Bill Hicks was one of my favorite comedians. One of his pieces goes like this:
Have you ever noticed that people who don’t believe in evolution look really unevolved? They say “I buh-lieve Gawd made me in seven days.”, and I always think “Yeeeeah. It looks like he rushed it.”
In that spirit, I was beside myself with excitement to read this in last Sunday’s comics:
The vote is in: I was mesmorized by John Amiel’s Creation. I mean sure, I may be guilty of liking the movie because I wanted to like it. And certainly, the dragged-to-the-movie-by-his-woman dude in front of us who fell asleep and started snoring (followed quickly by being elbowed in the gut by the aforementioned lady-friend), may disagree with my assessment of the movie. But, the music was haunting, the set and camera work was beautiful, and as predicted in my earlier post, I cried.
Below are a list of my personal take-homes:
Note: These are my thoughts from the movie. I haven’t read Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution or Emma Darwin’s diaries, so I’m not going to attempt to draw a line between the movie and actual events.
1) “What’s popular isn’t always right, and what’s right isn’t always popular”. This is a well-known aphorism, but Creation did an excellent job of showing us what it might be like to actually be put in this position. However, in the movie Darwin appears to be swayed more by his wife’s reluctance for him to publish Origin, than by any external, peer criticism. It would have been interesting to have seen the academic push-back that was alluded to by the Joseph Hooker character (paraphrase: “you have many enemies, but you also have friends, Charles”)
2) Losing a family member sucks, and it’s really too bad that Darwin didn’t have access to modern psychotherapy.
3) Hydrotherapy was a crock back then, too.
3) If you can convince a theist to read a good book on evolution, they can’t help but “see the light”. Oh sure, maybe Emma didn’t burn the manuscript because it was the culmination of twenty years of her lover’s work and life…but I prefer to believe she was swayed by the evidence Darwin presented.
4) It’s a wonder On the Origin of Species made it to the publisher. Seriously, the scariest moment of that whole movie for me was when Darwin tossed the papers – wrapped in brown packaging paper – on the back of the open-air horse-drawn mail carrier. Did he back up his work? I didn’t see any photocopies of Origin laying around! What if it had rained? Agh!
I knew going into the movie that it was going to mostly be focused on Charles Darwin’s relationship with his wife, Emma and daughter, Annie. But as I hinted above, I would have liked to have seen more of the public drama surrounding the publication of the book. So, whenever John Amiel gets around to making the sequel, I’m sooo there.
All in all, Creation was a very good movie, and I’d see it again. But next time I’ll remember to bring Kleenex.
The vote is in: I was mesmorized by John Amiel’s Creation. I mean sure, I may be guilty of liking the movie because I wanted to like it. And certainly, the dragged-to-the-movie-by-his-woman dude in front of us who fell asleep and started snoring (followed quickly by being elbowed in the gut by the aforementioned lady-friend), may disagree with my assessment of the movie. But, the music was haunting, the set and camera work was beautiful, and as predicted in my earlier post, I cried.
Below are a list of my personal take-homes:
Note: These are my thoughts from the movie. I haven’t read Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution or Emma Darwin’s diaries, so I’m not going to attempt to draw a line between the movie and actual events.
1) “What’s popular isn’t always right, and what’s right isn’t always popular”. This is a well-known aphorism, but Creation did an excellent job of showing us what it might be like to actually be put in this position. However, in the movie Darwin appears to be swayed more by his wife’s reluctance for him to publish Origin, than by any external, peer criticism. It would have been interesting to have seen the academic push-back that was alluded to by the Joseph Hooker character (paraphrase: “you have many enemies, but you also have friends, Charles”)
2) Losing a family member sucks, and it’s really too bad that Darwin didn’t have access to modern psychotherapy.
3) Hydrotherapy was a crock back then, too.
3) If you can convince a theist to read a good book on evolution, they can’t help but “see the light”. Oh sure, maybe Emma didn’t burn the manuscript because it was the culmination of twenty years of her lover’s work and life…but I prefer to believe she was swayed by the evidence Darwin presented.
4) It’s a wonder On the Origin of Species made it to the publisher. Seriously, the scariest moment of that whole movie for me was when Darwin tossed the papers – wrapped in brown packaging paper – on the back of the open-air horse-drawn mail carrier. Did he back up his work? I didn’t see any photocopies of Origin laying around! What if it had rained? Agh!
I knew going into the movie that it was going to mostly be focused on Charles Darwin’s relationship with his wife, Emma and daughter, Annie. But as I hinted above, I would have liked to have seen more of the public drama surrounding the publication of the book. So, whenever John Amiel gets around to making the sequel, I’m sooo there.
All in all, Creation was a very good movie, and I’d see it again. But next time I’ll remember to bring Kleenex.
I am so thrilled to be seeing Creation tonight. Darwin, Evolution, Paul Bettaney, Jennifer Connelly – hooray! Oooo…the previews look great. I think I’m going to need kleenex for this one; what little I head of the musical score was haunting and giving me that tight chest, breathless feeling. I’m a big crybaby sucker when it comes to dramas, though.
I heard Richard Dawkins giving his thoughts about Creation on Freethought Radio podcast (2/6/10), and was interested to hear him disagree with what appears to some of the main elements of the movie – namely, the degree of tension between Darwin and his wife, Emma, and the portrayal of Thomas Huxley. Others reviewers have questioned the reality of the over-the-top anguish and inner turmoil about the existence of god that has been written into the Darwin character, as Darwin was raised in a manner that allowed allowed him to critically analyze religion.
Creation is based on Randal Keynes’ book, Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution, which tells the story of the years Darwin spent writing On the Origin of Species. There’s another trip to the bookstore! I also want to pick up Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith, and maybe reread Michael Keller’s On The Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation *sigh* I should just have my paychecks delivered to Barnes and Noble and save myself some effort.
I am so thrilled to be seeing Creation tonight. Darwin, Evolution, Paul Bettaney, Jennifer Connelly – hooray! Oooo…the previews look great. I think I’m going to need kleenex for this one; what little I head of the musical score was haunting and giving me that tight chest, breathless feeling. I’m a big crybaby sucker when it comes to dramas, though.
I heard Richard Dawkins giving his thoughts about Creation on Freethought Radio podcast (2/6/10), and was interested to hear him disagree with what appears to some of the main elements of the movie – namely, the degree of tension between Darwin and his wife, Emma, and the portrayal of Thomas Huxley. Others reviewers have questioned the reality of the over-the-top anguish and inner turmoil about the existence of god that has been written into the Darwin character, as Darwin was raised in a manner that allowed allowed him to critically analyze religion.
Creation is based on Randal Keynes’ book, Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution, which tells the story of the years Darwin spent writing On the Origin of Species. There’s another trip to the bookstore! I also want to pick up Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith, and maybe reread Michael Keller’s On The Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation *sigh* I should just have my paychecks delivered to Barnes and Noble and save myself some effort.
I was running through my blogroll and website lists, and found a neat story on NCSE’s website about a new batch of photographs from the Scopes Trial (aka: the Scopes Monkey Trial). Scopes vs. The State of Tennessee was a trial that contested a law banning the teaching of evolution.
The photos are amazing because they help us visualize the trial and what it was like during that time in our history. In the flickr photo album, many people have commented on the pics, and it’s fun to read what other viewers are getting from the pictures. Each picture is also accompanied by captions that identify the people, places and historical relevance captured by the photograph.
The photos also provide further documentation of this historic event. I really like this comment from Marcel Chotkowski LaFollette, a historian quoted by NCSE, who said of the pictures, “…they infuse action into the official trial transcript and reveal faces from different angles, famous celebrities and ordinary visitors alike, all captured in the moment, fascinated with the trial.”
This was a fascinating trial in 1925, and it continues to fuel our imagination and wonder to this day. I mean, this was an incredible victory for evolution, and it helped illuminate issues such as the importance of teaching science, and the necessity of separation of church and state! How can we not be excited to remember this event?
To view the photos, visit the Smithsonian Institute on Flickr.
I was a-feared when I first saw the title of this movie on the NCSE website, but the trailer looks good, and NCSE’s write-up is encouraging.
