Part I

Movies are a crucial battleground in the raging war on culture. The enemy does not want to kill the audience; they want to take us captive. Their weapons are images and ideas. They lure us to their “killing fields” and keep us there for two hours in the dark. Sometimes they assault us without equivocation – an all-out frontal attack that bombards us with graphic depictions of sexual encounters, violent acts and other horrors actual or imagined. Sometimes they ambush us when we’ve been enticed by other expectations. Increasingly they endeavor to subvert us with clandestine propaganda. They plot to capture and convert us not only by what they show and say but also by what they premeditatively leave out.

Perfectly written screenplays have turning points that propel the characters from one act to the next. I’ve tried not to look upon my life as a movie because the 2^nd Act is painfully long and episodic, albeit wonderfully adventuresome. However, in the ‘movie of my life’ the protagonist’s goal remains steadfast though myriad wanderings. The central dramatic question has remained clear and unequivocal.

If my movie metaphor has merit, one might consider that the turning point leading to Act II was a feature film I produced and directed called Windwalker. and if you love anticipation, Act III begins on November 9^th, 2006.

Windwalker opened to a flurry of critical acclaim when it premiered in 1981. One noted critic called it, “One of the Years Five Best Films”. [1] Another said, “Windwalker brings the best of A Man Called Horse, Jeremiah Johnson, and Little Big Man together into one intelligent, coherent story told with a flair for authenticity. It is a visually lush film that splits perfectly in half between a love story and an action adventure.” [2] Someone in Detroit declared, “Windwalker deserves an Oscar.” [3] I still love that guy!

Early in my moviemaking career a seasoned old pro warned me about reviews. “Praise and criticism are both imposters to be treated just the same.” But I forgot my old friend’s advice because I was hot and flying high. In the midst of being flush with foolish pride I got a call from “Hollywood”. They invited me to town.

Going Hollywood

Two talent agencies wanted me to sign. I went with the smaller one believing they would get to know me better and understand my reluctance to “go Hollywood.” Part of my agreement was a paragraph that I insisted be in every contract. It disallowed anyone from making changes to my films after the Director’s cut that might “impact the moral integrity of the picture.” My new agents rolled their eyes but in the end agreed to include the clause in every negotiation.

Almost immediately a publicist rushed me from interview to interview and splattered my name all over town. Farmington, Utah was never like this! In talking to the press I was bold about my religion, candid about my family and forthright in expressing my aspirations to make films that embraced values and inspired as well as entertained. 

Daily Variety, dated Monday January 5, 1981, included this headline, “Merrill Keeps His Faith, Decides to Go Hollywood.” The full-page article was most respectful and included, “An unusual filmmaker in many respects, Merrill is a devout member of the Mormon Church and lives near S.F. with his family, which includes eight children. He says he has tried to maintain his beliefs and idealism within the often-brutal world of commercial filmmaking. ‘My idealism is tarnished like a fine piece of brass that hasn’t lost any of its intrinsic value,’ Merrill said.” [4]

Within a few weeks of signing with Film Artist’s Management, I received a call from my agent. “Kieth baby! We got you a great gig directing a feature film! They loved Windwalker. They want you man! You’re perfect for it! It’s a great little coming of age picture. You’re going to love it!” After ten years of struggling to put my own projects together I was excited.

The script arrived. It was called, They Came Without Eyes. Hmmm? I curled up with the 105-page screenplay by the pool and put on my sunglasses. “Hollywood here I come.”

The story opened with two teenagers fondling one another “writhing about in passion” in the cab of an old pickup truck parked on a lonely road. By the end of the first page the script called for the girl to be nearly naked with her bare breasts exposed. By page two the teenagers were engaged in fornication – graphically described – and on page three – when the eyeless creatures from the bowels of hell arrived – the teenagers were sodomized and brutally dismembered. (I apologize for these graphic words but I am not making this up, it’s straight from the script.)

By page four I finally got it. It was my agent’s idea of a joke! I could almost hear them laughing, “Send the new Mormon guy the most offensive script we can find.” I called them so I could laugh along. “Very funny,” I said. To my great shock I discovered it was not intended as a joke.

“It’s great isn’t it? Really gritty. Shall we tell them you’re a go?”

I do not infer that this singular experience is typical or in any way a reliable generalization of what goes on in Hollywood. But it really happened and was my first real encounter with “Hollywood” and is of course at least a shadow of what is wrong with the thinking and ideology we have come to associate with the motion picture business.

Needless to say my romantic affair “going Hollywood” was short lived.

A Wonderful 25 Years

The 2^nd Act – think “metaphorical movie of my life” – stretched across 25 years and a wonderful array of adventures in filmmaking. There were highlights of course, Mr. Krueger’s Christmas, Legacy and The Testaments – those rare films that allowed me to combine who I am with what I do. There were some wonderful television projects, a lot of writing and development, other feature films and a comprehensive collection of IMAX movies that took us to the far corners of the world. There was my movie Amazon, of course, which took us deep into the rain forests of Brazil and back to the Academy Awards with another Oscar nomination.

My romance with Hollywood was unrequited affection. But my love of making motion pictures only deepened. My passion to make movies that matter and “feel-good-again” movies that enlighten, edify and inspire as well as entertain has never changed.

Another article written during my Hollywood honeymoon came from Linda Gross of the LA Times. The headline was, “Merrill: The Maverick Film Maker.” I will love Linda into the next life for her description of me. “Merrill looks like a cowboy-scholar. He is a tall, ruggedly handsome man with burnt blond hair and larkspur blue eyes. He wears Western jeans, cowboy boots and a pensive grin.”

Linda would not likely be so generous today. But though the description may have changed the goals and passion have endured. Linda explained, “Merrill comes to Hollywood with the approach/avoidance syndrome of the proverbial laboratory rat.He is more comfortable shooting a film on location in Monument Valley than he is in his agent’s office on Sunset strip.Merrill has much in common with John Ford, who happens to be one of his filmmaking idols. Like Ford, Merrill’s films celebrate the family, the land, justice and sacrifice. His acceptance of the traditional American ideals makes him something of a rarity among modern filmmakers. So does his close attachment to his own family and religion (he is a practicing Mormon). Like Frank Capra, the second of his spiritual movie mentors, Merrill’s outlook is essentially optimistic and he feels that a filmmaker should impart a message of hope.” [5]

The decision to remain outside the Hollywood mainstream, stay independent, reside in Northern California, live without a Hollywood agent – and the dubious opportunity to direct films like “They Came Without Eyes” – and to pursue films I could control and stories I could embrace has been both challenging and miraculous. I would choose no other path than the one I have taken. We have been blessed with significant success and instructive failures. We have enjoyed a myriad of grand adventures. I say “we” and “us” because my best friend/wife, Dagny, has been in lock step all the way, and of course most often our children came along.

My goals have remained unchanged – throughout the 2^nd Act of my life as it were – and it is those same goals and passions that now take me to ACT III. We have come to where we are and once again consider Hollywood. This time it is very different. This time we know each other very well. This time it is not about “going Hollywood” but rather looking for ways to make the kind of movies that are increasingly difficult – if not impossible – to get made inside the Hollywood system.

Grand Movies Not Made Today

The grand movies I grew up on from directors John Ford and Frank Capra would not likely be made in today’s Hollywood. Capra’s classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life” would surely get a  “pass” from some jaded reader in the lower echelon of the story development department. A whole new generation of talented young filmmakers who aspire to tell great stories that embrace virtues and values have nowhere to go to get their projects made. The Hollywood system is not cordial to family-friendly films. 

It is wonderfully ironic that following the phenomenal success of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ Hollywood studios scrambled around looking for ways to cash in on “the Christian market.” 

“Fox Puts Faith in Christian Films” [6] headlined an article in the LA times a few weeks ago. It is beyond ironic that this company, who brings us such sordid TV shows as “Nip/Tuck” and “Temptation Island”, has decided to create a subsidiary called Fox Faith to cash in on the Christians. I suspect that at corporate headquarters they haven’t a clue how to get from here to there. They have already reached outside the system in search of filmmakers who understand “that market” and are willing to crank out a “faith-filled” movie for five million bucks (whereas the average Hollywood movie costs $61 million). Hollywood has stumbled upon a huge neglected audience in the mainstream market and they poke at it with a long stick like a city slicker confronting a diamond back rattlesnake. Amazing!

What Happened to Hollywood?

So what happened to Hollywood? Where have all the heroes gone? What happened to those wonderful feel good again stories we see so seldom any more? Why is it so important we find alternative ways to do battle in the movie fields of the cultural wars?

“Hollywood” is both noun and adjective. We love it or hate it but hardly ever bother to define it. Hollywood means different things to different people. It is a place – a district of Los Angeles. It is a style. It is a metonym for  “the movie business” – the American film and television industry.

As a maker of movies, as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and as a member of the Director’s Guild of America I am part of “Hollywood” in at least one of its many connotations. As I am about to propose a diversionary tactic in the cultural wars – of which Hollywood’s liberal ideology is a weapon of potential mass destruction – it is important for you to understand what and whom I stand against and whom I love and respect.

The popular face of Hollywood is the actor scandal de jour plastered on the covers of magazines that frame every check out counter in America. The public’s connection to that Hollywood is an incomprehensible fascination with the rich and famous. It can only be described as a voyeuristic obsession with their often shamefully immoral lives. Movie stars are generic with Hollywood and Hollywood is generic with movies. But I dare say that many if not most of the people behind the cameras, the ones who actually make the movies, do not embrace the actions or ideologies that masquerade in wondrous machinations among the glamorous illuminati whose public face is Hollywood.

Even the most outrageous of the Hollywood movies are actually made by pretty common folks. Carpenters, painters, electricians, truck drivers, makeup artists, architects, designers, computer programmers, accountants, wranglers, artists, engineers, costumers, cameramen, grips, editors, people who fix food, serve coffee and clean up after the horses together with an army of unskilled laborers willing and anxious to do whatever it takes to get into the business of making movies and not to mention of course the thousands of people who have never been – nor will ever be in Hollywood – who work on animation and computer graphics in places like China, India and the Czech Republic. Most of these “movie-makers” work hard. Have families. Love their kids. Go to church or synagogue and do not identify with the ideological assault on traditional values and virtues that characterize so many of the films on which they work to earn a living.

But there is another “Hollywood.” It is the Hollywood we love to hate and the Hollywood that rightfully deserves our wrath.

It is this “Hollywood” that has become a synonym for an extreme liberal ideology defined by a philosophy of secular humanism, sexual promiscuity, gay marriage (in fact the celebration of all things gay), anti-religion, pro-abortion, anti traditional family and some would argue, anti-American. It is an ideology that is increasingly out of touch with the traditional values of “mainstream America” and millions of like-minded people from many other countries.

Out of Touch

Curiously – and inexplicably – it is also out of touch with the values of the people who go to movies. In a recent poll when asked if Hollywood reflected their values, a whopping 70% of moviegoers said, “no.” Only 10% said “sometimes.” [7]

I find that astounding! Writing in Movie Economics, David Grainger put it this way, “If Hollywood were run like a real business-instead of, say, like a clubby, insecure, award-crazy, star-groveling high school-where things like return on investment mattered, there would be one unchallenged, sacred principle that studio chieftains would never violate: Make lots of G-rated movies.” [8]

While 70% of the audience feels Hollywood is out of touch with our values the majority of the movies are rated R. It makes no sense. In fact it is astounding. It is astounding for one simple reason: The audience is the most important part of the motion picture business.

I need to repeat that last phrase because I want this reality to become part of your movie-lovers psyche:

The motion picture audience is the
most important part of the motion picture industry.

Through it’s purchasing power, the audience holds the ultimate power over the movie industry. Yet, we the audience, by an overwhelming majority, feel that Hollywood does not reflect our values.

The juxtaposition of these two facts has brought me to a significant conclusion. They have brought me to the turning point that leads into Act III. They have become the twin towers of a bold new idea that will empower the audience, return virtues and values to motion pictures, and create an alternative source of wonderful feel-good-again major motion pictures.

You will hear more of this in the coming weeks.
Watch for the announcement November 9.

Who or what is this “Hollywood” that is so out of touch with our values? Why is it they endeavor to subvert us with clandestine propaganda? How do they intend to capture and convert us? Is it by what they show and say or is there a more subversive and dastardly agenda in what they prepensely leave out?

Next: God is omnipresent, so why is He so difficult to find in the movies?

To be continued.