Dave's Mormon Inquiry

Transcripts of "The Mormons"

Yes, Christmas has come early: transcripts of the entire series are now available at the PBS site for both Night One and Night Two. What a marvelous resource. It will really help the writers at the Church News as they compose the planned "Church History 99R" articles responding to issues raised in the series for the general membership of the Church. I really like how PBS is using its website to support, extend, and promote "The Mormons" (and they do similar sites for their other programs).

Whitney Defends "The Mormons"

Here's a fine Deseret News story on Helen Whitney defending her film series "The Mormons" at the MHA meetings in SLC this week. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the show here at the blog, so I'm assuming most readers want to follow up on the public discussion. It seems like every movie (or book) has three stories: the backstory; the production itself; and the ensuing public reaction and discussion. I find the public discussion of "The Mormons" (conducted mainly by Mormons) to be at least as interesting as the series itself. I think you could do a documentary just talking to Mormons about "The Mormons."

The Jeffrey R. Holland Interview

Here's the third review drawn from the excellent interview transcripts posted at the PBS site for "The Mormons." Although Elder Holland (of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve) was not shown much on the series, his posted interview is quite lengthy and full of interesting remarks. As before, I'll first post excerpts from the interview, then make a few comments.

The Gregory Prince Interview

If you liked the series, you'll love the interviews. Even if you didn't like the series, you'll like the interviews. Next up: the Gregory Prince interview. Prince is the co-author of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. As with my post on the Marlin K. Jensen interview, I'll provide some excerpts from the rather long interview, then add a few of my own comments. I am including extended excerpts on the priesthood ban and on the certainty issue because these issues were discussed in the comments to the post on the interview with Elder Jensen.

Helen Whitney Responds to Viewers

A Washington Post article presents the responses of Helen Whitney, the producer of the PBS series "The Mormons" which first showed earlier this week, to questions and comments submitted by viewers. I'll summarize her comments below. I'm a little surprised at how negative the response seems to be from rank-and-file Mormons — go take a look at comments posted at the Deseret News for a good idea of what I'm talking about. There's also a one-hour program at KUED that talks to Helen Whitney, Marlin K. Jensen, Ken Verdoia, and Terryl Givens, among others, about the series.

The Marlin K. Jensen Interview

I spent a couple of days putting together a Who's Who for the people offering commentary as part of the PBS series The Mormons. Now I get to actually talk about the series, and I'd like to talk about transcripts of the interviews posted at the PBS site. Only snippets of these interviews made the final production; the transcripts provide much of the interview verbatim, along with the questions posed by the interviewer. I'm going to select a few quotes from the Marlin K. Jensen interview conducted (according to the site) on March 7, 2006, then add a pargraph or two of commentary. Elder Jensen is the LDS Church Historian and a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Elder Jensen, who was given a lot of airtime in the final cut, addressed a variety of issues with candor and dexterity.

Who's Who on "The Mormons"

Who were all those talking heads on the PBS series "The Mormons"? To quote a famous Mormon, "Who are those guys?" Here's an alphabetical list of every person who appeared on the series (which was produced by Helen Whitney). The name links to an online bio or a faculty page where I could find one — the Wikipedia entries even give a pop-up mini-bio. I will update this post to add additional information over the next few days. If you have information on any of the less familiar persons, feel free to email me or add a comment.

Update: After adding the names from Part 2, I ended up with 68 names on the list. I decided to include three deceased historians whose photos were shown while their scholarly work was discussed (Fawn Brodie, Juanita Brooks, and Leonard Arrington) and to include the names of the rank-and-file Latter-day Saints who were shown in Part 2 as well as the scholars and authors.