'Legacy' to make its TV debut
Filmmaker says the work about LDS history is summit of career.
By Steve Fidel
Deseret News staff writer
A jewel in the crown of the LDS Church's missionary program will be part of weekend general conference broadcasts with the television debut of the film "Legacy."
The film will be shown at noon Sunday on KSL-TV and at 7 p.m. Sunday on KBYU-TV.
"Legacy" portrays the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1830 to 1892 by following the fictitious Williams family. The hardships they endure as participants in the church's early growth and westward migration are taken from actual Latter-day Saint pioneer experiences.
"Legacy" has been shown exclusively in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, formerly Hotel Utah, since its release in July 1993. Some 2,975,000 people had seen the film as of last weekend.
Except for copies made on VCRs by viewers Saturday and Sunday, "Legacy" will likely return to its exclusive showings in the Legacy theater next to Temple Square, according to the church's Missionary Department, which describes the film as having an indeterminate life span with no replacement in production.
Kieth Merrill, a church member and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, wrote, directed and co-produced the film. He calls "Legacy" a film that had prophetic origins that became the summit in his career.
The church decided to close the Hotel Utah and convert the historic building east of Temple Square into a center for church functions. It was renamed the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on its reopening in 1993.
Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, while a member of the church's First Presidency, stood with Merrill inside the hotel at the onset of the building's conversion.
"We stood with hard hats on in what was formerly the ballroom. In the dim light and dust and the broken chunks of concrete, he indicated the north wall and said, 'Some day I envision the story of our people being portrayed in a magnificent movie theater in a way that will allow people to feel our history.' "
The 500-seat theater designed especially for "Legacy" now occupies the ballroom space with its large screen along the north wall. The picture was shot on 70mm film with 16-channel digital sound to ensure state-of-the-art quality cinema.
For Merrill, making the film was an opportunity to meet the challenge an earlier church president, Spencer W. Kimball, had made to an audience of Brigham Young University faculty during the 1967-68 school year. Merrill still carries a copy of President Kimball's remarks in his day planner. A section reads:
"The full story of Mormonism has never yet been written, nor painted, nor sculpted, nor spoken (Merrill adds "nor filmed"). It remains for inspired hearts and talented fingers yet to reveal themselves. They must be faithful, inspired, active church members to give life and feeling and true perspective to a subject so worthy. Such masterpieces should run for months in every movie center, cover every part of the globe in the tongues of the people, written by great artists, purified by the best critics. Our writers, our motion picture specialists, with the inspiration of heaven, should tomorrow be able to produce a masterpiece which would live forever."
But could there be a Mormon epoch that would truly captivate a non-Mormon audience? Jewish novelist Chaim Potok was visiting BYU in the early 1980s when the audience there noted the broad appeal fiction about the persecution and struggles of the Jews can have and whether accounts of the Mormons' experience could attain that broad appeal. His reply was that the Latter-day Saints didn't yet have the passion necessary to produce such work.
"I learned from 'Legacy' that you can present truth without compromise, without apology, if you put it in an acceptable dramatic context" that gives viewers characters they can relate to in a presentation that keeps them from feeling like they're being proselyted, Merrill said.
"The thing that made 'Legacy' work is Presidency Hinckley had the vision and I had the freedom to break new ground and put our story in a dramatic context."
Merrill said he truly developed a passion for the "Legacy" project while still working on the script. He visited his mother and asked whether any of their ancestors were caught up in the pivotal events in church history. He learned his third great-grandfather had been wounded by a marauding mob in what came to be known as the Haun's Mill Massacre — an event already written into the script of the movie.
Covering more than 60 years of church history in just 53 minutes was a challenge, but the result "certainly exceeded my expectations. And I think it exceeded the church's expectations."
Merrill said he looks forward to the television debut of the film, but with "creative concerns."
"I'm delighted that hundreds of thousands, I suppose, or perhaps millions of members of the church and friends of the church will get to see 'Legacy' who might not get a chance to come to Salt Lake City," he said. But he is concerned some of the spirit that accompanies the presentation of the film in the theater built especially for it will not carry on television.
"Part of my reservation about having the film go out on television is the experience of 'Legacy' is much bigger than the film itself," he said. "When you watch 'Legacy' in the theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, it's much more than just a film."
The surroundings separate viewers from distractions a television audience will have. "I certainly hope the spirit of the film that one experiences in the Legacy theater will in some measure be present in all of its environments, wherever it is shown," he said.
"The value in sharing the presentation, which seems to have had such a positive impact on so many members and non-members alike who might otherwise never get to see it, overpowers any creative reservations — certainly overpowers Kieth Merrill's reservations."
There are some liabilities to attaining a personal summit in a 25-year film making career and seeing that summit behind you, Merrill acknowledges. "It's been difficult since 'Legacy' to find the same level of commitment, the same level of passion, for the films I've made. I've made many since 'Legacy,' but there was something very distinctive and very unique, because it was a film that really mattered," he said.
"It's dangerous to some extent when you have such a positive experience. But I see it as a stepping stone to take what I've learned there and move to the next level, which I think is to begin to tell our story."
He doesn't see the challenge of creating the full-length Mormon epoch as an in-house film project for the church. "My plan is to follow the traditional pattern of motion picture production and use the resources of the motion picture industry
