Product Details

• Actors: Henry Ian Cusick
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Nat'l Geographic Vid
• DVD Release Date: November 17, 2009
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002N1AE46
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,079 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Darwin's Darkest Hour [Blu-ray]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

National Geographic makes superb use of its vast store of nature footage in Darwin's Darkest Hour, which dramatizes how Darwin wrestled with honor and ambition when a rival scientist was on the verge of publishing material exploring similar theories of how species are created. Darwin (Henry Ian Cusick, Lost) hesitated to publish from concerns about the religious controversy that might erupt; he held back until he was sure he had the evidence to substantiate his ideas about natural selection. Darwin's Darkest Hour suggests that his wife Emma (Frances O'Connor, Mansfield Park), though firm in her religious belief, pushed Darwin to secure the proof that his writings predated his rival's. Interwoven with this immediate conflict is the story of how Darwin conceived his theories in the first place--accompanied by gorgeous footage of rainforests and mountainsides, seals and seabirds, iguanas, tortoises, and much, much more. Darwin grappled with the industry of bees, the sex lives of barnacles, and the feeding habits of Venus flytraps.

Darwin's Darkest Hour provides both a sprightly exposition of a volatile branch of science (more than a hundred years later, his work continues to provoke violent responses) and beautiful illustrations of what obsessed this influential scientist. Also on the DVD is an excellent special feature about the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin found the most vivid illustrations of his ideas. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Starring Henry Ian Cusick ("Lost") and Frances O'Connor ("Mansfield Park"), Darwin’s Darkest Hour depicts the professional and personal trauma Charles Darwin endured the year before the publication of On the Origin of Species. Darwin's life's work, what he called "his abominable volume," is in danger of being scooped by Alfred Wallace; at the same time, one of his children is stricken by scarlet fever and one with diphtheria. His wife, Emma, is his rock--helping him through the turmoil even though his work challenges her deep Christian faith. We flash back with Charles to his journey as he figures out what he called "the mystery of mysteries" and come to understand why a letter from Wallace is such a bombshell. In the end, it is the remarkable, erudite Emma who will see Charles through this nightmare, even as one of her children dies of fever. Darwin's Darkest Hour brings to life the compelling human story behind the publication of one of history's most influential theories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must own and watch DVD!!!, October 6, 2009

By 

MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Darwin's Darkest Hour (DVD)

The British do historical movies so well and having seen this on PBS I am so looking forward to the DVD come November. For anyone not familiar with the facts of Charles Darwin's life and his wife Emma who while a devout Christian was his biggest fan and supporter even when he was attacked by religious zealots after his books were published.

The movie also shows his many children being loved, encouraged and mourned when some of them die and when two children are struck down with deadly diseases, such as small pox and diphtheria which were common. And what I so loved and wonder if many people who like or dislike the man, know what an ethical man he was.

Like when a young self made explorer (Alfred Wallace) seems to 'borrow' from some of the writings of Darwin, placing Darwin in an difficult position because he doesn't feel at ease tooting his own horn. Its nice that the movie disperses modern film segments to show various animals that Darwin encountered in his travels which led to some of his works like Origins of the Species. And the movie is so timely because it shows how in the 1820's and 1830's his father may have been a free thinker but the Unitarian church was seen as the church where Christians who had given up on Christianity went. And the movie notes Darwin felt that one could believe in a God and still believe in evolution.

The movie also shows the concern he had about his wife Emma being his first cousin, because he wondered aloud if the reason some of their children had died so young was because of genetic issues. Fact is tuberculosis, small pox and other diseases were the norm at the time. It was the death of his daughter Anne Elizabeth at the age of ten that effected him the deepest because she loved his work and had great conversations with her father. In a way it reminded me of how the father of the Walton's television series also avoided church. After her death he preferred taking walks and appreciating the creation around him. And he seemed to get brushed off with nonsensical answers to serious religious questions when he asked them.

This being the 200th anniversary of his birth I think this is a wonderful movie to own and watch, and to expose children to.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 11, 2009

By 

MythMaker "TrueDuneFan" (PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darwin's Darkest Hour (DVD)

Old fashioned tv movie sticks to the facts & manages to compel both the heart & the mind. Yes, this actor does not physically resemble Charles Darwin in any way. And yes, Emma is used to stand in for the viewer unfamiliar with Darwin's life & work. Small quibbles. This is a really excellent little drama. I will watch it many times.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An improvement from the docudrama portions of PBS's Evolution series in 2001, February 6, 2010

By 

Michael D. Barton "darwinsbulldog" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darwin's Darkest Hour (DVD)

(written on October 19, 2009)

I was sent a review copy of Darwin's Darkest Hour, the two-hour docudrama from NOVA/National Geographic, which aired on PBS on October 6th. I watched it last week, and here are my thoughts.

I have known about this Darwin film since late July, and had been looking forward to it for several reasons. One, I wondered how it would compare with the docudrama portions of the Evolution: Darwin's Dangerous Idea" episode of the series Evolution that aired on PBS in 2001. Two, having anticipated (and still looking forward to seeing) the film Creation (open in the UK and elsewhere, not in the US until December) featuring Paul Bettany as Darwin since at least September 2008, it was good to see another production looking at the same time period of Darwin's life (the post-Beagle, Origin-writing 1850s). I of course cannot compare Darwin's Darkest Hour to Creation, but I might have a comment or two based on reviews of Creation elsewhere.

Darwin's Darkest Hour begins in March 1858 in Ternate (in present-day Indonesia). We see a man in his jungle hut, in a malarial fever, murmuring to himself "Malthus," thoughts on human populations, "external pressures" as he jots down words onto paper. Before this scene ends, we see him preparing a letter to C Darwin Esq. This man, as we will find out soon, is Alfred Russel Wallace, naturalist and co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection. It is this the delivery of this letter, from Wallace to Darwin, that becomes Darwin's darkest hour. (For more on Wallace's places of residence while collecting in the Malay Archipelago [Indonesia], see George Beccaloni's essay "Homes Sweet Homes: A Biographical Tour of Wallace's Many Places of Residence" in Natural Selection and Beyond: The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace, pp. 7-43.)

When Darwin receives the letter, then begins a whole dialogue between Darwin and his wife Emma about his having priority to the idea of natural selection. We are taken to defining moments during the voyage of HMS Beagle and through the pages of his transmutation notebooks via this dialogue (it is in this dialogue that some rather corny exchanges enter, for example, on being shown his Notebook D, Emma asks Darwin "for the devil?" - yes, we know Emma was religious, but seriously?). It seemed odd to me that, in the film, Emma becomes Darwin's supporter for ensuring his priority, and only after she and Darwin sort it out (mentions of his essay of 1844, a letter to Asa Gray, etc.) is it something that needs to be brought to Charles Lyell (I enjoyed this figure in the film) and Joseph Dalton Hooker (I did not enjoy the actor chosen to play him), men of high scientific standing who decide to have materials from both Darwin and Wallace read before the Linnean Society.

Aspects of Darwin's life that have become all too familiar are treated in this film: his wretched health, his dealing with the deaths of two of his children, the apparent conflict with Fitzroy over the literal interpretation of Genesis during the voyage. The death of Darwin's daughter Annie in 1851 - which some believe was the final straw in pushing Darwin away from Christianity, and thus allowing Darwin to further explore his thoughts on transmutation, and others not, most notably in the blogosphere Mark Pallen - occurs in Darwin's Darkest Hour as memories, while the death of a son (Charles Waring Darwin) in 1858, is treated fully. (The inaccurate order of historical events in Creation is the main critique of that film by science educator James Williams). The scene of young Charles's funeral is intertwined with the scene showing the reading of Darwin and Wallace's materials at the Linnean Society, which neither attended (Wallace because he was nowhere near London and Darwin because of the death of Charles Waring). I liked the back-and-forth of dialogue:

REVEREND INNES: "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. In the midst of life we are in death."

JOHN BENNETT: Extracts from papers by Mr. Charles Darwin and Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace: Part One by Mr. Darwin, "On Variation under Domestication and on the Principles of Selection."

REVEREND INNES: "Of whom may we seek for succor, but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased."

JOHN BENNETT: "Be it remembered, I have nothing to say about life and mind and all forms descending from one common type. I speak of the variation of the existing great divisions of the organized kingdom. Nature could effect, with selection, such changes slowly."

REVEREND INNES: "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother, here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

JOHN BENNETT: "We know the state of the earth has changed, and as earthquakes and tides go on, the state must change. Many geologists believe a slow natural cooling..."

Extracts from a paper by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, "On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type."

"One of the strongest arguments which have been adduced to prove..."

What I thought was nicely done is showing how Darwin's family was heavily involved in his work at Down House, the domesticity of Darwin's research. He was an unconventional father, very involved in the raising of his children, and at times his children became themselves scientific subjects. The scenes showing Darwin's children assisting, or being attentive to, his various experiments on plants and bees were my favorite, especially - and this should be no surprise - the scene about the seed dispersal experiments. Yet Darwin had his butler Parslow shoot birds for him, unlike in the film. [See Endersby's recent article on Darwin, Hooker, botany, and sympathetic science in the journal Victorian Studies.]

What I particularly liked about Darwin's Darkest Hour is that it did not take one single stance on Darwin's delay, the two-decade period in between Darwin beginning his research on transmutation and the publication of On the Origin of Species. It brings in a little bit of many views historians have proposed: that Darwin feared public scrutiny, that Darwin feared conflict with his religious wife, that Darwin simply wanted more time to make sure his theory was right (in response to negative reviews of Vestiges of Creation [1844]), etc. (see John van Wyhe's article on Darwin's delay in the journal Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London). Brian of the blog Laelaps thought this inability for the scriptwriter to stick with one storyline made the film difficult to follow.

I do agree with Brian that the appearance of the actor who played Darwin (Ian Cusick) should have changed with how Darwin's appearance changed in real life, i.e., that Darwin, by the time he published The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition, was balding and did not have the flowing hair of Cusick. Nice to see Wallace appear in the film, though I do not know if Darwin and Wallace met at the Linnean Society and Wallace being introduced to Lyell. I could not, however, believe in the actor portraying Fitzroy.

Although I felt I was being forced to watch Masterpiece Theatre, I do think Darwin's Darkest Hour is an improvement from the docudrama portions of "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" and could serve as a nice introduction to folks unfamiliar with Darwin's life. Do check out the various resources on the film's website, including a piece on Wallace by Sean B. Carroll (author of Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species), an interview with the scriptwriter, and the entire transcript.