again be extras to this drama. 

But there are several good reasons why such a film should not be made. Apart from the tiresome and anachronistic politics of Western Men behaving badly in “strange lands” this particular subject has been extensively covered through numerous documentaries, films, books and even songs. So exactly what more has to be explored? To be picked off the carcass? What is its social purpose? There is also the issue of the surviving relatives and how they might feel which is part of a larger debate about the moral legitimacy of the popular true crime genre.

For the relatives of those who died on that day (eight of whom were Guyanese- all children) such a film will unearth the memories of their loved ones when perhaps 40 plus years on they may wish to forget or remember them in their own private ways. Many must have also struggled with the issues of family members succumbing to Jones’ brainwashing and perhaps the guilt that they had not done more to discourage them. All this will be dredged up if this film is made. For Guyana, we have been linked with this tragedy ever since. Almost everyone playing a word association game would say “Jonestown” after hearing “Guyana”. Even today on Twitter Jones-town is used as shorthand for cult-like behaviour just as “Drinking the Kool Aid” has long become part of common political parlance (the actual powdered drink was probably a generic brand known as Flavour Aid). Some 40 years on, Guyana is inextricably connected in the minds of many around the world with the tragedy helping to contribute to the perception of a country that is dark, chaotic and dangerous. That is why one of the more absurd proposals was for tours of Jonestown as suggested by one local flight operator – an appeal to prurient American murder buffs to trudge around the jungle in cargo pants. No thank you. 

Guyana was a victim of this tragdey, and remains an interested party at a time when we should be looking to define ourselves rather than be defined. We can protest, perhaps diplomatically, that this proposed movie would be harmful to our inter-national reputation and image just as some countries have done over other movies. Alas it would make no difference. Even as a sovereign nation of 750,000 we are powerless to stop this film. Leonardo will likely have his biopic, his millions and perhaps another Oscar. For the relatives, they should brace for an exhumation of their grief and Guyana for another 40 years of unjust association.