Snake handling ceremony from the docu "Holy Ghost People" (1967)

Описание: Great docu by Peter Adair, Composer Steve Reich was the sound guy.
Hymns in the video are "Sing O Barren Sing" and "Go Down Moses". Thanks to ‪@zoyakeys1147‬ for adding context (   • Snake handling ceremony from the docu "Hol...  )
Service was lead by Pastor Rev. Elza O. Preast and Michael Lanham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Gh...)

The late Peter Adair (1943-1996) is best known in the queer community as one of the auteurs of Word Is Out, the first documentary about gay people that found a home in the mainstream. An outsider himself as a gay man, Adair was apparently drawn to other outsiders. His first, and in some ways best, film explored a distinctive American subculture. Holy Ghost People is a 53-minute documentary about snake-handling, strychnine-swilling members of the “Holiness” church. Rightly hailed by Margaret Mead as one of the best ethnographic films ever made, and a staple of classes on anthropology and documentary film, this study of a little-known sect who put their lives on the line for their religion still packs a wallop three decades after its release.

The film opens with a gliding camera elegantly surveying the squalor of the area around Scrabble Creek, West Virginia, setting the stage for and to some extent explaining the allure of, the Holiness movement. An offscreen narrator gives a brief and enticing pr\xE9cis: “thousands of holiness churches scattered through the hills of Appalachia,” “literal bible interpretations,” “drinking poison, handling snakes, speaking in tongues.” The starkness of the setting, a rural area of obvious poverty, neither city nor town, provides a dramatic backdrop for the outr\xE9 activities of these edgeplayers, who seem at times to be drunk or drugged on their religion. The Holiness way is the polar opposite of those dull, dutiful Sundays in middle-class churches; it provides both an irresistible high and a respite from the limited lives of its believers. Adair is sensitive in rendering this difficult material, neither judging nor ridiculing nor trying to become a part of the scene. His only intrusion is in the opening narration; after that, he lets those directly involved tell their story.

The lure of these dangerous, sometimes lethal rituals becomes clear early on, in interviews with some of the participants. One young woman describes the pleasure of the trance she enters when possessed by the Holy Ghost. With a glassy stare says, “It seems like nothing in this world can bother me.” There’s rough poetry in their words. One man who joined the movement after a prison stretch says “I could feel the quickening power of the holy ghost . . . I would dance under the power, and the quickening power would get on me.”

Adair’s camera dispassionately records this “quickening power,” which takes over the members even during interviews outside the church service as a kind of ecstasy state. Inside the church they can give full play to their emotions, shrieking, flailing, crumpling to the floor, talking in tongues, drinking poison, and handling snakes as the ultimate test of their faith. Striking indeed are scenes of the group working itself into a frenzy, all the members bowed and praying loudly with eyes closed, until one, then another, then others leap out of the group gyrating, wailing, or grabbing one of the rattlesnakes or copperheads sitting in a box nearby.

It would be easy to dismiss these people and their primal ways as cranks and fanatics; it’s hard to imagine anyone these days believing enough in something to risk their lives for it. But Adair’s respectful, nonsensational approach precludes this. He lets the purity and raw power of this do-or-die religion speak for itself. And it’s far from the huckster-capitalist paradigm of Falwell and his ilk. The “holy ghost people” are unpretentious, and ask for little. Egalitarian in surprising ways, they have no minister, relying instead on anyone rising out of the crowd with an inspiration to lead the service. And the money is obviously secondary. At the end of the service, a mere $53.59 has been collected. And most welcome, some of the men greet each other as they do the women, with a kiss. Not available on video at this writing; demand it from your local library. Take a large, venomous snake and a bottle of strychnine with you in case the librarian isn’t cooperative.

http://brightlightsfilm.com/45-quicki...