Michael Charney of the blog “Chasing Glenn Beck” was inspired to review “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” and his full post follows.  You can read the original on his blog.

Kansas has long served as a powerful metaphor for our country.  When L. Frank Baum first wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, he chose Kansas as his setting for idyll, peace, comfort and safety, a home that there was “no place like.” Even earlier, Dodge City became a metaphor for the Wild West, a place of independence and ruthlessness, where a man’s mettle would surely be tested and everyone walked around with a careless swagger. As Kansas reached statehood and matured into the Union, it was long a hot-bed of radical, populist and socialist ideas. Kansas, considered a center of early 20th century Progressivism, was also a metaphor for the hard-working individual with a social conscience.

Today Kansas still offers itself up as metaphor, but now the echoes are of an ultra-conservative, religion-centric inflexibility built from such images as the Westboro Baptist Church and the Dover school district, the former infamous for its aggressive anti-gay tactics and the latter for its ignominious attempt to force religion into the school district’s science curriculum.

Kansas has changed, and so have we all.

What’s the Matter with Kansas?, a documentary by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston (based on the 2004 book by Thomas Frank) washes the screen with those metaphors in beautiful hues, stark contrasts and–often–with probing insight and irony.  Following the paths of several key figures across political, personal and religious landscapes, the filmmakers draw a surrealistic portrait of a changed Kansas, one where social issues determine political affiliations, sometimes in direct contrast with an individual’s own interests.

The movie doesn’t preach: there is no narration, no specific storyline, no “Michael Moore” moment designed to get us all whipped up.  There is balance and delicacy and respect, yet still you may be left with the feeling that something remains missing.  Watching the movie at home on a quiet Friday evening (and having recently read the book as well), what struck me was the feeling that the movie’s main character–the key protagonist–was always off screen. That protagonist–the political engine that depends on marketing and money and messaging to create its preferred political culture, one designed to keep the elected, elected–may be the film’s single most powerful character.

For me, awareness of that off-screen protagonist doubled the movie’s impact. I recommend the documentary–which Roger Ebert named one of his ten best last year–for all who want a quiet yet striking insight into the workings of our political landscape.

Dan Deevey of The BlueRaySource.com rode an emotional roller-coaster on the way to giving “What’s the Matter with Kansas?“ a very favorable review:

He opens his review, dangling over of a cliff of despair:

I watched this movie with my mouth agape for most of it. The monumental level of ignorance and the power that it holds over so many Americans is staggering. No matter how many times I read news stories about it, see it represented in films or even in actual documentaries like this one where the masses hang themselves with their own words and actions it still sends me into a frenetic spell of anger and frustration.

If I could sit down with these people one on one and try to answer their questions and make them see how ridiculous they are being I would do it in a second. The older people are probably not worth the effort but there is still hope for the younger generations who are just constantly force fed this message of intolerance, hate and innate Christian superiority. (Sound at all familiar? Similar to a group from circa 1930-ish?) Yeah, exactly.

Then he acknowledges, heartily, that all is not lost:

What’s the Matter with Kansas? is a documentary by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston based on the book by Thomas Frank of the same name that examines historically the sociopolitical condition of the Sunflower State. Although widely regarded as a typical conservative “fly over” state, Kansas in fact has deep roots in the liberal movement and democratic thinking. Recent changes in the political landscape have pushed Kansas back into the red but that wasn’t always the case.

The filmmakers do a good job of showing the many sides to this story. Going in one would expect to see the depiction of the Bible thumping radical Republican on one side and the educated liberals on the other. Now, don’t get me wrong they are there but there are also a few other types of people that show up to muddy the waters a bit.

And after viewing the film and the extras, he concludes:

No matter which side of the debate you find yourself on What’s the Matter with Kansas will have something for you because unlike yours truly, they don’t take a side. They present a lot of interesting facts and people and leave the final judgment up to the audience.

The test a good documentary is if two sides of an issue can sit down together and have a real debate after viewing it leading to new understandings on both sides. I think this movie succeeds in that sense. Fortunately for me and my sanity I didn’t have a Bible thumper nearby to discuss it with but I imagine he or she would have had a lot to say and would probably have been proud of how his or her side had been presented. For my part it definitely ‘got my Irish up’ as they say, but ultimately I was better for having watched it.

The entire review is well worth a read, you’ll find it here.

John Ott, film reviewer and native Kansan, weighs in on the new Special Edition DVD of the “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”, debuting Jan 25, 2011:

What’s the matter with Kansas? As a Kansan, born and raised, one who has lived on both coasts, I’m often asked this question. Usually the question comes from a liberal perspective, as it was taken in the book by political scientist Thomas Frank from whom this documentary draws its name. Why do Kansans, Frank asks, consistently vote against their own economic interests, despite a history of populism? But the movie is more complex than that leading question.

The author Thomas Frank is just one piece of a quilt that What’s the Matter with Kansas? sews over the course of the film. Documentarians Laura Cohen and Joe Winston let Kansans speak for themselves, and by doing so, paint a nuanced picture of the heartland values that lead to votes on either side.

There are many storylines in the film — the head of a farmer’s union testifying eloquently to congress, the pastor who refuses to stop telling his flock how to vote, the nerdy Frank going down back roads in search of Kansas’ radical history, the wide-eyed girl bound for a Christian college — and then there’s Angel.

It was probably inevitable that Angel’s story would take over the film. We meet her as she is now, a gospel musician, mother and ranch owner who is an active member of the local Baptist church. But she tells of an amazing past: a failed marriage in California to an abusive husband, a baby, brain-damaged from improper delivery by a medical resident, and a moment where she contemplated suicide but God dissuaded her with a miraculous sign. (What that sign was, we never find out.)

I won’t spoil how Angel’s story ends, because it is the big coup that fell into the lap of director Joe Winston, a story about a church and a theme park called Wild West World that couldn’t have better underlined the economics vs. religion tension that is at the heart of the film.

There could not be a better time to check out the new DVD of this film than right now, with politicians on both sides of the aisle calling for a new era of civility. By letting people of all political stripes tell their own compelling stories, this film is a shining example of how such civility might be accomplished. As a person from the heartland, it was refreshing to see my fellow Kansas represented so respectfully. And people from flyover country are going to have their eyes opened wide by this film, which presents a narrative about Kansas that is far from the “boring and full of rednecks” stereotypes I’ve often encountered.

This DVD (available Jan. 25 or pre-order now) comes with bonus features like filmmaker commentary and deleted and extended scenes that help expand the depth of the film and connect the political narrative to the rise of the Tea Party movement. It will also be available in an educational version from Documentary Educational Resources and streaming on demand through Film Buff. Big recommend.

The movie opens in New York tonight, and the Village Voice weighs in:

The subtle structure and elegant editing build to the pointed insight that the vast gulf in the country isn’t between right and left but between secular and religious. Wisely, Winston includes only a couple of the narrow-minded comments that provoke viewers to snort, jeer, and jettison their empathy. Carefully cultivating a nonjudgmental tone that’s largely free of condescension—no small achievement, when the itinerary includes a trip to the Creation Museum in Kentucky—the filmmaker’s approach pays off in the final reel, when everyone’s dilemmas touch us.

Read the full review here.

Aubrey Streit Krug is an intern at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska.  She saw What’s the Matter with Kansas? in Lincoln, and posted her thoughts in the Blog For Rural America, which we’ve re-posted here:

Stories We Tell Ourselves

Clay Farris Naff of Nebraskans for Science shares some reflections on “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” after viewing it with in a packed house in Lincoln, Nebraska — a region with, of course, close ties to Kansas and itself home to a fiesty, hopeless outnumbered band of progressive prairie populists.

Perhaps in part because he recognizes the wide range of Kansans in the film from his own adventures in Nebraska, Clay easily got past the, er, strong emotional response, that many liberals have to a close encounter with conservative Kansans and grasped the nuance of what we were striving to achieve with the film.

He begins:

Human nature can be finicky as a cat. It often causes us to turn up our noses and reject people from our circle of trust at the first whiff of difference. Like cats, we react instinctively to appearance, smell, and behavior. Studies show that we instinctively analyze faces for degree of symmetry. Bet you were never conscious of that! But being higher apes, we simultaneously subject others to a cultural and political checklist, deciding in a flash whether they are “our kind of folks.”

High on the American checklist these days is how biblical a person is. If they’re wearing a gaudy cross around their neck, or a John 3:16 t-shirt, or even a purity ring, they’re instantly either brethren in Christ or dweebs from Jesusland. It’s human nature to react this way. But, in an interdependent world, and even in a nation “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” we simply cannot afford to be so dismissive.

That’s why a documentary film now slouching its way through Midwestern and West Coast art houses toward a New York opening this summer has such value. It gently nudges us beyond our stereotypes to consider the humanity of the “Other.”

The entire post is well worth a read, you can find it here.

Josh Harkinson of the venerable lefty outlet Mother Jones weighs in on “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”

In his 2004 book, What’s the Matter With Kansas?, Thomas Frank probed the psyches of Midwestern “values voters” to explain why blue-collar Americans abandoned economic self-interest to vote for George W. Bush. This eponymous documentary begins as a retelling of Frank’s book but ends as a timely exploration of how an obsession with a narrow moral agenda can be self-defeating.

You can read the full review here.

Mary Harris Jones, 1837–1930

In advance of the movie’s San Francisco opening this Friday, the SF Examiner has paved new critical ground by being the first outlet to compare our little movie with James Cameron’s AVATAR:

For an engrossing visit to another world — one that doesn’t involve 3-D glasses and whose name is Wichita — “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” is the film to see this week.

Based on Thomas Frank’s best-seller, this documentary, with impressive evenhandedness, examines how a state once known for progressive populism became heavily Republican and conservative.

It sharply demonstrates how Republican candidates have exploited religious fervor surrounding issues such as abortion to get poor and middle-class voters to support a party whose overall actions run counter to their economic well-being.

Directed by Joe Winston and unfolding without narration, the film shows a Kansas landscape decidedly under-the-rainbow, with boarded-up storefronts, for-sale homes and ailing farms.

Politically, the tone is fundamentalist and Republican. Voters view Republicans as the Christian party and thus the good guys. They demonstrate more interest in the party’s stance on religiously charged issues such as abortion and gay marriage than in how Republican policies affect their farms.

Democrats are seen as “pro-abortion,” “pro-homosexual” and “evil.” …

Winston’s three-dimensional treatment of people whose ideas may seem insane to those with Bay Area sensibilities is a plus; the humanity hooks us…

You can read the entire review here.

Roger Ebert just named his Ten Best Documentaries of the year, and “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” made the list!  Of course all of us who made the movie are thrilled and honored.  (His original review is here.)  Ebert is quick to note, though, that like a lot of his favorite docs, very few people have seen ours yet:

Some of the best documentaries of 2009 hardly seemed to exist. “What’s the matter with Kansas,” based on a best-seller, is still awaiting its fifth vote at IMDb. “The Beaches of Agnes,” a luminous film by the New Wave pioneer Agnes Varda, grossed $127,605. “Of Time and the City,” by a great British director, grossed $32,000. “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” a hit in terms of buzz and critical reception, brought in $666,659. “Tyson,” $827, 046.

Such figures come from IMDb, which may be wrong, but if it’s $1 million off, we’re still not talking big numbers. What we’re really talking about is eyeballs, or, as old Jewish exhibitors used to ask, “how many toochis on the seats?” The audiences for these films were found first at film festivals, and will now be found on DVD and video on demand. None of them played more than one theater in Chicago — five of them at Facets. Yet I take heart from the comments after my earlier list of the year’s best feature films.

Can we spare a vote on IMDB, faithful readers?

The Staff of Larryville of Lawrence, KS made it to a recent screening at Liberty Hall, and “armed with popcorn and beer” took a reflective journey into the politics of their home state.  We feel that they may have found the heart of the movie, as they conclude:

The character selection in this documentary showed some real genius.  As often as one may cringe, there is cheering at the mindsets more similar.  Regardless of what one may or may not choose politically, one still has to stand back and admire the conviction.

Some of the genius in the film is subtle.  When the camera crew interviews Angel, she sits at her table and says grace with her children.  Looked closely and you will notice she sits a place at the table for the entire crew.  Visit someone in Kansas and you are going to get fed.  Food gets grown, raised, prepared, and shared in Kansas.  Donn Teske would understand if he were to hear anyone in Kansas say there is a worship of food here that is not understood in New York, NY.

The film then goes on to talk about Kansas political history.  The largest socialist newspaper was founded and located in Kansas.  History included a strong population of the left-wing Populist movement.  People in Kansas were considered radical in Washington D.C.  So what changed?

The political climate changed.  Religion and “family values” began to affect the ticket.  Abortion and gay rights become issues.  People originally comfortable allowing politics to happen around them, suddenly felt a calling to get involved.  Churches began to preach of making change happen and began to direct congregations on how to vote.  The churches led the way and the people followed.

They followed and then they began to lead.  They began filling up local election ballots without opposition.  They ran and won uncontested political leadership seats.  From there, momentum grew and they filled county seats and state seats.

In short, what is wrong with Kansas is people got involved.  One may not agree with the viewpoint or the beliefs, but they got involved and stayed involved.  They wanted change. They wanted their family values, their family values and had the determination and passion necessary to bring about change.  There is a powerful and courageous statement in that.

Maybe it is time for the rest of us to get involved.

Read the entire review here.