‘We can all be fanatics’: how was a group of role models hijacked by a cult? | | Notes

DChris Smith directed the American Movie of the year 1999, about the difficulties of an indie director to complete a horror film, which he hopes will raise money to help make his dreams come true. More recently, he has written popular stories for Netflix projects involving Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman, the bands Devo and Wham!, and the horror festival Fyre, among others. His new work for HBO Bring Me Beauty is also related to popular culture, but through a story that has few things that are immediately available: the rise and fall of the Eternal Character, a cult that began in the 80s with the eccentric Frederick von Mierers, made up of many examples.

“What was surprising about this,” Smith said, “is that it’s very limited on the Internet.” She met Hoyt Richards, who is sometimes called the first male supermodel and a former member of Eternal Values, on a project, “and when we started talking, hours passed”, said Smith. It was one of those events where I became curious to know more about his life. Richards became the backbone of the series, after hours of interviews, but he wasn’t sure if Smith and his collaborators could convince anyone else to participate. As we have seen in this series, not everyone’s experience with Von Mierers is the same; not everyone believes that they were involved in a religious group in the first place.

“Hoyt said that for us, one of the challenges is that you won’t find anyone who will talk to you about this story. But we always like challenges and we are very calm. So it took years to find the cooperation and relationships to get people to talk to us on camera.” What he found, Smith continued, “is that they were all thoughtful, perceptive, articulate (who could articulate) their experiences in a way that I found interesting and inspiring”.

Some of the details of Eternal Character skew woo-woo new age in a way that feels very 1980s, when the band started; some parts are very scary, especially the stories that Richards tells about the organization (and his attempts to control his life) after the death of Von Mierers in the 90s. Towards the end of the series, the filmmakers share similarities with several religious groups, whether religious or political. (Yes, there’s a slight mention of Scientology.) But today’s culture followers might also consider the latest, unstructured, and health-related trends or “looksmaxxing”, a DIY digital-age version of supermodel fixation. “When we were doing the initial research, it was surprising to us how far ahead Frederick was in terms of what he was promoting in this group – keeping himself in the best position,” Smith said. “She was so beautiful, so fit, she always had this glow about her. It would be fun to see her in the age of social media. I think she would have done so well online.”

At the same time, Bring Me Beauty is very seductive because most of the archive has a different sheen – a retro, low-key look from another era. This includes material from the show Von Mierers did himself. “I don’t know of many religions that had a public display,” Smith said with a laugh. “I felt like the person in the story was in New York in the 80s and 90s. We chose all of our old photos from that time to evoke feelings that were a sign of the time they lived in.” Embracing old, poorly preserved videos was essential. Smith mentioned his work on Wham! Documentary, where he discovered that the band’s music videos had been transferred to make a film. “So all of a sudden these videos that we grew up with that had a soft, beautiful quality to them were now brutal, like The French Connection. So we actually took the advanced masters and brought them down to look like the videos that were there before. These were very similar. I wanted it to feel like you were being transported back to that time.”

Bring Me the Beauties achieves this, especially by telling a story that hasn’t been rehashed as deeply as other classics from the 80s and 90s – showing that there’s still something to be done in analyzing current culture (and its weirdness). “In the pre-internet era,” said Smith, “the information we sought was through any medium. I remember trying to find amazing old VHS tapes, of Andy Kaufman or Devo. The sheer volume of material, contemporary interviews and old recordings, meant that Smith and his crew had a lot to do in the editing room – especially at a time when scripts could be cut together for multiple edits, like an episode or a film. “It’s one of the most over-the-top stories of anything I’ve ever worked on,” said Smith. “There was a lot to explain. At some point we realized that there was enough story to make four episodes, but we were able to connect well with three. The first section is the hope and promise of the group, the second section is the fall and the third is the result. When we opened that up, it made perfect sense.”

However, the list of ‘Eternal Values’ is ultimately not completely destructive; the show isn’t treated as an opportunity to expose wrongdoing or hypocrisy so much as a sneak peek at how one person’s self-help education can be another person’s cult. “For me, it was a real desire to understand all emotions. Life is often black and white,” Smith said. He continued: “Hoyt has a very unique perspective on his experience with the group, and I was very interested in trying to understand how other people view his experience (with Eternal Character). Everyone we talked to seemed to have a slightly different opinion. You can look at a story like this with one opinion, but you look at someone else’s perspective and they felt that what they learned and art was very interesting.

It’s a big part of Smith’s larger work, where his work is guided by what he finds interesting, and how the lessons can affect others. “For me personally,” he said, “movies made the person I became.” So I always look for movies like those that can hold a mirror to people’s lives. Being able to see the different ways that different people have taken within the organization, you can relate to different aspects of the story. different things.”