HM | The Hard Music Magazine

Gahbage!

I agree with the previous reviewer. It seems like the most interesting thing about the movie is the controversy that supposedly surrounds it.

But after seeing the actual film onscreen I could not figure out how anyone could muster the strength to make this thing controversial. Not because it tells lies or truths, but mostly because it is a move that just doesn’t matter.

If there is one absolutely minimal requirement for a documentary film, it is that it must at least try to present the truth. Documentarians have a special obligation to the world as they are documenting history for posterity. If they fail to accurately represent the truth, they have deceived countless people for a prolonged period until someone comes along and corrects the record. This film is not just careless with the facts, or accidentally reporting inaccuracies, this film is a deliberate effort by the filmmaker to misrepresent the facts about a highly accomplished musical evangelist and respected teacher and leader in the Christian community. In short, it is a hit piece.

David Di Sabatino, who has only one other film to his credit (which was also a hit piece on a Christian leader, Lonnie Frisbee), broke every rule of honest documentary film making. First of all, there is no documentation in this documentary. My dictionary gives the following definition for a documentary: 1. Consisting of, concerning, or based on documents. 2. Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film. Yet, in this film, the filmmaker sought out and included statements only from people who had grudges against him. There were a great many people who knew Larry Norman very well for an extended period of time whose statements were not sought. When family members offered to provide documentation falsifying the film’s claims they were rejected and not even mentioned in the film. The strongest and most slanderous allegations of the film are pure innuendo. The few people with grudges who derided Larry were represented as typical cases of people that knew Larry. They were not.

Furthermore, with one minor exception, no one interviewed in the film had been involved in Larry’s life in over 30 years! There are many people that have expressed shock by the overt and destructive lies that they heard in this film and that have said they personally know the allegations presented to be false or contrary to their experience, yet their opinions were not included.

See the film, but watch it with a critical eye.

(I was a personal friend of Larry’s for the last 30 years of his life and can personally vouch for Larry’s impeccable character. He was a man of the highest integrity, had a deep and sincere love for God, and was filled with love for everyone he met. And he never stopped talking to people about the love of Jesus!)