Mormon cinema
Though Latter-day Saints have been involved in the film industry in various ways since the early 20th century, independent Mormon cinema is a relatively new phenomenon.
Films within the Mormon cinema subgenre typically rely heavily on LDS themes and are marketed mostly toward Latter-day Saints, though there has been an effort to "cross over" into more general topics and appeal to a wider audience.
For example, Don Bluth's animated films, such as The Land Before Time (1988) and Anastasia (1997), carry some themes and undertones that coincide with the director's religion but lack overtly LDS characteristics.
[3] However, the abundance of sensationalist pictures with anti-Mormon themes during the silent film era resulted in the desire on the part of Mormons to combat these portrayals with their own.
[6] By 1913, an article in The Young Woman's Journal, a Latter-day Saint publication, declared that the new medium of film would "help the world at large to an understanding of our [Mormon] history.
These were not, however, made by Latter-day Saints; many were lurid tales of hypnotic missionaries and Western pioneer stories with storylines revolving around massacres or kidnappings.
[9] One Hundred Years was considered a large-scale production for its time; it was 90 minutes long and involved "a cast of over a thousand, an elaborate reconstruction of sections of [the city of] Nauvoo, and four concurrently running cameras".
It was shown in theaters worldwide; cinemas in Buenos Aires, Sydney, Peking, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, and London requested reels.
[16] Observing the financial success of God's Army, Kurt Hale and Dave Hunter founded Halestorm Entertainment in 2001 and focused the new company's efforts on making and distributing Mormon movies.
[17] Alongside Halestorm, Excel Entertainment (founded by former Disney executive Jeff Simpson)[18] and Zion Films have spearheaded the production and distribution of Mormon cinema.
[1] Films that rely heavily on the viewers' understanding of LDS vocabulary, social norms and self-deprecating cultural humor rarely find success among general audiences.
[5] Singles Ward, branded "the first major LDS comedy,"[20] focuses on a subgroup of Mormon culture: young adults in Utah Valley searching for future spouses.
In a discussion of these comedies, screenwriter and director Randy Astle writes that "many of the jokes and references [are] incomprehensible for Church members as close as Idaho, let alone India.
"[21] Director Richard Dutcher and reviewers Sean P. Means and Thomas Baggaley responded to the early 2000s' wave of Mormon films by expressing concern over the way the subgenre was headed.
They worried about directors and production companies relying too heavily on Mormon-centric humor and the newness of Mormon cinema instead of producing quality films with worthwhile plotlines.
[24] So, Halestorm pivoted by rebranding a part of itself as "Stone Five Studios" and releasing its next comedy, Church Ball (2006), with less references to religion and Mormon culture.
"[26] Professor Travis T. Anderson argues that LDS films revolving around universal human themes—such as "challenges, struggles, desire, and day-to-day experiences"—with just a splash of religious undertones achieve success in the movie market despite the Mormon cultural aspects they carry, which can seem strange to general audiences.
He cites The Other Side of Heaven (2001), Saints and Soldiers (2003), Napoleon Dynamite (2004), and New York Doll (2005) as examples of such "critical and financial success stories in Mormon cinema.
"[27] Saints and Soldiers gained recognition at multiple small film festivals; and the 2001 murder mystery Brigham City, while not praised by audiences, received critical acclaim.
[1] Larry Miller, owner of the Utah jazz, invested millions of dollars into producing The Work and the Glory (2004) in an effort to tell the story of the history of the LDS Church.
[30] Most of the family-oriented films marketed to Mormon audiences never made it to theaters, but went right to DVD distribution through large and small e-commerce websites, such as Amazon and LDSVideoStore.com.
[30] The site provided a place for "a Mormon film community" to form, helping visitors stay apprised of upcoming LDS movies.
[32][17] Eric Samuelsen, associate professor of theatre and media arts, has noted that "many [LDS] films from 2005 onward have performed so poorly at the box office that the movement seems to have lost at least some of its momentum.
"[26]: 166 Publications such as BYU Studies Quarterly, Irreantum, Sunstone, and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought have featured criticism of LDS cinema.
[34] On the subject of film, author Heather Bigley writes: "As American members [of the LDS Church] begin to think of themselves as part of a world-wide organization, efforts at self-definition abound.
[1] In March 2021, LDS filmmaker Barrett Burgin argued that films made by and about Latter-day Saints still have the potential to be marketable to a larger audience, but stressed the need to prioritize storytelling over a missionary message.
Because the humor of these films often relies on specifically Utah-centric Latter Day Saint culture, they tend to have a smaller audience than the other LDS subgenres, even among Mormon viewers.
