Mormon Rebel (part 2)Filmmaker Richard Dutcher on the state of Mormon cinema, his desire to be true to his vision, and that "Christian movie" incident at a San Diego theater. Continued from previous page ...by Mark Moring | posted 11/14/2006 12:00AM
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A BYU film prof described States of Grace as "a spiritual journey couched in Mormon doctrine, but it's more universal than that. He has done something really brave." Do you think you're brave?
Dutcher: I don't know if I'm brave or stupid. I never really wanted to make films that serve anybody else's agenda. I really see film, especially spirituality in film, as an opportunity to explore things and make some kind of spiritual progress, through the filmmaking itself. What interests me is to take something that I'm grappling with, or some dilemma that I have, and explore it throughout the filmmaking process, and then throw it out there into the community and start a conversation.
Dutcher directs Lamont Stephens and Ignacio Serricchio in 'States of Grace'
I'm not going to turn away from a story that I feel like I need to tell simply because somebody is going to get angry about it. Now I don't have any ambitions in any church—LDS or otherwise—as far as achieving any kind of position or notoriety or anything like that. I'm just a guy with a fairly varied religious background and who has an intense interest in religious and spiritual issues.
I recognize that I'm going to be constantly angering people. If I do something that depicts Mormons or Mormonism other than 100 percent positive, it's going to offend a lot people. But if I portray Mormonism too positively, that's going to offend a lot of people. I made peace long ago with the fact that whatever I do, I have to hold true to my own standard, trying to be honest to my own life experiences and philosophies, and to recognize that by doing that, I'm going to anger a lot of people. That's just the way it is.
What did you make of that incident where the box office worker told customers that States of Grace is not a "Christian movie," but a "Mormon movie"?
Dutcher: The poster had some quotes about it being "a great example of Christian filmmaking." [The controversy] came from people who have knee-jerk reactions about any depiction of Mormonism. But it's not like we were hiding anything. The poster also said, "From the director of God's Army and Brigham City." And if anybody had taken even the most surface look into what the story was about, they would have seen that two of the main characters are Mormon missionaries.
I can't imagine anybody actually sitting through the film to the end and having any problem with it. But there's a division between Mormons and evangelical Christians, which to me is really weird because, again, I come out of both communities. I just feel like getting everybody and sitting down and talking about it. I expect it will probably take generations for all those conversations to happen.
Do you bristle at being called a "Mormon filmmaker" or having your films called "Mormon movies"?
Dutcher: Yes. Five or six years ago, when there was no such thing as "Mormon film," I was proud of it. It was a title that didn't have the negative associations that it does now. But I felt like that was a temporarily accurate description to try to communicate to people what I was trying to do—at the time. I don't think that's accurate any more—half because of what springs to people's minds when they think of Mormon movies, and half because of my own spiritual journey that's making me look into the wider world.
I have a hard time now even when people ask me, "Are you Mormon?" I don't know how to answer that anymore, because although the answer is technically "yes," I know what those people have in their minds and the kind of box they put me in. It's almost like you have to sit down and say, "Okay, well, let's talk about what that means to you." It's like a giant philosophical discussion.
Many evangelicals think Mormonism is a far-out sect or even a cult. Why do you think many evangelicals feel that way?
Dutcher: I think the problem is that a lot of Mormons don't understand their own religion. I think this film has been judged very harshly by Mormons whose religious outlook seems to be focused more on God's justice than on God's mercy. And I think that's where I think the real breakdown occurs between evangelicals and Mormons, because as much as the Mormons want to say they believe in the grace of Jesus Christ, there's still at the fundamental core of Mormonism this psychology of needing to earn salvation.
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