Motion Pictures and Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites
A motion picture, also called a film or movie, is a story told in a series of moving images often with sound, dialogue and music. Filmmaking is both an art form and a business and the product is a cultural artifact. Films are generally expensive, complex, use much equipment and technology, and require many people with different skills. The visual, audible, and emotional impact on viewers by motion pictures is very forceful and when motion pictures are viewed in a theatre it is also a group experience. However, a viewer’s appreciation and interpretation of motion pictures varies greatly, for each person brings his or her own set of ideas, information, and preconditions to the one to three hour viewing experience.
Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites have been incorporated into motion pictures in surprising numbers, particularly in North America and beginning near the end of the 20th century. This phenomenon was in part encouraged by the success of the 1985 film Witness. In almost all non-documentary films the depiction of Anabaptists is seriously flawed and contains serious errors in costume, behaviour, theology, culture, and in the use of names. Film makers seem enamoured by rural conservative Amish but most motion pictures either parody Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites or use their culture as an interesting setting to attract an audience to their story. The two films Amish Grace and Happy as the Grass was Green have significant insider Mennonite contributions and come closest to presenting a valid image of Amish and Mennonites. The film Silence at Bethany also provides a realistic portrait of Mennonites, and in Jesus’ Son a gospel singing Mennonite woman gives a recovering addict surprising healing. Though the dialogue about Mennonites is quite short in Matewan, it provides an inspiring affirmation of Mennonite pacifism by an outside film maker.
Historic Anabaptism seems to have been depicted in only one East German and one West German film, and these focus only on the revolutionary Anabaptists. The pacifism and especially the simple rural and non-technological bucolic life style and culture of conservative Amish and Mennonites of America have captivated a number of motion picture producers. This has led them to use their life style and costumes in motion picture numbers out of proportion to their actual numbers. In American culture they are in reality rare for they live very simple ordinary lives with modesty, without violence or greed and with limited conflict. Most Mennonites and all Hutterites and Amish desire to be left alone and to be ignored by all associated with motion pictures. They even discourage people viewing these films for their depiction of their Christian faith is often wrong.
This article deals only with feature films, commercial entertainment motion pictures produced by photographic film and digital recordings. Short films, episodic television depictions, and documentary films of Amish, Anabaptists, Hutterites or Mennonites are not listed here.
Commercial Entertainment Motion Pictures
| Title | Date of Release | Producer | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49th Parallel | 1941 | Michael Powell and John Sutro | Michael Powell | A British Second World War propaganda film in which stranded German submariners encounter different Canadians including Hutterites as they try to escape to the USA. Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtEtMUXjuKw&list=PLB2MAy397QvDSQUpfrTaNEHoHBaVYC7de. |
| All my Puny Sorrows | 2021 | Mulmur Feed Co. Production | Michael McGowan | Based on the Miriam Toews novel, the story of two sisters-one a concert pianist obsessed with ending her own life, the other, a writer, who is wrestling with her sister's decision. The story is rooted in Toews' own family history in Southern Manitoba. |
| Amish Abduction | 2019 | Lifetime Movie Network | Ali Liebert | A TV film in which Annie, an Amish mother, has her life turn upside down after her husband leaves to live among "normal Americans." |
| Amish Grace | 2010 | Lifetime Movie Network | A TV film based on the 2006 Nickel Mines Amish school shootings and the spirit of forgiveness the Amish community demonstrated in its aftermath. | |
| Amish Murder, An | 2013 | Lifetime Television | Stephen Gyllenhaal | TV murder drama; a young banished Amish woman now a police chief returns to her Ohio community to investigate a murder which triggers deep-seated emotions. |
| Amish Sin, An | 2022 | Lifetime Television | Michael Nankin | TV drama about sexual abuse in an Amish community. A teenage woman must decide whether to "forgive" or face shunning. |
| Amish Witches: The True Story of Holmes County | 2016 | Lifetime Television | Jake Wade Wall | TV horror movie; a reality TV crew moves into Holmes County, Ohio to document the lives of Swartzentruber Amish, the death of an Amish witch halts production.. |
| Bikini Bandits | 2002 | Steve Grasse | A ridiculous film of scantily clad women acting outrageously. One of the minor characters they encounter is a mentally challenged Amish boy. | |
| Birch Interval | 1976 | Gamma III | Delbert Mann | An eleven-year-old girl goes through extreme culture shock when she leaves the city and moves in with her Amish cousins. Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiKr_ciVxYY. |
| Breaking the Ice | 1938 | RKO Radio Pictures | Edward F. Cline | A conservative Mennonite boy encounters bullies and corrupt businessmen but he triumphs as a singer while working in an ice rink. Available from Internet Archives at https://archive.org/details/breaking_the_ice |
| Catch-22 | 1970 | Filmways Inc., Paramount Pictures | Mike Nichols | A black comedy based on the Joseph Heller anti-war novel of the same name. In a Second World War USA Bomb Group, the chaplain identifies himself as an Anabaptist. |
| Confession, The | 2013 | Believe Pictures Production | Michael Landon Jr. | Second TV movie based on a book by Beverly Lewis. An Amish girl locates her birth mother and encounters greedy relatives. |
| David im Wunderland | 1998 | Die Zweite Hauskunst Film, Duesseldorf, | Moritz Seibert | A German film in which the viewers follow the exploits of two boys – one from a Christian community called the “Jacobin,” an Amish like community, and the other without any real religion. The Jacobin boy is introduced to the other's very different modern way of life. At first, he finds it fascinating but in time finds it also very problematic. |
| Deadly Reactor | 1989 | AIP Productions | David Heavener | In a post-apocalyptic world the survivors live like Amish and are preyed upon by a violent gang that meets its end by a lone gunfighter. Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ed5nYnLuM. |
| Dorf im roten Sturm, Ein/Red Storm over the Village: See: Friesennot | ||||
| Expecting Amish | 2014 | Check Entertainment | Richard Gabai | A Lifetime TV movie. Hannah Yoder goes from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to Los Angeles, California, for her rumspringa. She needs to decide between Samuel in Pennsylvania and Josh in California. |
| Follow Your Heart / From the Heart | 2020 | From the Heart | Sandra L. Martin | A Hallmark TV movie. Kathy Yoder is a travel writer who has left her Amish ways behind, but when she returns home to settle her father’s affairs, she is tempted to return to her former lifestyle. |
| For Richer or Poorer | 1997 | Universal Pictures | Bryan Spicer | A wealthy miserable couple flee New York and IRS agents to live with Pennsylvania Amish where they masquerade as distant relatives. In the process they rediscover affection in being unselfish and in helping others. |
| Friesennot/Frisions in Distress | 1935 | Delta-Film Berlin | Peter Hagen | An isolated Mennonite village on the Volga River is taken over by a squadron of Communist soldiers after the Revolution. This was a Nazi propaganda film. |
| Gentle People and the Quiet Land, The | 1972 | BJW Productions | Richard Bartlett | A young Pennsylvania Amish girl falls for a free-spirited young man and she becomes pregnant. After a miscarriage, she returns to her Amish community where she finds peace. |
| Girl With the Jazz Heart | 1923 | A "flapper" film in which a young woman escapes her dower religious stepfamily for New York. Here she meets a worldly friend and falls in love. The religion is given a fictitious name but the beards and clothing are similar to that worn by Old Order River Brethren. This silent film is now lost but there are still photos and reviews. | ||
| Happy as the Grass was Green (reissued as "Hazel’s People") | 1973 | Bert Martin Associates Production | Charles Davis | A college student re-examines his life when he accompanies a friend to a funeral in the Mennonite country in Pennsylvania. Once he arrives in the small town, he connects with the simple lifestyle there, and he discovers Christ. Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5ojelKVUh0. |
| Harvest of Fire | 1996 | Sofronski Productions | Arthur Allan Seidelaman | A TV movie in which an FBI agent is sent to investigate a hate crime in a small Amish community after three barns are burned down. |
| Hazel’s People: see: Happy as the Grass was Green | ||||
| Holy Matrimony | 1994 | Hollywood Pictures | Leonard Nimoy | A comedy; thieves hide out in a Canadian Hutterite colony with their loot, join the colony, and when the husband dies a young Hutterite boy must marry his late brother’s wife. |
| Holyman Undercover | 2010 | Pure Flix Entertainment | David A.R. White | A Christian comedy in which an Amish man goes to Hollywood to find his uncle but finds success and trouble when he is cast as Satan on nighttime soap opera. |
| I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight | 2020 | Bedbugs Films | Sean Garrity | A comedy set in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A Mennonite man from Morden and a Filipina woman meet and fall for one another. |
| Jesus’ Son | 1999 | Lion’s Gate Films | Alison MacLean | Set in the 1970s, a young man turns from drug addiction and petty crime in the midwest USA to rehabilitation and redemption in Arizona. His final recovery is greatly helped by encountering a Mennonite couple and in a voyeuristic manner listens to the wife sing the gospel song "Farther Along." |
| Kaw | 2007 | S.V. Scary Films 6 | Sheldon Wilson | A horror film in which a small town is attacked by ravens and it seems connected to a nearby Amish Mennonite farm. |
| Kingpin | 1996 | Rysher Entertainment | Bobby and Peter Farrelly | A comedy in which a disabled bowler encounters an Amish man bowling and convinces him to enter a tournament. |
| König der letzten Tage | 1993 | ZDF | Tom Toelle | Two-part German TV movie about the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster in the 1530s. |
| Living in a Perfect World | 2006 | National Geographic Channel International | Diego D'Innocenzo, and Marco Leopardi | A documentary film about four Russian Mennonites living in their communities in the Chihuahua Mexican desert and in the Bolivian forest. The four families long for a perfect world in balance between tradition and modernity. |
| Love Finds You in Charm | 2015 | Mission Pictures International | Terry Cunningham | A TV movie about a young Amish woman who isn't satisfied with her path at home and visits a cousin in Charm, Ohio, for the summer. |
| Love Finds You in Sugarcreek | 2014 | Mission Pictures International | Terry Cunningham | A TV movie set in the town of Sugarcreek, Ohio, policewoman Rachel Troyer is protective of her three Amish aunts. When a penniless stranger named Joe shows up with his five-year-old son, the aunts insist on helping them. |
| Matewan | 1987 | Cinecom International Films | John Sayles | A labor organizer comes to a coal miners' strike in Matewan, West Virginia in the 1920s and explains how his interaction with pacifist Mennonites conscientious objectors in prison formed his pacifist beliefs. |
| Night They Raided Minskys, The | 1968 | Bud Yorkin-Norman Lear | William Friedkin | A young Amish lady, Rachel Schpitendavel, has run away from her stern father to New York in order to dance Bible scenes. Instead, she joins a burlesque show and invents the striptease. |
| Outsider, The | 2002 | Coote Hayes Productions | Randy Hains | A 19th-century western set in Montana. An Amish widow nurses a wounded outlaw and for this is shunned. The man recovers and kills the evil cattle baron who covets Amish land. |
| Pearl Diver | 2004 | Proud Cut Films | Sidney King | Divided by the same family tragedy that once bonded them closer than ever before, two grown siblings left with numerous unanswered questions regarding their mother's murder struggle to find a common ground after the daughter of one is badly injured in a horrific farming accident. |
| Plain Truth | 2004 | Muse Entertainment Enterprise | Paul Shapiro | A TV court drama based on the Jodi Picoult book of the same name. A dead infant is found and an unmarried 18 year old Amish girl is charged with her death. An attorney relative comes to defend her. |
| Plus One at an Amish Wedding | 2022 | UPtv | Richard L. Ramsey | A TV romantic drama about a young New York medical doctor who falls in love with a veterinarian and learns his family is Old Order Amish. She experiences the community at an Amish family wedding. |
| Radicals, The | 1990 | Sister and Brothers Production | Raul V Carrera | A dramatization of the Anabaptist martyrs Michael and Margaretha Sattler who were put to death by the Catholic Church in 1527. Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTX5iWQOuZ4 |
| Reckoning, The | 2015 | Believe Pictures Production | Michael Landon Jr. | Third TV movie based on a book by Beverly Lewis. An Amish women leaves her community to a troubled American life. |
| Rumspringa: an Amish in Berlin | 2022 | Netflix | Mira Thiel | A German comedy about a young Amish man who spends his rumspringa time in Berlin, Germany. |
| Saving Sarah Cain | 2007 | Believe Pictures Production | Michael Landon Jr. | A newspaper columnist travels to a Pennsylvania Amish community for her sister’s funeral and becomes guardian for her five orphaned children. Contemporary life causes unhappiness in all when she returns with them to Portland. Then they all return to the Amish. |
| Sex Drive | 2008 | Alloy Entertainment | Sean Anders | A vulgar road trip film with high school senior and two friends embarking on a cross country drive. On their way they have car trouble and meet an Amish man Ezekiel who helps them. One of the travelers meets an Amish woman Mary and they fall in love and he joins her with the Amish. |
| Shunning, The | 2011 | Believe Pictures Production | Michael Landon Jr. | TV movie based on the first of a trilogy of books with the same titles by Beverly Lewis. An Amish girl on the verge of marriage discovers she was adopted by an Amish women. |
| Silence at Bethany, The | 1989 | American Playhouse, | Joel Oliansky | Set in 1940s Pennsylvania, a young man returns to his Mennonite community, marries, and is chosen by lot to be their preacher. How conflict in Mennonite families and community is dealt with is the core of the film. This film gives a realistic portrait of Pennsylvania Mennonites of the 1940s. |
| Small Town Murder Songs | 2010 | 3 Legged Dog Film | Ed Gass-Donnelly | A murder drama set in a small Mennonite town in Ontario where the police chief’s faith and desire for peace are severely challenged. |
| Snob, The | 1924 | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer | Monta Bell | Silent film based on the novel The Snob: The Story of a Marriage by Helen R. Martin. In the film the main male character is Mennonite but in the book he is not. The film is now considered lost but there are still photos and reviews |
| Spielregel für einen Wiedertäuferfilm (Rules for a Film About Anabaptist) | 1977 | Georg Brintrup | A 16mm semi-documentary West German film about the policy of the Anabaptists of Münster and about the 'enemies of constitution' in West Germany (1976). A political film that was very successful at the festivals of Berlin, Rotterdam and Pesaro, but was never shown on public TV. | |
| Stellet Licht/Silent Light | 2007 | Carlos Reygadas | Carlos Reygadas | An award-winning Mexican film set in a Mennonite colony in Mexico. A drama of a happily married man falls in love with another woman. The dialogue is in Plautdietsch with English subtitles. |
| Stoning in Fulham County, A | 1988 | Landsburg Co. | Larry Elikann | This TV court drama film set in rural North Carolina Amish community. A young prosecutor wins his case against rock throwing youth who kill an Amish baby even though the Amish want no part in the court process. Available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kI9xVReT8&t=28s. |
| They Call Me Renegade | 1987 | Lucio Bompani | Enzo Barboni | A drifter with a sense of humor accompanies a teenage boy on a road trip across the southern USA to a rural property in Arizona owned by the teen’s father. Upon arrival, they meet the friendly Amish(?) neighbors. In the style of Italian Westerns. |
| Thomas Müntzer | 1956 | Progress Film Verleih | Martin Hellberg | An East German biography film of the revolutionary Anabaptist leader. |
| Tillie | 1922 | Realart Pictures | Frank Urson | A silent film based on the novel of the same name by Helen Martin. The daughter of stern Mennonite father attempts suicide then flees to get her freedom. The film is now considered lost but there are still photos and reviews. |
| Uncommon Grace, An | 2017 | Horse & Buggy Productions | David Mackay | TV movie for Hallmark. After a tour of duty, an army nurse returns to her grandmother's farm in Amish country, where she finds unexpected romance and is pulled into a murder mystery. |
| Violent Saturday | 1955 | Twentieth Century-Fox | Richard Fleischer | A crime drama in which an Amish family in western USA are victims of a bank robbery gang. In the final shoot-out the Amish father kills one of the robbers. |
| Warlock | 1989 | Steve Miner | Steve Miner | A warlock flees from Boston of 1691 to the 20th century with a witch-hunter chasing him. A major confrontation takes place on a Mennonite farm in Colorado where the Mennonite father has placed a Hex mark on his barn. |
| Weight, The | 1983 | Sisters and Brothers Inc. | Bill Myers | Jon Springer, a Mennonite minister's son, is approaching his 18th birthday when he must decide whether or not to register as a conscientious objector. |
| Witness | 1985 | Edward S. Feldman | Peter Weir | A young Amish boy is sole witness to a murder; policeman John Book goes into hiding in Amish country to protect him until the trial. |
| Women Talking | 2022 | Orion Pictures, Hear/Say Productions, Plan B Entertainment | Sarah Polley | In response to extreme sexual abuse in a conservative Mennonite colony, eight women discuss whether to forgive, fight, or leave. Nominated for Best Picture at the 95th Academy Awards. |
Bibliography
Carpenter, Steven P. Mennonites and Media: Mentioned in it, Maligned by it, and Makers of It. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2015. 226pp.
Internet Movie Database (IMDb) http://www.imdb.com.
| Author(s) | Victor G. Wiebe |
|---|---|
| Samuel J. Steiner | |
| Date Published | January 2023 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Wiebe, Victor G. and Samuel J. Steiner. "Motion Pictures and Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. January 2023. Web. 24 Nov 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Motion_Pictures_and_Amish,_Hutterites,_and_Mennonites&oldid=175450.
APA style
Wiebe, Victor G. and Samuel J. Steiner. (January 2023). Motion Pictures and Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 24 November 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Motion_Pictures_and_Amish,_Hutterites,_and_Mennonites&oldid=175450.
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