Scriptures

Last time I tried watching Scriptures on fitforthekingdom.byu.edu the internet failed on me.

A wonderful class assignment gave me the opportunity to finally watch it this week, so I did, and I loved it. This simple tradition, Mormon families strive to achieve as a daily practice, truly captures the innocence of children in religion. I believe that the filmmaker, Dean, effectively captured the meaning of this film by showing long shots of the children, and asking them simple questions.

Most of this documentary consisted of basic editing for longer shots, so the audience could just observe what was going on instead of feeling manipulated or scammed. The children in these shots seem used to a camera being around them, too, so most of the time they ignore it. We see them reading their part in the scriptures, fighting with the other children, and/or playing around and not paying attention to what's going on at all. The simplicity of these juxtaposed shots give the audience an understanding of how these children don't really care whether or not they have family scripture study. This reminded me of when I was a kid. I had no idea what that book was talking about, and my parent's didn't try too hard to help me understand what was going on cause I didn't care. In my mind, the director was using this to say, that to children, the important details of the Book of Mormon aren't very effective, and this is what caught my attention to this video.

At the same time, though, we have Dean asking the kids simple questions that bring out the innocence of their understanding. The basic questions were easy enough for the kids to understand and feel comfortable answering; this gave them the opportunity to show how they really felt about their family scripture time. We hear the kids fight and argue with each other, but when it comes to their religion itself, they are very respectful.

The scene that particularly stuck out in my mind was the one with the mother talking about her ideal scripture study. This is when I realized that the church expects a lot from it's younger generation. Starting at a young age will help them learn more about the gospel as they grow in their traditions. Yes, they attend the study begrudgingly now, but soon it will become a part of their daily habits.

Non of this message I received felt manipulated by Dean at all because I felt like I had to grasp for my own understand of the situation he placed in front of me. Obviously he had an idea of what he was going for, but he wasn't pushing it in my face. manipulation is playing with the mind to go a certain way, but I felt like this documentary was very open to interpretation.