"Bleep" of faith

An indie film gets buzz and a big rollout. But "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" uses questionable on-screen experts -- and appears to be an infomercial for a controversial New Age sect.

By John Gorenfeld

Sept. 16, 2004 | Last week, the national release of the independent film "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" seemed to be just the latest success story in the Year of the Documentary -- a little movie that could, launched into 60 theaters across the country by Samuel Goldwyn Films after selling out small theaters for months. The film's co-director, William Arntz, has called it "a film for the religious left," an answer to "The Passion of the Christ." It presents itself as the thinking rebel's alternative to Hollywood pabulum: a heady stew of drama and documentary, starring Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin as a Xanax-addled photographer who discovers joy when she learns that quantum mechanics makes spiritual wonders possible.

But the film -- buoyed by a slew of stories in regional and national outlets (including Salon) about its supposed grassroots success -- has largely avoided much skepticism. And as the distributors launched a national advertising campaign, on NPR's "All Things Considered" among other outlets, and earned respectable reviews from a number of critics (the San Francisco Examiner calls it a "smart film," and Roger Ebert, while not thrilled, gave it a thoughtful two and a half stars), their movie has managed to avoid much scrutiny of what, exactly, it's really about -- and who is behind it.

That has meant little attention has been given to either the film's agenda, or its questionable use of supposed experts. At least one scientist prominently interviewed in the film now says his words were taken out of context. And two other key subjects in the film are not fully identified: a theologian who, the film fails to divulge, is a former priest who left the Catholic Church after allegations of sexual abuse; and a mysterious woman identified only as Judy "JZ" Knight, who is actually a sect leader claiming to channel a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit named Ramtha. The film's three co-directors are among those who follow Ramtha and look to Knight's channeled maxims to decipher the mysteries of life. These Ramtha followers reportedly number in the thousands. But critics call the sect a cult.

In the movie, the 58-year-old Knight, whose accent is as thick as her mascara, makes the boldest statements -- pronounced with long, rolling R's -- about particles and God. "We have grrreat technology. But we still have this ugly, superrrstitious, backwahds cohncept of Gahd," she says, adding that "the height of arrrrrrogance is the belief of those who would see Gahd in their own image." Musing on the unity of consciousness and matter, she reminds us that "it only takes a fantasy for a man to have a harrrd-on." In her normal mode, Knight speaks the plain talk of her native Roswell, N.M., but in the manly presence of Ramtha, said to have conquered the continent neighboring Atlantis, Knight's jaw juts and her voice deepens into something magisterial and brash (view her here). Her Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, on a $2 million compound based in Yelm, Wash., boasts followers -- including celebrities like actress Shirley MacLaine (who attended Knight's seminars in the late '80s) and "Dynasty" star Linda Evans -- willing to pay up to $1,600 for a seminar.

Reached by Salon, Meyer Gottlieb, president of Samuel Goldwyn Films, says he's seen "Bleep" about eight times. Its fledgling distribution company Roadside Attractions had its first real hit earlier this year when it launched festival favorite documentary "Super Size Me" and is hoping for a similar sleeper hit with " Bleep." Asked what he thought of the expressed desire by filmmaker Mark Vicente (on a Ramtha Web site, BeyondTheOrdinary.net) for his viewers to emerge from his movie in an "almost trance-like state," Gottlieb only laughed.

"The question is, Is this movie promoting a cult?" he said. "The only thing we're interested in from a marketing perspective is creating a cult status for the film ... cults, from my perspective, they deal with groups and leaders and that stuff. This movie is about individual thinking. Individual control over your future -- and your own reality."

But not everyone involved in the movie has good things to say about that message.

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