The next time you hear religious conservatives whining about how Hollywood is controlled by godless libruls, remind him of this:
Creation isn't some low budget import without any commercial appeal - although granted, it won't rake in the big bucks like movies with non-stop car crashes, steamy sex scenens, and monster robots.
From Sydney Morning Herald: A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences... Creation, starring Briton Paul Bettany, details the naturalist's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On the Origin of Species.
It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God after the death of his daughter, Annie, 10.
The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival...!
It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.
However, US distributors turned down the film that will prove divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll taken in February, only 39 per cent of people believe in the theory of evolution. (And that number will continue to decline as right-wing Christians exercise more control over science education by rejecting textbooks that don't kowtow to their religious agenda.
From the UK Telegraph: 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... Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published. "That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said. "The film has no distributor in America.
It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about.
People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up because they're afraid of the extremem right wing."
Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly stars as Darwin's wife Emma, and well-respected actor Paul Bettany plays the British scientist.
The Hollywood Reporter calls Creation "one of the best delineations of intellectual and emotional struggle seen on film in many a year" and notes that there are "moments of genuine lightness and high spirits to go with all the deep thinking." (Sounds like Oscar material, right?)
Eugenie Scott, Director of the National Center for Science Education, says that Creation is "a thoughtful, well-made film that will change many views of Darwin held by the public - for the good."
Without an American distributor, you won't get a chance to judge that for yourselves kids, and that's a damned shame because I've seen the film, and it's GREAT!
Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don't want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E! and H E R E! And as a paperback H E R E ! and H E R E !
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