‘Love Has Won’ Director Hannah Olson on Making Her HBO Documentary

The 3-part documentary Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God (streaming now on Max) isn’t your conventional cult fare. In lieu than the common parade of upset former participants taking a look again on the wreckage, the gardens of the line are very a lot within the thick of it. Director Hannah Olson attached with the participants of a bunch known as Love Has Gained only a few weeks later the dying in their chief, Amy Carlson, a girl who declared herself to be God. Thru interviews together with her devotees, snippets pulled from the 1000’s of hours of Love Has Gained YouTube movies and stay streams, police frame digital camera pictures and extra, Olson paints a searing and unsettling portrait of a selected slice of American future. At the heels of the finale’s reduce, W spoke with Olson about how she controlled to put together probably the most maximum stunning tv you’ll ever see, with out being sensational or exploitative.

What drew you to the tale of Love Has Gained?

What drew me in used to be that it used to be a cult tale that still felt like a whodunit. What we generally see with cult tales is one charismatic male chief accumulating fans, and later the cult implodes as a result of one of the vital vices of that male chief—generally intercourse, cash, or energy. With this tale, I couldn’t inform who used to be in fee. And the photographs of Amy Carlson that have been revealed later her dying haunted me. I in fact puzzled how that destiny may befall somebody. How may she in all probability walk from being a mom of 3 youngsters and a McDonald’s supervisor to being a mummified cult chief?

How did you first pay attention concerning the team?

I said to a pristine future student at UT Austin. I used to be all in favour of how the Web used to be contributing to the breakdown of consensus truth, politically, and in the way it used to be going down in smaller microcosms. The questions I used to be asking concerning the dating between magnificence and the Web and truth led me to this group. I wasn’t at the seek for a cult movie, in keeping with se. The cult movie is one of these style with a selected arc, and this felt other.

The gang used to be a cult by means of dictionary definition, however as you discussed, there used to be a batch of bypass from that norm. There’s generally a component of regulate and secrecy, however those population have been live-streaming the whole thing they have been doing, and it sort of feels like they may come and walk as they happy, to some degree. Why do you suppose population caught round, and why did Amy’s message resonate so strongly with them?

I feel she empowered population to put together sense of an steadily truth. In the US, we’ve an concept that you’ll heal social ills with a sense or enough quantity strength of will. She empowered prone population with a framework for that, and it’s a actually sexy framework. I feel population caught round for 2 causes. One is that the population in Love Has Gained actually pooled their budget, and if you happen to’ve given cash to one thing, it’s dry to get out since you don’t have anyplace to walk.

The alternative is that they’d created a crowd. I feel a batch about the type of social communities that mode round dependancy or population who’re gravely unwell. If you happen to’ve ever looked after somebody who’s loss of life, it will possibly really feel such as you’re in a spaceship. I feel that used to be additionally at play games right here. However maximum of all, while you’ve determined on one thing in future, whether or not it’s a dating or a profession or, on this case, a cult, it’s very dry to modify.

You have been doing interviews with the member of “the team,” as they known as themselves, handiest a few weeks later Amy’s dying. How did you to start with get in contact with them and have been they in any respect resistant to talk?

I met with the gang 3 weeks later the invention of Amy’s frame. They have been very detectable with me as a result of a part of Amy’s project as they noticed it used to be the disclosure of the reality as they perceived it. They noticed the sharing in their movies, images, diaries and reviews as an extension of that project. And to start with, presen I discovered a few of their ideals to be very outdoor of the field—absurd, even—I discovered the social instances that introduced them to the gang to be eminently relatable. And so I met them from a park of empathy. And I additionally used to be cautious to be respectful of the best way that they have been the use of language, and I known as them the names that they requested me to name them. I simply met them the place they have been.

Staring at the line, it sort of feels like a few of them did ultimately loose that international at the back of and reconnect with their households within the date it took to finish filming. Used to be it tough to appear again at that previous pictures understanding they’d modified since?

The population in Love has Gained proceed to consider that Amy Carlson used to be God. And even though their social worlds glance a tiny other now, they very a lot nonetheless consider that there used to be one thing very tough about Amy. In many ways, I used to be looking forward to that generation of them going from being throughout the trust device to outdoor of it, and it didn’t come.

You’ve spoken in earlier interviews about how the luck and attraction of the gang are a illustration of the failure of the American dream, and specifically of the American healthcare device. Are you able to communicate a tiny bit extra about that?

Smartly, a batch of population within the team believed in obese pharma conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories can also be very bad after they veer into bigoted ideas or trust techniques that later proliferate on-line. However on the identical date, a batch of population inside Love has Gained had firsthand or familial revel in with the opioid epidemic. El Moyra’s father used to be prescribed Oxycontin and later ended up loss of life. Andrew, who used to be one of the vital Father Gods, used to be himself seeking to get well from an opioid dependancy. Particularly when it comes to opioids, it’s really easy to tie the dots between obese pharma and the federal government and the rarity of sources for population affected by dependancy. It’s more straightforward to consider that there’s some conspiracy at play games in lieu than the chilly details of capitalism.

And but there used to be a capitalist streak to the gang. They have been surrounded by means of such a lot stuff. It used to be the cultured of spirituality filtered thru an Amazon lens.

The entire thing felt extraordinarily American to me. Audience are discovering the fame devotion component to be actually humorous. However celebrities are the American deities. Consumerism and famous person devotion are without a doubt part of the dogma of the gang, I feel.

There’s additionally an enchanting generational string within the line. Amy used to be tapping into this concept of Millennial malaise and disillusionment, however later her kids, who’re Gen Z, appeared so clear-eyed about the entire thing. It made me really feel like Gen Z is best supplied to deal with the truth that we’re in than Millennials are.

I used to be considering a batch about my while after I began taking a look into this tale. I used to be attempting to attract the form between the Y2K generation, once we learned hastily that our lives had change into join to computer systems, and the Trump age and the best way that the Web fragments consensus truth. We make a choice our personal trail at the Web, subsequently we make a choice our personal truth. The population in Love Has Gained spoke a batch about 9/11 and the 2008 loan catastrophe and the beginning of social media. For Millennials, the ones 3 occasions going down in our early life and early maturity formed and upset a while. Gen Z turns out more fit on social media than Millennials do, as a result of we keep in mind future with out it. We’ve got a dopamine collision dating with it. So it will possibly really feel like an dependancy actually briefly for Millennials. While the Gen Z youngsters, it’s extra like a brochure that used to be all the time there. However I feel Amy’s youngsters even have had a few years to procedure Amy’s absence and are just right, ingenious, and well-adjusted youngsters due to the population who raised them.

You worn a batch of pictures and audio from police frame cameras. One among portions that stood out to me used to be a dialog between an officer and El Moyra, the place the officer says one thing alongside the traces of, “Not to be insulting, but you seem like an intelligent young man.” And El Moyra responds, “And now I’m here.” That type of summed up all of the mission.

Pace can exchange instantly. We’re one shock clear of making choices we by no means concept we’d. That’s the facility of an Web wormhole that may deliver you into a fully trade truth.

Some of the extra mischievous characters within the line, and possibly probably the most secret, is Miguel, or Michael. You didn’t have get admission to to him, however his movements appear to indicate that he maintained a point of distance from the gang all alongside.

My storytelling rule used to be that until you’re there, you don’t get to discuss it. I used to be very cautious on this line, as a result of the delicate nature of the fabric, not to speculate about anything else and to just come with issues within the line that I used to be completely positive have been true. With Michael, I noticed he used to be the person who had known as the police; I watched the frame digital camera pictures of him within the Saguache County Sheriff’s Administrative center. As I began poring throughout the 2,700 YouTube movies, I noticed him as one among Amy’s first actual fans, and later upcoming discovered that the accounts have been in his title. So the ones are the details—however what Michael believes or doesn’t, I don’t know. He declined to take part within the line.

Do you believe the line to be a cautionary story?

I feel that the human mind is skilled to devotion, and you want to watch out what you devotion. On occasion the form between the escapism that we so steadily worker with dependancy and the escapism that we will in finding at the Web is perhaps extra direct than we expect.