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The Oscar-winning producer of a celebrated biopic about Charles Darwin says that the reason his movie -- which is being shown all around the world -- can't find a US distributor is that evolution is still too controversial in the USA.
US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution...Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America' (Thanks, Fef!)Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.
The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".
Previously:
- Charles Darwin/Fairey/Obama "CHANGE" graphics - Boing Boing
- Why Darwin Would Have Loved Botox - Boing Boing
- Boing Boing: Darwin's "Origin of Species": free audiobook
- Boing Boing: Charles Darwin apparition in a tree
- Richard Dawkins reads Darwin's "Origin of Species" - Boing Boing
- Darwin stickers - Boing Boing
- Darwin's tortoise dead at 176 - Boing Boing
- Darwin's tortoise dead at 176 - Boing Boing
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Hmm, the AV Club gave it a rather poor review (grade "C"):
"for the most part Creation is Biopic 101, earnest and over-explained. It’s the kind of movie in which characters have to tell each other how important what’s happening is, just in case we in the audience have never heard of The Origin Of The Species. It’s also the kind of movie that takes the life and work of a major historical figure and reduces it to something pathetically small—in this case Darwin’s relationship with his wife and kids."
http://www.avclub.com/articles/toronto-film-festival-09-day-1,32766/
What's to say really? We live in the most prosperous and advanced country in world history yet we still disagree on things as basic as evolution. It's tragic. Sounds like a good movie though. I would have liked to watch it.
You would think they would find movies about the occult and Satanic possession equally controversial, but those get made all the time; no problem. I guess even Creationists know deep in their hearts that that stuff isn't real.
This just strikes me as absurd.
Yet where are the grumbles from the fundamentalists whenever there is a movie with over the top violence? Pornography made overseas finds its way over here, though usually for home consumption only.
I'm a Christian, an Anglican/Catholic, and I have no problem whatsoever accepting evolution as fact. Much of the Bible is allegorical, yet these folk tend to believe more what they are told by their ministers and their own literal interpretations, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. They truly are "the flock".
Maybe if the movie had more explosions...
His work was ground breaking and exciting, he himself was probably the most boring individual to ever live.
re: #1
...or maybe it's a lousy film.
Ok, movie sounds a bit contrite and boring; but how Pafuckingthetic that the wing nuts have that much power.
This is just ridiculous. We mustn't subject the fundies to cognitive dissonance, it's not good for business. Can we now all do a chorus of "If I Only Had A Brain"? AAAHHHRRRGGGGG.
When the hell did Movieguide become a mainstream yardstick by which we measure our culture's mores and worldview? Consider the source, for Pete's sake! I damn sure don't think there's a cabal of creationists trying to filter our entertainment choices because of doctrinal quibbles (I thought that was the work of the Bush administration? at least, that was the excuse in years past). Sounds more like, in the void left by a religious right-wing administration, we've just gotta find us some new Christian boogeymen.
I'm sure some people find it absolutely appalling that there could be people out there who think the universe might have been created; I don't really think a difference of opinion is a bad thing.
Besides, a movie being about Darwin and evolution doesn't automatically make it "celebrated"- I'm having a difficult time finding any real ticker-tape this movie generated.
It could just be a bad movie.
But, with all this buzz maybe it will cause a distributor to buy it.
#10- I tend to think that's more the point of articles like this one. Darn those pesky Christians and their shadow-government of people who wanna spoil yer good time! I'm not even a Christian and it makes me laugh. Now *that* would be an entertaining movie...
It's weird that whenever I hear about a group of Christians disagreeing with something because it generally goes against their moral values, it always seems to be because of how horribly uneducated they are.
For instance, Darwin never discovered evolution, he only discovered the mechanism for it. The idea of evolution was around before Darwin's time.
Also, since when did Darwin influence eugenics? Last time I checked it was practiced by white christian folk to make less brown people because they had the idea that somehow white people had better genes. Even though there was no evidence to support it. Weird.
I just saw the film at the Toronto Film Festival and found it gave insight into Darwin as a husband and father - it really humanized the man behind the theory. The movie highlighted Darwin's anguish as he continued to write The Origin of the Species while living with his wife - a devout Christian who was also living with anguish, believing that Darwin would go to hell if he continued with his work. It's too bad Americans won't be able to see the film - imagine censoring a film (by not allowing it to be distributed) about a man who has had such an enormous impact on our thoughts today.
I always feel better when dealing with our national war on science by watching Buzz Aldrin punch a moonlanding-denier in the face:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUI36tPKDg4
This sounds like the Crusades, the Inquisition and a few other things Christianity spawned.
"atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering"
We're all doomed.. Doomed!
It seems that ever since WW2 ended it has been a crime to be an American.
people who don't believe in evolution should be banned from the gene pool. we don't want them muddying up the waters.
#12- See what I'm saying about Movieguide? I doubt many Christians see it this way, but Movieguide said so, so we'll leave it at that. Mostly because it tells one side of a story and makes everybody else look like a homogeneous mob of easily-duped yokels. Because anybody who doesn't agree with the viewpoint of... whoever, really... is a moron, no doubt provable by statistics or something.
Could it be that distributors in the US know that we as a nation would rather watch something idiotic like Transformers 2 or Saw XXIV rather than a biopic? This isn't the highbrow nation many like to think it is, and it's not only Nascar fans from Grow Country lowering the bar, either.
Distribute it via bitorrent.
JewelsVern, elaborate..?
While as an evolutionary biologist, I certainly would like to see more movies featuring Darwin, it sounds like this particular movie is supporting the generally discredited idea that there was a "delay" in the publishing of the Origin of Species and that it was the death of Darwin's daughter Annie that was the trigger for the publication. Modern Darwin scholars have shown that there was no real "delay"; assembling the evidence for natural selection into publishable form just took Darwin twenty-some years after the _Beagle_, that's all.
'The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying". '
As opposed to being a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over two millennia of trying.
Just because the producer blames the creationists doesn't mean that creationists actually had a hand in impeding the release of the movie in the United States. I doubt there would be much of a market in the United States for a movie about Darwin outside of independent cinemas anyway, and, from the production value of the movie and the conceited things the producer was saying, I don't think they would be satisfied with independent cinema.
Oh this is such a laugh!
The US is so riddled with superstition and paganism. It's not "high brow"! There are amazingly advanced segments of society, but any nation that lets these crazy fundamentalists, these dangerous radicals, lead the majority view is frankly ... no better than a cargo-cult culture.
"Ohhh no! We certainly won't be showing THAT! But Halle Berry shagging roughly?! Of course - nothing wrong with that! The priest is in here all the time with the choir!"
Believing in creationism is an existence that denies useful progression in life. It's so ridiculous.
Here's one for you all - what do you get when you cross a priest, a rabbi and an imam?
Unfortunately Darwin was neither a Tortured Genius(tm) nor a Guy in Proximity to Explosions nor even that weird or flambuoyant of a guy. Just a well-adjusted, thoughtful dude with a fascination with the natural world, who happened to be the first one to articulate the single most important fact of biology, and who gets demonized (often literally) because this fact contradicts a literal reading of certain ancient religious texts.
It all seems like a lot of whining on the filmmaker's part. A quick check of most online movie sites make little or no mention of any controversy. Most did, however, mention it was slow.
The blaming of one wingnut-based review makes it seem as if a brilliant masterpiece of cinematic art is being suppressed by the American Taliban. Great marketing strategy--for a lousy movie. Reminds me of Ben Stein blaming everyone but himself for that crapfest "Expelled."
Maybe this is a movie that really should be shown on Masterpiece Theater. I can hear the PBS ad now. "As riveting as 'Little Dorrit;' with all the action of 'Larkrise to Candleford.'"
An imported period biopic with mixed reviews, about a scientist whose personal life was rather dull, sans a top cast or name-brand director, is not a hot property. Such a film is unlikely to secure better theatrical distribution than a limited release in urban markets - where its subject matter is not likely to be considered controversial anyway.
In other words, don't believe everything the PR flacks tell you.
But don't fret, pretty much everything that makes it to a film festival gets distributed nowadays. Distributors snap up the hot films first, then circle back and pick up the films that did middling well, for limited theatrical or straight to DVD.
I thought controversy SOLD movie tickets?
Passion of the Christ? ($611 Million worldwide boxoffice despite anti-semitic content)
The Da Vinci Code (2006)? ($758 Million worldwide boxoffice despite anti-christian content)
It wouldn't be that they are trying to drum up their own controversy in the hopes of finding a distributor? (Or, just maybe, the film isn't actually commercially viable - anyone really wanting to plunk down $10 to learn about Darwin's life? This really strikes me as a cable network documentary/PBS candidate...)
I also think it's important to keep in mind that this is someone's guess as to why something is happening, and that someone making the guess has financial interests in having it happen.
It's just natural to be skeptical of any claims that some sort of shadowy agenda is keeping a movie out of distribution. Consider that 39% of 307,000,000 people is more than the population of most countries in the world - and I doubt the 39% figure.
Personally, I really liked the award-winning TV movie Longitude a riviting film on the creation of the naval chronometer, but there is no way that 250 minute (200 in the US) movie would have made it in theaters, even at 200 minutes...
I smell BS. Religulous found a distributor. Mel Gibson's snuff film about jesus found a distributor, if not a huge one. I can understand nervousness from major companies with images to uphold, but there are a lot of smaller less-known firms that don't really care what the nutjobs throw at them.
This sounds like an attempt to drum up publicity by making the film seem more controversial than it is.
#24- OMG, finally. Thank you for looking at the whole story.
#22- This country does have a lot of Pagans. I happen to be one. Not the same thing as Christianity, I think you'll find.
And yeah, if there's no market, stuff gets pulled. That's what happens. So, yes, if people aren't entertained in some way, it's not gonna be worth the cost of putting it in the theatres. If you agree with the movie, it's just so much preaching to the choir, NPI, and if not, you aren't going to see it. That's just how it is.
And, incidentally, if somebody believes in creationism, what's it to you? It's pretty easy to claim an entire country's stupid (particularly in the US's case), but, believe it or not, the right isn't in the majority (know who our Prez is? Vice Prez is even less right-wing). Don't believe everything you're told by FOX News.
Saying that "believing in creationism is an existence that denies useful progression in life" is actually *NO DIFFERENT* than being told by a Christian that you're a foul, evil creature for believing in evolution, and equally based in biases. If it weren't, others' beliefs would make no difference to you.
hail_diskordia said:
I suspect even a Jeff Gordon Biography would have a hard time finding a distributor, opting instead for a "Direct-to-Disc" distribution model...
#12 it did, didn't it... is it sad that I knew that? lol
Well, there you go. Save that for PBS instead of whining about an imaginary cover-up, or let Darwin share a shelf with Gordon at yer locul Wal-Mart.
Moviequide.org has, as far as I can tell, no reference to this movie - it DOES have a book review on a book about Darwin called: Darwin's Racists Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow...
Not quite the same thing.
Also, I'm not impressed by the award-winning celebrated producer involved, celebrated producers, directors, writers, and actors can make bad movies (Heaven's Gate, Waterworld, Ishtar, Gigli, etc.)
I liked this rundown:
http://chud.com/articles/articles/20762/1/IS-CHARLES-DARWIN-TOO-CONTROVERSIAL-FOR-AMERICAN-MULTIPLEXES/Page1.html
The only one "celebrating" the movie is the director. Everyone else apparently thinks it stinks.
Maybe if all the Netflix customers add the movie "Creation" to their queue, Red Envelope will distribute it. It is quite interesting that Netflix is ignoring any controversial aspects of the film and instead suggests a wide selection of Jane Austen movies to those who are awaiting the Darwin flick. ahhhh, well.
Paul Bettany interviewed for The Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 on Sunday downplayed creationist interference.
He said that "Young Victoria" also had problems finding a distributor, and that this was more to do with the unpopularity of "adult" films.
Since success at Toronto film festival, there is now a bidding war for the Darwin biopic.
why does a movie have to be good to be distributed in america? has no one been looking at the crap released in this country? has anyone noticed the last ten years of the national lampons franchise? who cares who celebrates the movie, director or critics. if a movie like the passion of the christ gets distributed here, why shouldn't this one?
#33: The backlash against it isn't *solely* due to its views? Wow. Objecting to a movie because it sucks; remember back when people did that? Oh, wait...
Join the group "Bring 'Creation' to the US!" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=132022932739
"Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective"
imdb.com Alexa traffic rank: 40
rottentomatoes.com rank: 706
allmovie.com rank (when's the last time you ended up there?): 15,222
movieguide.org rank: 276,086
The fundamentalist right hates Michael Moore. HATES him. Movieguide.org's reviews of Fahrenheit 911 and Sicko are scathing and blatantly political. This relatively insignificant website's review (it actually looks like a reprinted press release) of an unrelated book about Darwin is the closest thing the linked article can come up with to objective evidence that this is anything other than a convenient theory from a producer who has every reason to foist his business failure off on a convenient scapegoat.
Clam down everybody! As RosDoc @ #13 pointed out, Creation was just shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. A lot of U.S. distributors go to that event, so perhaps they will make a deal in the near future.
And now for a little Darwin trivia: Charles Darwin was a middle child, a born mediator. In all of the existing personal and official logs from his voyages on the Beagle, he was the only member of the crew that not one person wrote anything negative about!
Given that this voyage lasted for years in the most difficult of circumstances, that is a true measure of the man.
Source: CBC’s DNTO episode: Brotherly (and sisterly) love (07/25/09)
Even thought the US has a depressingly high percentage of brain-dead creationists, there are enough of us godless evolutionists to make such a movie fiscally viable.
As long as it doesn't suck.
As most corporations pray to the god of the almighty greenback, I strongly suspect that they think its a money-loser, which means it probably sucks pretty badly, a conclusion that seems to agree with the reviews I've seen of the movie.
I'm sure I'll be able to get it on DVD.
According to Adam Rutherford (The Guardian) on Twitter, they signed a distributor yesterday. https://twitter.com/AdamRutherford
I'm waiting for the announcement!
It's not that evolution is all that controversial, it's that Americans think science is BORING.
Netflix has it at 4 stars. I put it in my queue.
IMDB has it at 7.3 with only 38 reviews. Lower number of reviews often results in rating inflation, meaning that this movie is probably WORSE than a 7.3.
That being said, I feel like this whole article is a way of stirring up publicity for a movie that obviously didn't do too well world-wide by creating a Christian bogeyman against which the target audience is supposed to rally. As for the Gallup poll, the number of Creationists in the U.S. is closer to 25%, as 36% of voters declined to comment for whatever reason. To say that those 36% of voters are also Creationists is intellectually dishonest, no matter how you look at it.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/darwin-birthday-believe-evolution.aspx
(While 25% is still really high, it is not as staggering as some news media have made it out to be.)
Yes - as I understand it, the movie is simply bad. A crying shame, as it stars the godlike Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. Putting any or both of those two in a bad film should be officially sanctioned as a frivolous waste of Earth's resources. They're sort of like platinum group metals. Or something.
meaning that this movie is probably WORSE than a 7.3.
7.3 is a very favorable rating on IMDb.
Step 1: Create mediocre but possibly controversial film
Step 2: When it doesn't get picked up and sold cry foul
Step 3: Profit!
Moriarty- I did not know that you were a vampire, were you already 'made' when you met Mr. Darwin?
Finalyy, anyone know if there is some kind of prize for the largest number of comments to a post? Like maybe you get a week off of having to find stuff to post? Or, maybe keeping your name on the masthead requires x# of comments per week?
Cause I call BS on this too.
"We live in the most prosperous and advanced country in world history yet we still disagree on things as basic as evolution"
It is just me or is that a contradiction.
The crackpot philosophy of new-age hippy and unemployed carpenter Jesus of Nazareth directly led to such atrocities as the burning of suspected "witches", the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, and several brutal wars known as "The Crusades" which we are still paying the price for centuries later.
Furthermore, I have yet to see any scientific proof that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Giovanni, you forgot the all-important ??? stage. Comes right before "Profit!"
Not to toot my own horn but I wrote something about this on my blog yesterday, http://www.bourbonasylum.com/blog/?p=581.
To me, it reeks of a marketing plan.
@56 I dunno.. it would be a pretty sorry marketing plan if it boiled down to "Those same old fools don't want you to see this film.. so see this film." Did they try that with The Golden Compass too?
Anybody wondering what happens to a movie that's "supressed" by lack of distribution can just look at the film 'Equilibrium'.. also had religious overtones and also wasn't picked up for US distribution in theatres (AFAIK).
Hail Diskordia @19: You nearly made Dr. Pepper come out of my nostrils. Saw XXIV.
I don't know when or if the rest of the US ever decided to not go to crap movies anymore, but for me it was somewhere between refusing to see Jurasic Park and wanting my 2 hours back after watching Kiss of Death (c. 1994-95). Still haven't watched Jurasic Park and I won't unless I'm offered more than $1mil to compensate me for the dead brain cells.
Distributors usually don't shy away from films they think will be mildly controversial, they shy away from films that they don't think will make a lot of money.
I am a big-time evolution believer and I doubt I'd pay to see this film, not because it sounds offensive but because it frankly sounds a little boring.
the fact rational americans allow this kind of thing to happen indicates to me that they do not deserve to see this film.
"...The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".
I think this is a typo and should read...
"... dismissing CREATIONISM as '...a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over 2000 years of trying'".
Virgin births, dead people coming back to life, etc. are silly theories supported by no evidence, despite centuries of looking.
Pagans and Christians are somewhat the same. Just Christians showed up after the pagans and folded their parallel customs into their own.
Maybe that's the problem XENU, we just need to tell them to believe in it or they'll devolve.
What I'd like to see is a biopic about Alfred Russell Wallace.
I should like to make a formal request at this juncture that all my christian friends renounce their error and take comfort in the apostasy of Truth. Please. Pretty please?
Pardon me, but since when in the hell has evolution been controversial?
American's don't deserve to see this film? Sure, they don't deserve the health care they're fighting every step of the way either, but they probably need to see this more than anyone else.
Benher: You said it. I can relate totally to your view on this.
This story isn't "novel" or "funny" and it certainly isn't "wonderful." It's just very, very sad.
Nevertheless, it still seems like the grim duty of BoingBoing to report it.
no really, all you have to do is recant.
look, be reasonable, the big, spiky mace can just be for appearance's sake, we don't HAVE to use it.
if nothing else, have a little consideration for me. Do you have any idea how long it takes to wash out the jelly bits between the pointy parts? And if I don't do it the place just REEKS afterwards. Be a sport now.
(I'm just not cut out for missionary work)
I'm still waiting for David Carroll to tell us when it's OK to finish this plate of clams.
daitai
http://www.sinfest.net/
Hokano @ #75
Plate of clams?
WTF are you talking about?
In comment #44, David Carroll wrote:
What, everyone else just kept eating? How rude!
Hokano #78:
Ah! Nice catch! I will clean my glasses next time.
P.S. I like the way you linked back to my post by using boingboing.net/2009/09/14/celebrated-darwin-bi.html#comment-587705. Mind if I emulate you?
What plug-in/trick did you use to get 587705?
I do get silly. Thanks for suffering it so amicably.
The date and time included in the 'Posted by' header of each comment provides a permalink to that particular comment.
A nice feature. Have used it in the past to link to comments in other threads, but this was the first time I've used it intrathread. Don't imagine I'm the first, but hadn't noticed it before. Was a bit concerned it might somehow tear a hole in the fabric of the Boing. But everything appears to be OK. So I say have at it, unless someone in authority around here tells you otherwise.
Probably won't play in Dayton, TN anytime soon...