According to legend, Jim Baker was an amateur bodybuilder. During his stint in the Marines during WWII, he apparently shot down 13 Japanese fighter planes single handedly as his boat was sinking. After the war, it is said, he challenged “Argentina Bill,” the world heavyweight jujitsu champion, to a fight and took him out in 17 seconds. Later, according to stories, after an altercation involving a dog he was taking care of, Baker killed his neighbor with several swift judo chops. There have been whispers of an illicit scandal with a famous television actress, which may or may not have ended badly.
But the most amazing part of Jim Baker’s legend is his transformation into Father Yod, health-food guru and spiritual leader of the disenfranchised youth. This final act of a remarkable life is the subject of a new documentary, “The Source Family,” premiering at New York’s IFC Center on May 1. Featuring interviews with many of Father Yod’s followers, the film traces the origins of the group, who lived together in a Hollywood Hills mansion until, due to local pressure, they escaped to Hawaii before their dramatic demise.
“We wanted to tell the story as much as possible from the family’s point of view,” co-director Jodi Wille said in a phone conversation with ARTINFO. “We wanted to show a dynamic range of experiences and then leave it up to the viewer to interpret that information themselves.”
Father Yod was known in Los Angeles through the Source, a legendary health food restaurant that was visited by famous clientele who, at least for a little while, wanted to see what all this turning on, tuning in, and dropping out was all about: Steve McQueen was said to have frequented the restaurant, and was reportedly a friend of Baker’s; the actor Donald Sutherland was said to have been another regular customer; and Woody Allen made fun of the restaurant in a famous scene in “Annie Hall.”
Wille discovered the Family through their music. The group, under a number of different names, made dozens of recordings, long lost artifacts of psychedelic rock that have traded hands on the collector’s market for years. Father Yod took center stage on these records and in their performances in the Los Angeles area, chanting, screaming, and banging a drum while the Family trudged along behind him.
After years of picking up bits of information from various sources, Wille got in contact with Isis Aquarian, a member of the Family who was appointed historian and archivist by Yod, with the plan to pitch to them the idea of doing a book. It turns out, they were already working on one.
With the help of Isis, Wille put together “The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWa13, and the Source Family,” released by Process Books. Filled with original photographs, documents, and remembrances from former Family members, the book is an essential piece of counterculture history. A cult of beautiful people in the Hollywood Hills who ran a health-food restaurant, wore white flowing robes, and were led by a charismatic huckster who had 14 “spiritual” wives and drove a Rolls Royce? It’s practically begging to be made into a movie. “I realized a documentary totally had to be made,” Wille said, “and if I didn’t do it, somebody else would.”
The challenge the filmmakers faced was in creating an accurate portrait of the Family that was realistic from the perspective of those inside the group but also truthful about Father Yod’s life, warts and all, without making a mockery of its subject.
“You can’t just have the light, you have to have the dark to have balance,” co-director Maria Demopoulos said. “The lucky thing is that Father Yod didn’t hide anything from the Family. He took those experiences, like when he killed the man with his bare hands, or the bank robbery, and turned them into wisdom teachings. He was this unique teacher, in that he wasn’t just preaching to people, saying do this or do that, he was saying this is what happened to me in my life, and here’s some wisdom that I got from it.”
So far, the response to the film has been positive, and, according to the directors, people are drawn to the Source Family and the ideas behind the group more than ever. “It has a lot to do with how people are dissatisfied right now with the dominant paradigm,” Wille said. “They’re dissatisfied with consumer culture, things seem to be falling apart, quite similar to the environment the Source Family and other cults from that period grew from.”
But the biggest surprise, according to the filmmakers, has been the response from the Family members themselves, who not only support the film but are using the experience to reconnect with old friends, many of whom they knew nothing about during their time together decades ago. Although many of them are living lives far removed from their time as members of one of the grooviest cults to have ever existed, Willie is amazed to keep hearing the same thing, over and over.
“I would absolutely do it again.”