Dallas Robbins

Marrow: The Mormon Films of Richard Dutcher

(Note: This review was originally published in Dialogue, Summer 2009.  Warning: spoilers.)

He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.
-W.B. Yeats, “A Prayer for Old Age”

In Richard Dutcher’s latest film Falling, a rich scene revealing the subtle conflict between the demands of commerce and artistic endeavor is focused around the word “marrow.” The protagonist, lapsed Mormon Eric Boyle, a suffering videographer and aspiring screenwriter, is failing to sell his latest story to a well-tanned and successful Hollywood producer. After rejecting Eric’s work, the producer complains to him that if he wants to make it in the film business, he needs to do something different, something new. It goes like this:

Producer: Last year somebody shows blood. This year you gotta show bone. Next year you gotta show inside the bones--whatever that shit’s called.

Eric [slight contempt in his eyes and a little exasperation in his voice]: Marrow.

Producer: Right, I don’t know what that shit is--I don’t know what it looks like--you gotta show it to me. . . Something new, that’s all anyone wants to see. . . . You gotta push it further than anyone has pushed it before. . . . Show me some marrow.”¹

Unsettled by the encounter, Eric leaves, conflicted about sacrificing his artistic integrity to the poolside Hollywood gods. Not ironically, the film that Eric happens to be a character in is an exact answer to the producer’s request. While we watch Eric fall from any grace that he once possessed, he descends into a mélange of violence, both domestic and public, leaving little redemption at the end. Is it something new? That would be debatable. Is it something new in Mormon film? Absolutely.

The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine by Gary Topping: City Weekly

The history of a cathedral is not just about another nice building, but also about the struggles, triumphs, and personal histories of a people. Gary Topping, professor of history at SLCC and archivist for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Utah, chronicles in his new book The Story of the Cathedral of the Madeleine, the first 100 years of that magnificent building and the stories and voices of Utah Catholics.

Sunstone Symposium: City Weekly

The Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium is an annual gathering of scholars, historians, novelists, feminists, activists, and anyone intellectually curious about Mormon culture and history. Now in its 30th year, the symposium is a forum for liberals and conservatives, heretics and orthodox, atheists and believers, a place where free and open discussion is explored and encouraged.

Marrow: The Mormon Films of Richard Dutcher in Dialogue

In the latest issue of Dialogue (Summer 2009) I have written a review essay about the Mormon films of Richard Dutcher.  I used the idea of marrow from his film Falling as an metaphorical lens in interpreting his other film work. Here is a brief excerpt:

"Marrow as the concealed territory of the blood’s creation, serves as a metaphor of genesis - the source for the Mormon promise of health and Hollywood’s machine of shock and destruction, evoking ideas of divine blessing and redemption alongside the bloody precariousness of human mortality. Marrow, as a metaphor for the conjunction between sacred yearning and profane frailty, can serve as a useful conceit that provides an approach to the films of Richard Dutcher, where he explores Mormonism and the crux of life’s messiness and grace’s beauty..."

Dialogue is an intellectually vigorous and excellent journal, with a good balance between academic, literary, and personal expression, from a not-so-typical Mormon perspective.  To read the entire essay, pick up the issue or subscribe.  I would be very interested in any responses to my thesis about Dutcher's oeuvre.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams: City Weekly

Living in Utah, you’ve heard it before: old creepy guy marries prepubescent virgin on polygamous compound. When explored in fiction, such stories can be as over-baked as last Sunday’s casserole. But Carol Lynch Williams does the improbable in her latest novel The Chosen One. She takes a far-too-common headline and creates a brave, uncommon voice in the character of 13-year-old Kyra.

In the World: Politics as Usual? in Sunstone

Inspired by Wilson Quarterly's "In Essence," I write a regular piece for Sunstone summarizing overlooked scholarship and writing that intersect with Mormon culture.  In the May 2009 issue I talk about two recent pieces on Mormons and politics:

In the World: The Uncertainties of Faith in Sunstone

Inspired by Wilson Quarterly's "In Essence" section, I have a started a regular gig for Sunstone Magazine summarizing writing I've culled from overlooked sources, which I call "In the World."  Here is the introduction:

"Not many years ago, writings by and about Mormons were an irregular occasion in the popular and academic press.  But these days, Mormons are everywhere, from the national media to literary journals to handmade 'zines.  This column gathers some interesting and overlooked items, Mormon and otherwise."

In the the current issue, February 2009, the theme is "The Uncertainties of Faith," covering three articles by Matthew Bowman, Brian Evenson, and Christian Wiman.  Pick up an issue or subscribe.

George D. Smith's Nauvoo Polygamy

With an endless stream of books on polygamy and its discontents, do we really need another one? If the answer includes mention of Nauvoo Polygamy: "… but we called it celestial marriage" by George Smith, it would be a definitive yes. Ten years in the making, Nauvoo Polygamy traces the origins and establishment of Joseph Smith's vision of "spiritual wives" before it ever stepped foot in the State of Deseret. The book should dispel forever the common misperception that Joseph pined after only one wife and that polygamy was Brigham's idea while crossing the plains.

David Ebershoff's The 19th Wife

David Ebershoff’s moving and humorous story The 19th Wife explores the unlikely lives of two remarkable characters: Jordan Scott, a 21st-century “lost boy” and hardscrabble gay man, who travels from Los Angeles back to the site of his polygamous upbringing to help absolve his mother of the murder of his father; and Ann Eliza Winters, the novel’s namesake, who divorced Brigham Young and lectured against polygamy across 19th-century America.

Massacre at Mountain Meadows

The first sentence of the book Massacre at Mountain Meadows sums it up perfectly.

"On September 11, 1857, Mormon settlers in southern Utah used a false flag of truce to lull a group of California-bound emigrants from their circled wagons and then slaughtered them.  When the killing was over, more than one hundred butchered bodies lay strewn across a half-mile stretch of an upland meadow.  Most of the victims were women and children."