Creation, Charles Darwin biopic

Creation, a biopic about Charles Darwin, premiers tomorrow at the Toronto International Film Festival. Trailer below....

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This film looks like it focuses on the relationship between Charles' scientific rationalism (and later, atheism) and Emma's Christian faith, and the conflict it caused in their relationship. I suppose that after watching such a film, either side could claim "victory". Of course the real victory was the Darwins', for making such a relationship work.

Also, I doubt that Gibson personally approves the subject matter of every film his company produces.

An interesting find from the Wikipedia article: "Official resources for church groups, produced on behalf of Icon Film Distribution (UK arm of Icon Productions) by Damaris Trust". According to its home page, Damaris Trust is "an educational charity with a Christian foundation - but working with people of all faiths and none. We are committed to rigorous study and effective communication as we seek to relate biblical Christian faith and contemporary popular culture."

The Damaris web site has various pieces of literature intended for discussion in church groups, as well as some video clips along the same lines. The target group seems to be Christians who don't reject evolution outright but are trying to understand how it can be reconciled with their faith (in other words, the sort of folks who end up believing in some form of theistic evolution).

As noted in a Guardian article about Paul Bettany, who plays Darwin in the move, Bettany himself is an atheist, as are a number of people involved in the film's production. The film's web site also links to a number of science-related Darwin sites, so I don't think the film is an exercise in using Darwin's life as an excuse for thinly-disguised Christian apologetics.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing the film, if it ends up getting US distribution.

Looks good, I hadn't known Jennifer Connelly (aka Mrs. Paul Bettany) was in it as well.

I'm not worried about the lack of US distribution (though I'm sure its disappointing for the filmmakers). As the French say about love, bittorrent knows no frontiers.

There is a somewhat widespread misconception that the film âCreationâ was produced by Mel Gibsonâs company Icon Productions LLC and this causes speculation that the science of evolution may be misrepresented in the film. The idea that it is "an Icon production" comes from seeing the Icon logo at the beginning of the trailer but it is simply being distributed in the UK by Icon Film Distribution UK, which *was* part of Gibsonâs company but was sold as a separate entity to Stewart Till in 2008 (see http://tinyurl.com/r2stt4). Showing the distribution companyâs logo at the beginning of a filmâs opening credits is common practice but in this case is confusing since the two companies share a logo.

The film âCreationâ was produced by HanWay and BBC Films (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/comingsoon/creation.shtml).