The Work and the Glory III: A House Divided (2006)

(Ohio, Georgia, Missouri; 1836-1837 or 38)
IMDb

The last of the Work and the Glory films for which Utah businessman Larry H. Miller has guaranteed financing. While the series of books goes on for a good number more volumes, ending the (at least initial) run of the film series at this point works well, as a sort of trilogy is completed in the form of the arc of Steed family disunion and reconciliation. While the film series starts out focusing on the dueling brothers Nathan and Joshua, it gradually shifts its emphasis to the feud between Joshua and his father Benjamin, the latter by the way final joins the Church in this picture. I mentioned in my last review how Ben had been the surrogate for non-Mormon viewers, now he takes on a new role, that of the long time investigator turned convert, and from my experience, those are some of the most committed Mormons you’ll find, because the change did not come easy for the them, they don’t embrace things lightly.

Joshua’s storyline receives the most time in this picture, because he most undergo an even bigger change then his father. Prominently involved in the persecutions that drove the Mormons out of Jackson county, Joshua had a sort of a breakdown at the end of the last film, after letting his friends severely whip his brother Nathan. In his despair Joshua set his own house on fire and then proceeded into the yard to have a good cry. Well two years later Joshua has again rebuilt his financial holdings from scratch (this is the second or third time), and again found himself a love interest, this time a southern bell, who is again fated to be attracted to the Mormons. This would be totally ridicules if it didn’t result in some sort or resolution of Joshua’s troubles with his family, and with the Mormons more generally, which it fortunately does. Joshua is simply not willing to lose a third time in love, and his character has certainly grown from the abusive gambler and indiscriminate Mormon hater he once was.

The kind of character change that Joshua goes through was necessary for his redemption, and vital if he was to remain at all sympathetic. You see one way in which I would fault the film (which I did like, and which works as mythology) is in its depiction of Mormon/genital conflicts as so thoroughly one sided. It seems the Mormons can do no wrong, unless of course they are turning on themselves, which the Ohio settlers do as a result of the folding of the ill advised Kirtland Safety Society Bank, and the aftermath of recrimination which that generates. In Missouri its all Mormon against genital, with the Latter-day Saints segregated to two counties chartered just for them, a constitutionally questionable arrangement that is bound to end badly when rising politician Lillburn W. Boggs sets his sites on the movement, and others its land (as governor Boggs would later issue his famous 'extermination order' against the Mormons, the only such order ever issued against a predominantly white group of American citizens, and one not officially rescinded until the 1970’s).

Tempered by his experiences during the states first ‘Mormon War’, Joshua is initially reluctant to get involved with the rising tide against the LDS settlers. He wants nothing to do with them, and since they are congregating solely in counties to the north of him, it seems a tenable arrangement. Yet economic and political interests in the state opposed to the Mormons, feel that Joshua would be a helpful figure to add to there cause, given the creditably he has on the issue with other west Missouri locals. Unable to get him to turn attention away from his business and new wife and daughter through persuasion, they stage an attempted assassination of the man, and list his name in a forged document they circulate, alleged to be a ’Mormon hit list’, people whose families the Mormons have “sworn on the name of Joe Smith” to get revenge on for what happened in Independence. That this is a blatant forgery, completely unrepresentative of the intentions of the Latter-day Saints, and dark and conspiratorial on the order of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, is but one way in which the filmmakers draw parallels to anti-Semitism. The most obvious scene in which they do this comes at the beginning of the film in Ohio, Joseph and others are gathered at his famed Hebrew class, for which he was able to draw away a respected Jewish scholar on the subject from nearby Oberlin college. Sitting in Joseph’s residence late at night, discussing the Torah, something flaming is thrown through the window to disrupt the meeting. The startled middle aged Jew asks “Do they do this because I am here?” After a pause Joseph replies, “No they do it because I am here”. The Jew responds with a look of confusion, as to how this polite young man could possibly engender a hate greater or equal to that which he has no doubt experienced his entire life.

While certain parallels to anti-Semitism certainly do apply in light of the persecutions inflicted upon 19th Century Mormons, the divide between them and there neighbors was certainly more complicated and less one sided. There were differing economic interests, the Mormons tended to buy together, and politically they voted together. They were also largely Yankees and had abolitionist tendencies. The non- Mormons had some cause to feel threatened, the Saints tending to swarm an area, buy up almost everything and attempt exert unified political control. Yet the Mormons tended to acerbate the problems by being self righteous about it, and not always economically fair to there neighbors, a problem even Joseph recognized. While the smoky clouds of history and partisanship make it nigh impossible to know who really started what in Ohio, and especially in Missouri, it should be remembered that both sides contributed to the fall out, something I didn’t feel received adequate stressing in the course of this film. While some ’old time’ Missouri settlers did unforgivably massacre Mormon settlements, lets not forget that the Mormon vigilante group the Danites did exist, and did seek some violent revenge of its own, though curiously they are absent from this picture.