“For years,” said President Spencer W. Kimball of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in remarks published in July 1977 titled “The Gospel Vision of the Arts,” “I have been waiting for someone to do justice in recording in song and story and painting and sculpture to the story of the Restoration, the reestablishment of the kingdom of God on earth, the struggles and frustrations; the apostasies and inner revolutions and counter-revolutions of those first decades; of the exodus; of the counter-reactions; of the transitions; of the persecution days; of the miracle man, Joseph Smith … and of the giant colonizer and builder, Brigham Young.”

Continuing, President Kimball said, “We are proud of the artistic heritage that the church has brought to us from its earliest beginnings, but the full story of Mormonism has never yet been written nor painted nor sculpted nor spoken. It remains for inspired hearts and talented fingers yet to reveal themselves. They must be faithful, inspired, active church members to give life and feeling and true perspective to a subject so worthy.”

Specifically, he called upon “our writers, our motion picture specialists,” to work “with the inspiration of heaven” in order to fulfill the mission to which he summoned them.

With the recent completion of the Lee Groberg/Mark Goodman film “Joseph Smith, American Prophet” (a virtually total revision of a similarly titled 1999 effort), Latter-day Saint filmmaking takes a significant step toward beginning to meet President Kimball’s challenge. Featuring interviews with both LDS and non-LDS scholars as well as LDS Church leaders, “American Prophet” — which will begin to appear on PBS television stations in October — adopts a balanced approach to its subject. But Joseph emerges impressive nonetheless.

For example, the prize-winning historian Robert Remini (d. 2013), biographer of Andrew Jackson as well as of John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster and, in 2002, Joseph Smith, expressly identifies himself as a non-believer. But then he adds, “Look what he did. Is one human being capable of doing this, without divine help and intervention?”

Josiah Quincy (d. 1864), former Congressman and mayor of Boston, was the president of Harvard University when he visited Nauvoo, Illinois. Years later, he reflected on that experience in a book titled “Figures of the Past”:

“It is by no means improbable,” he wrote in words cited in the film, “that some future textbook, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the 19th century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High, — such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets.”

“I feel,” said Brigham Young in 1855, “like shouting, hallelujah, all the time, when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith, the Prophet whom the Lord raised up and ordained.”

According to Joseph Smith-History 1:33, the angel Moroni told the young Joseph “that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.”

That prophecy has already come true in a remarkable manner. But it’s vitally important that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continue to use every available instrument, including the powerful medium of film, to tell the story of Joseph Smith and the Restoration.

Richard Wagner, the great German operatic composer, sought to create what he called a “Gesamtkunstwerk,” a “total work of art,” powerfully combining narrative, visual design, and music. He would have loved film. And so should Latter-day Saints seeking to exhibit and commend the gospel.

In his remarks, President Kimball quotes the American architect Daniel Burnham: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high and hope and work.”

For more about “Joseph Smith, American Prophet,” including where it will be broadcast, see josephsmithamericanprophet.com, on Facebook at facebook.com/Joseph-Smith-American-Prophet-127535557872204/ or on Twitter at LGrobergFilms.