The power of suds

>> Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox tells the
amazing story of an unlikely beauty
product and a countercultural icon

by MARK SLUTSKY

“More good is caused by evil than by good, do what’s right! Enlarge the positive! Replace the negative with the Moral ABC’s ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH, that lightning-like unites the Human race! FOR WE’RE ALL ONE OR WE’RE NONE! ‘LISTEN CHILDREN ETERNAL FATHER ETERNALLY ONE!’ WE’RE ALL ONE OR NONE! EXCEPTIONS ETERNALLY? NONE!!

“Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don’t Drink Soap!

“Dilute! Dilute!”

If the text above sounds familiar, you’re probably acquainted with Dr. Bronner’s Magic 18-in-1 Peppermint Pure-Castile Soap. The distinctive bottle, with its blue labels crammed with religious writings and washing instructions, has become a strange countercultural icon since they were originally produced in the 1950s.

It would be hard for the story behind the soap to live up to the strange and wonderful text on the label, but if anything, it’s weirder than the bottle’s invocations of the ALL-ONE-GOD-FAITH. A German emigré, Dr. Emanuel Bronner (1908–1997) was third in a line of Jewish soap makers. In his adopted home of the United States, he would be imprisoned in an asylum, from which he would escape, later to go blind and start a multi-million-dollar business based on his particular brand of unification-minded theology.

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox is a new documentary by director Sara Lamm that tells the story of the master soap-maker, largely through the eyes of his son Ralph, now in his 70s. “I was living in New York, and I was doing a lot of performance pieces drawing on found texts that weren’t necessarily meant to be put on stage,” Lamm explains over the phone from Los Angeles. “That’s how I came to stage a piece based on the soap label. And I wrote to the company, not really dreaming that I would get a response, but I explained what I was doing and asked if they would donate soap to the theatre. Not only did I get soap, but I got personal phone calls from Ralph Bronner, and lots of literature, and we established a relationship that was solidified after 9/11 when Ralph called and asked if I would take some soap personally down to Ground Zero.”

Buddha, Jesus and Thomas Edison

Over the phone from Milwaukee, Ralph Bronner’s excitement and enthusiasm is palpable. About the famous label, and, well, lots more, he says, “You can put in that there are a total of 30,000 words spread across our labels—200 there, 1,000 there, from Buddha, Jesus, Mother Theresa, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Chief Seattle and so on and so on. I was typing these labels in the ’50s and ’60s and I told Dad, ‘Nobody’s gonna read this crap!’ I love telling people my father was not a doctor. He did not have a doctor’s degree. I’m proud of that—he never set foot in a university and here he is making a better soap than any of the biochemical doctorates pouring out chemical crap for the corporations.

SOAPY SCION: Ralph Bronner

“He took the title because he knew he was making a better soap, and he had a master soap maker’s degree that he got the hard way. From making soap! So when it comes to that label and its effect, it’s incredible how wrong I was in telling Dad ‘Nobody’s gonna read this crap!’ Which today, in your universities, in marketing classes, they still wouldn’t say a brilliant idea for your toothpaste is to put 30,000 words from all the world’s philosophies on your product! So what happened? The people reading that label know and feel the sincerity of my father.”

“Dr. Bronner’s central premise is that we have to unite ourselves if we want to keep from killing ourselves,” Lamm explains. “I would say that a lot of it has to do with teaching us to be responsible as individuals, responsible for our own lives and working hard not to just help ourselves, but to help other people. That’s the sort of ‘sane’ version of what it is [laughs]. It can be challenging to understand.”

Dr. Bronner’s mission to improve the world is reflected in the company’s generous philanthropy—they give away around 70 per cent of their profits—and its all-organic, hemp-fuelled, fair-trade practices. “They’re pretty extraordinary in terms of their social responsibility,” Lamm says.

Ralph explains his father’s mission with a story. “He was raised in Hilburn, Germany by rich Jewish parents. He was four years old, and one day some bullies chased him home. They trapped him in an alley and threw a bucket of piss on him and shouted, ‘You goddamned Jew!’ And he goes home stinking of urine, sobbing and saying to his mother, ‘What is this?’ and she says, ‘Forget it, forget it,’ and she cleans it up. And he never forgot it. His goal was to get the world to see us as all children of the same god, brothers and sisters, and you don’t kill your brother or sister. Isn’t that beautifully simple?

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox shows on
Sunday, Oct. 7 at 4 p.m. at the Portuguese
Association (4170 St-Urbain). Ralph Bronner
will be on hand to answer questions about
his father, play music and dispense soap.

Cue the music, run film

Pop Montreal’s “film festival buddy” returns this year with a strong mix of docs, shorts, special guests and live events that mix up music and the magic of the movies. One of the fest’s most exciting events is a screening of the Maysles brothers’ documentary classic Grey Gardens, on Saturday, Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m. at Concordia’s H-110 amphitheatre, followed by a Q&A session with director Albert Maysles himself. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing the venerable filmmaker in person before, you’ll know he’s a terrific speaker—charming, voluble and generous. What’s more, Maysles will be conducting a three-hour master class that same day from 2:30–5:30 p.m. at Tanna Schulich Hall (527 Sherbrooke W.), which is not to be missed. Make sure you RSVP to maysles@popmontreal.com in advance if you want to get in, though, as admittance is limited.

In the spirit of the rest of the fest, rock (and rap) docs are well represented at Film Pop this year. Girls Rock! is a documentary by Shane King and Arne Johnson about the kids who come from all over the world to attend Oregon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. The movie, which screens Saturday, Oct. 6 at 8 p.m., will be followed by a concert by Kickers and Pony Up!

Booker Sim’s Tragedy: The Story of Queensbridge tells the story of the New York public housing project, the largest in the U.S., an area made famous by the rappers who emerged from it: Nas, Mobb Deep, Marley Marl and CNN, to name a few. But the movie’s a portrait of a less-known talent: Tragedy, a rapper who never quite made it, but was still there to see rap history unfold all around him. The movie screens on Friday, Oct. 5 at 7 p.m.

Before he made The Devil and Daniel Johnston, filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig directed Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King, a cult doc about the brothers Fair, Jad and David. The film screens on Thursday, Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. and is preceded by two shorts: Do You Believe in Rapture?, Braden King’s Super-8 film of Sonic Youth’s last CBGB show and Josh Raskin’s I Met the Walrus, based on the true story of a kid who snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in 1969, and featuring drawings by Montreal’s James Braithwaite. After the movie, Half Japanese themselves will play a show (for an extra $20–$25 ticket), and be sure not to miss Jad Fair’s art show at the Portuguese Association, running Oct. 3–7.

There’s tons more—shorts, music videos, animations—but two events in particular merit a mention. This year sees the second edition of Making Music With the National Film Board, in which local filmmakers team up with local musicians to make collaborative short films. Participants this year on the music side include CPC Gangbangs, Alden Penner and Matt Fuzz among others. That’s on Sunday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.

Anyone who saw former Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas last year at the Film Pop, when he performed an amazing live score for Henrik Galeen and Paul Wegener’s 1915 silent classic Der Golem, will definitely want to check out his Sounds of the Surreal show on Sunday, Oct. 7 at 9 p.m. Lucas will be playing along to Surrealist classics like Rene Clair’s Entr’acte and Fernand Leger’s Ballet Mechanique, as well as a piece called Monsters of the Id incorporating clips from movies like Rosemary’s Baby, Mothra and Black Sunday.

Apart from the Maysles, all other Film Pop
events will take place at the Portuguese Association
(4170 St-Urbain), save for a selection of shorts
that will screen at the Puces Pop fair around
the corner, 4171 de l’Esplanade Friday and Saturday
afternoon. For more info see popmontreal.com/film

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