God's Angry Man
Dir: Werner Herzog
1981
****
Herzog seems particularly uninvolved in this fly of the wall documentary, more so than many of his other earlier documentaries anyway. It was always best to let the troubled Gene Scott get on and do his own thing I suppose, it's not like he would have got a word in anyways. Some would say that Herzog makes his point through his editing but in this case I think no amount of editing can trick you into seeing exactly what is or isn't going on. It's quite shocking and also quite puzzling. The amount of money being donated to this questionable man was unbelievable. Gene Scott, a U.S. pastor and Stanford PhD was an ordained minister and religious broadcaster for almost fifty years. His program 'Festival of Faith' led the way for all sorts of similar programs and even network channels, all devoted to fleecing people out of their money. Not once does Scott say where the donated money will go or what it will be used for, and sits in angry silence until $700 is pledged. It is intense and fascinating, a spectacular and frightening show, clearly impossible for Herzog to resist. Scott's elaborate rant against the FCC - Federal Communications Commission, whose soul mission is to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges." The Act furthermore provides that the FCC was created "for the purpose of the national defense" and "for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications." is the stuff of liberal nightmares. Is contempt for them is visualized in each episode by Scott representing the FCC with a wind-up toy monkey that plays the cymbals on a loop. Terrifying stuff and unfortunately, the beginning of one of the biggest cons America still hasn't woken up from.