Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan's MARJOE (1972) presented by Liz Brown
A rare screening of the infamous verité portrait of one-time child evangelist and celebrity faith healer Marjoe Gortner that predicted the evangelical mass movement by decades.
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Jan 14, 2025, 8:00 PM
2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057, USA
Marjoe
directed by Howard Smith & Sarah Kernochan
1972, U.S., 88m, DCP
Selected and introduced by writer Liz Brown
doors/bar: 7:30
film: 8:00
Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan’s verité portrait of the one-time child evangelist and celebrity faith healer Marjoe Gortner caused a national sensation upon its release in 1972, leading it to win an Oscar for best documentary. The son of professional evangelists, Gortner was performing marriage ceremonies at the age of 4, continuing on a lucrative tour of the Southern tent-revival circuit well into his twenties before giving up the business in 1971. Smith and Kernochan follow Gortner on his farewell tour as he sends women into convulsions and performs “miracles,” interspersing footage of his mass therapy sessions with strikingly candid interviews that reveal him to be a master manipulator. Predicting the evangelical mass movement by decades, Marjoe is a portrait of American showmanship and hucksterism at its finest.
Official Selection: Cannes Film Festival, 1972 (out of competition)
“This deceptively humorous cinema verite study of a travelling evangelist emerges as a ruthless expose of an aspect of America's national psyche, with implications far beyond its immediate subject matter… While the sequences of a prancing Mick Jagger imitation (complete with rock rhythms and brimstone) and of his huge and suffering audience in themselves constitute an impressive achievement of non-fiction cinema, simultaneous private interviews reveal the fiery evangelist to be a cynical atheist and hedonist, with contempt for his "work" and at best an ambiguous solicitude for his flock. The revelation of mass manipulation by a charismatic, smiling con-man, the fervor and conservatism of the duped, the intrusion of questions of money and power over others -- these American preoccupations are brilliantly reflected in this outrageous, disturbing black comedy.” -Amos Vogel, Film as a Subversive Art
“With his loose-limbed gyrations, Marjoe was a rock star for the devout and he knew it, explaining how he borrowed moves from Mick Jagger. But, as scenes of extravagant gospel performances and diverse preaching styles make clear, the borrowing went both ways. Marjoe acknowledges that the film’s release will force him to leave the calling (or quit the act), and he fears for his future in a droll conundrum that he delivers both to the camera and to his new, secular girlfriend: ‘Can God deliver a religion addict?’” -Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Special thanks to Sarah Kernochan.
Liz Brown is the author of Twilight Man: Love and Ruin in the Shadows of Hollywood and the Clark Empire. Her writing has appeared in The Daily Beast, Elle Decor, frieze, London Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, Slate, T Magazine, and elsewhere.