Monday, July 7, 2008 at 4:33PM 'Bloodline' Director Bruce Burgess Talks About His Controversial New Documentary
My first exposure to the work of documentary filmmaker Bruce Burgess was when Bigfootville aired on cable last fall. Yes, it’s exactly what you think it is: Tracking Bigfoot through rural southern Oklahoma. Being from Oklahoma, I was fascinated by the subject because I never heard anyone talk about seeing Bigfoot the whole time I lived there. In fact, the opening scene in the film takes place in the stultifying, provincial little hamlet where I went to college.
Since Bigfootville, Burgess has covered topics as varied as UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Holy Grail. Yes, he’s a modern Indiana Jones. Or a real life Robert Langdon.
Burgess’ new film, Bloodline, follows the clues in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, clues that have been in the mainstream if not in the mainstream thought for many years. Spending three years searching for some hint of proof of a bloodline that extends from Jesus through Mary Magdalene – thought to be his wife in this scenario – and down to their descendants, Burgess has uncovered some pretty startling things in the south of France. But is any of it true? The Big Picture conducted its own investigation with Bruce Burgess.
A lot of people will look at this film and see that you made Bigfootville and come to the conclusion that you’re just a crackpot trying to prove that every conspiracy theory is correct.
Here’s the thing: I get accused of that nearly every day - “Bloodline can’t be real because it’s the guy that went after Bigfoot and UFOs.” The reality is that I have a passionate interest in unexplained mysteries and the paranormal and I try to deal with each one as I find them.
So, yes, the legend of Bigfoot and UFOs is that they’re seen by – excuse the term – redneck Americans who are idiots and don’t know anything and that’s why they’re seeing things that can’t possibly exist. That’s the story with the big city intelligentsia.
But when I hit the ground in rural Oklahoma and when I hit the ground looking for UFOs, you find something very, very different. You find people that are often very stigmatized by the experience. In the case of the Bigfoot findings, there were policemen, a sheriff, doctors, high school football coaches, all of whom didn’t want to talk to us because they were worried about being labeled as kooks. And when you find someone and you take the time to get to know them, you find a different story.
And that’s very similar to Bloodline in that, on the face of it, it’s a fantastical idea that [Jesus and Mary Magdalene] were married, had children, and the church had lied about it for so long. And yet, when I did the investigation, all I kept on turning up were questions about the doctrine and archaeological facts, which actually did add up. And I think there’s a difference between armchair critics who dismiss any new discoveries or investigations into these subjects as nonsense that can’t possibly be true, compared to people like me who actually do get on the ground and do the work to actually meet these people. When you do that – when you eyeball them and you’re face to face with them – the truth is often very different to what’s portrayed in the media.
God is probably not too pleased right now. For one
thing, he's got George W. Bush as His most prominent soldier, an embarrassing
bungler if ever there was one. Yep, there's no doubt the Big Guy shakes his head in disbelief whenever W. opens his mouth to honor Him.
And this year, there's no seventh day set aside for rest. Nope, in 2008, He's got to deal with scathing criticism
from documentary filmmakers - like He's got time for unwashed documentary filmmakers. He's got George Bush's messes to clean up!
More famous is the investigation into religion by
