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"You'd be the first naturalist to set foot on the islands, I'll wager," the ship's captain promises. The islands are the Galápagos, and the naturalist, played by Paul Bettany, encounters there a bewildering array of biological diversity leading him to a momentous conclusion: The species on these islands are changing.
"Did God make them change?" asks a curious sailor.
"Did God make them change?" Bettany repeats thoughtfully. "Yes, certainly. But do they also change themselves? Now that is a question, isn't it?"
Bettany plays Charles Darwin in Creation, directed by Jon Amiel (Entrapment, Sommersby) and written by John Collee—but the dialogue above isn't from that film. It's from another Collee-scripted film with Bettany as a 19th-century naturalist dazzled by the diversity of the Galápagos: Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, with Bettany playing Stephen Maturin, physician of the H.M.S. Surprise in Patrick O'Brian's swashbuckling novels.
Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin
Despite these resonances, cinema does not repeat itself. Darwin's real-life journey to the far side of the world on the H.M.S. Beagle isn't depicted in Creation. Nor does the film ever consider the question that Master and Commander raises in those brief lines: whether divine causality and natural processes might be compatible and complementary rather than contradictory explanations.
Instead, every character in Creation falls into one of two neatly opposed camps: those who devoutly believe that God created the world and therefore reject evolution, and those who enthusiastically accept the evidence for evolution and therefore reject faith in God. The first camp includes Darwin's Unitarian wife Emma (Bettany's real-life wife Jennifer Connelly) and her pastor, Reverend John Innes (Jeremy Northam); the second, biologist Thomas Huxley (Toby Jones) and botanist Joseph Hooker (Benedict Cumberbatch). Only Darwin himself struggles with the tension between the two, and even he has no thought of a possible reconciliation.
Doting on the devout Emma, Darwin has no wish to undermine the faith of Christendom. "Suppose the whole world stopped believing that God had any sort of plan for us?" Darwin muses darkly in a remarkable speech. "That nothing mattered—not love, not trust, not faith, not honor—only brute survival."
Like Bill Condon's Kinsey, which allowed its protagonist to be disparaged as "churchy" and "square" to exonerate him from any charge of subverting science out of revolutionary intent, Creation distances Darwin from the aggressively atheistic Huxley's anti-religious passion. When Huxley cheers, "You've killed God, sir … And I say good riddance!" Darwin winces.
Darwin with his beloved daughter Annie (Martha West)
"We live in a society," Darwin counters, "bound together by the church—an improbable sort of barque, I grant you, but at least it floats … You would have us all rebuild, plank by plank, the very vessel in which we sail?"
Huxley, though, isn't buying it. "Our behavior, like our physical forms, evolves according to our needs. Your very own words, sir! And thus, in time, we lose those parts that are no longer required. Like the appendix, the male nipple, and finally, thank Christ, our belief in an utterly redundant Almighty!"
La complejidad hispana: Todo cambió en el 2012
The Latest in Movie News, May 20, 2013
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Frederick Harrison
This film raises a number of deep questions on the meaning of life, belief, morality, etc. There are some brilliant and chilling moments in it - when Huxley says "You've killed God, sir!" I thought of the century and a half that followed where Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Dong, Stalin, et al tried to take God's place. Also of the myth of "progress" which asserted that scientific discovery would replace the need for faith and superstition as it raised man to new heights. The "science" of Darwin's day expounded various patent medicines and cures, all of which are now recognized as quackery. I thought also of the imperialist and racist ambitions of Victorian England brought on by Malthus' belief that life is a struggle for survival. Think also of social Darwinism which would be later be used to bolster and justify intolerance and prejudice. Yet on the other side of the coin, the intolerance shown Darwin by Christians coupled with the death of 3 of his children may well have doused his faith.
Adrian
I agree with anton it does take two to tango. Darwin was a agnostic meaning not sure if God exists, but not ready to rule that out. Just to make sure Darwin was alive in 1951? Someone should really proof-read these articles. Tip to people dont trust spell check ever.
Anton
I think your assessment of Darwin is accurate. When you read Darwin, in stead of just believing the charicatures conjured up by both Christians and Atheists, you see that Darwin was not the great enemy of God he is made out to be. He shied away from religious controversy, while many of his specimens came from missionaries stationed all over the world. Even the great Benjamin Warfield was an ardent fan. And you are correct, he lost his faith because of personal tragedy. And he lost more children than just Annie. The greatest reason why Darwin wrote to Asa Grey that religion and science must take its seperate paths, is because of all the unpleasent reactions he got from certain religious leaders who were very public in their attacks. Maybe it is high time that Christianity starts confessing her own sins of chasing early scientists away than just pointing fingers at them. This deep chasm is partly our fault. Consider that he was still a theist when he wrote "On the Origens of species".