Reflections on Film Culture
marjoe

Marjoe (1972)

The Academy-Award®-winning MARJOE is the ferocious and extraordinary chronicle of a firebrand evangelical preacher who wholeheartedly and humorously exposes himself as a fraud.

An evangelist prodigy at the age of four, the film captures an adult Marjoe as he recounts how he discovered the seductions of the 60s counterculture and dropped out of preaching, only to return later, using his swaggering bravado, to woo Pentecostal audiences out of their offerings.

Directors Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan follow Marjoe as he embarks on his “farewell to the faith tour,” revealing the secrets of religious hucksterism. MARJOE is both a fiery baptism in the cynical waters of faith healing and evangelical fervor and a fascinating profile of a man who went from hellfire to hellraising. In the Oscar®-winning THOTH, director Sarah Kernochan turns to another wonderfully unique personality, a fantastic character who performs one-man operas in a strange language on the streets of New York to amused, befuddled, and awed audiences.

CAST AND CREW
DIRECTOR : Sarah Kernochan, Howard Smith
CAST : Marjoe Gortner

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AWARDS / NOTABLES
  • Winner - Academy Awards 1973 - Best Documentary, Features - Howard Smith, Sarah Kernochan
  • Nominee - Golden Globes 1973 - Best Documentary Film

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