For many years, the TV evangelist Dr. Gene Scott appeared in front of the camera on an almost daily basis and preached his ideas about Christianity, most of which focus on the collection of donations.

God's honour is at stake every night," he announces, and for him this honour clearly depends on the volume of donations that come in over the telephone. As he sees it, it’s not a show he’s presenting but a celebration and a religious experience for the viewers. This includes religious songs interspersed with his sermons; these sound like schmaltzy ballads from the late Fifties.

With three TV stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hartford (Connecticut), Scott's is just one of many religious TV programmes in the USA. He owns nothing himself, he explains; he was chosen by his church, and all income goes to the church; even his life insurance will one day (Scott died 25 years after Herzog's documentary) be paid out to the church. The church owns a mausoleum, a real estate company, a travel agency and a publishing house too. Clearly it functions in a similar way to a large enterprise; it is a diversified company.

The authorities see matters differently, Scott explains in a round-about way. Herzog's very circumspect observations also allude to this. The preacher is a controversial figure who is constantly up to his neck in lawsuits relating to tax evasion, embezzlement, libel and extortion. This makes him feel persecuted and threatened. He doesn't shy away from portraying his opponents as mechanical monkeys, however.

Herzog keeps the focus on Gene Scott and refrains from passing his own judgement – only the editing makes it clear that Herzog has some doubts about the man. The excerpts of the TV sermons notably revolve around the topic of money. High takings mean "religious" victories for Scott, yet his sermons are devoid of any transcendence; trivial phrases take the place of credible piety. He promises: "We will be here when Jesus comes", and once when he manages to make about a quarter of a million dollars within 36 minutes, his band sings: "Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul!" As it's all going so well, he decides on the spur of the moment to extend airtime, because "we might just hit the million-dollar mark tonight!" Then, on a not-so-lucrative day, when his financial expectations fail to materialize, Scott sits in front of the camera looking mortally offended, doesn't say a word and sulks while the five women taking the donation calls cry their eyes out. Finally, Scott starts yelling madly and insulting his TV viewers.

Herzog refrains from letting Scott's adversaries have their say. The preacher's own words suffice for the viewers to form an impression of the man. Besides Scott, only his parents are interviewed, and they revere their son as though he were a saint, one whose genius was recognized years earlier by one of his school teachers. Herzog asks Scott's mother if her son ever did anything bad in his life, and she recalls that little Gene once took a dab of frosting from a cake. Scott himself admits that he would like to get up to some mischief for once in his life, or go some place where nobody knows him since he is fed up with constantly fighting and would prefer to give readings on Plato in Australia.

The preacher possesses enough vanity and pride to allow Herzog to get really close to him, and even gives an interview in the narrow confines of a car. Like many cunning demagogues he presents himself as a victim, toys with his self-pity and creates bogeymen in order to build some kind of sense of community with his supporters. Scott complains about his loneliness: "Who could I have as a friend? Every friend is a potential enemy!", as though he fears having a Judas, a traitor, close by. What he says is never really credible; his sermons are not only full of contradictions, they also vividly show how unreliable his words and language are. The truth might sooner be found in what the man does, both publicly and privately. Scott twists and turns, claims he weeps once every week and proudly points out his sole personal possession, a black briefcase, that only he may look inside of – not even Werner Herzog is allowed.

His passionate and often lofty irrationality makes the TV preacher a kindred spirit not just of Bishop Huie L. Rogers, who Herzog profiled in HUIE’S SERMON (also made in 1980). Scott also belongs unmistakably to Herzog's universe; he is one of those megalomaniac, impenetrable and ambivalent heroes like Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo. If Gene Scott hadn’t really existed, you could easily believe that Werner Herzog had invented him. And if the director had wanted to make a feature film about Scott back then, who better for the main role than Kinski?

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

1980

Production Year

1980

color

color

Aspect Ratio

1:1,37

Duration

Medium-Length Film (31 to 60 Min.)

Type

Documentary

Genre

Biography / Portrait

Topic

Religion, Psychology, Film History

Available Media

DVD, DCP, Blu-ray Disc

Original Version

German (de)

DVD

Subtitles

English (en), Spanish (es), French (fr), Italian (it), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt), Russian (ru), Chinese (zh), Arabic (ar), German (de), Turkish (tr)

DCP

Subtitles

German (de), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Italian (it), Turkish (tr)

Note on the Format

Verschlüsseltes Herzog-Sammel-DCP

Blu-ray Disc

Subtitles

German (de), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Italian (it), Turkish (tr)