Gideon Burton's Blog

"The Passionate Work of New Young [BYU] Filmmakers"

My post title quotes Dr. Charles Metten, introducing the first episode of a new BYU-TV weekly series that features films and filmmakers from BYU. Theatre and Media Arts professor Sharon Swenson is shown here from a later episode interviewing Scott Christopherson, writer/director of the biographical Only the Pizza Man Knows, prior to the screening of Christopherson's half-hour cinematic essay. Brad Barber and Steven Enfield are producing these wraparound interviews to contextualize the student films and help viewers understand the motives and processes young filmmakers go through.

Mormon Studies Courses - An Overview

At the occasion of the Harvard Divinity School's new course in Mormonism (taught by Melissa Proctor), the Boston Globe announced that "Colleges scramble to offer curriculum on Mormon religion." The assertion left me wondering if the "scrambling" has to do more with the sudden new interest in things Mormon spurred on by Mitt Romney's presidential campaign or with the inchoate nature of Mormon Studies as an academic field. Regardless, it leads to a very fair question: at what point can it be said there is such a thing as an academic field called "Mormon Studies"? One course at Harvard does not an academic field create. Actually, a host of courses in Mormonism would not by themselves constitute such a field. M. Gerald Bradford's 2007 assessment of the future of Mormon Studies ("The Study of Mormonism: A Growing Interest in Academia") wisely outlines other factors critical to a bonafide academic field of Mormon Studies.

Man's Search for Happiness

I thought I would take a stab at uploading a brief video clip to illustrate my comments on one of Mormonism's most famous films, Man's Search for Happiness (1964).

Films about Mormon Women

The recent film festival film, The Errand of Angels, about female Mormon missionaries, has raised some interest in Mormon women as the subjects of film generally (pictured here is a shot from the recent Emma Smith: My Story [2007]). I thought it might be nice to enumerate some of the films that have focused more closely on LDS women, whether those films are theatrical, fictional, or documentary in nature. I've even included some filmed lectures about women. These are not exhaustive lists, but a good starting point. Many more films about or by LDS women can be found in the Mormon Literature & Creative Arts database, and I invite anyone to add suggestions of other films or categories.