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Darwin's Darkest Hour [Blu-ray]

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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.

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.

(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.

Program Description
This two-hour scripted drama tells the remarkable story behind the unveiling of the most influential scientific theory of all time, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The program is a special presentation from NOVA and National Geographic Television, written by acclaimed British screenwriter John Goldsmith and directed by John Bradshaw.

Darwin, portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick (Lost), spent years refining his ideas and penning what he called his "big book." Yet, daunted by looming conflict with the orthodox religious values of his day, he resisted publishing-until a letter from naturalist Alfred Wallace forced his hand. In 1858, Darwin learned that Wallace was ready to publish ideas very similar to his own. In a sickened panic, Darwin grasped his dilemma: To delay publishing any longer would be to condemn his greatest work to obscurity-the brilliant argument he had pieced together with clues from his voyage on the Beagle, his adventures in the Andes, the bizarre fossils of Patagonia, the finches and giant tortoises of the Galapagos, as well as the British countryside. But to come forward with his ideas risked the fury of the Church and perhaps a rift with his own devoted wife, Emma, portrayed by Frances O'Connor (Mansfield Park, The Importance of Being Earnest), who was a devout Christian.

"Darwin's Darkest Hour" is a moving drama about the genesis of a groundbreaking theory seen through the inspiration and personal sufferings of its originator.

Much more accurate life of Darwin and his writings and how he came up with his theory of On The Origin Of Species. Not an overblown drama as the creation movie and doesn't make Darwin out to be a hallucinated sicko as the creation movie does. Between the two don't bother to see Creation and stick to this wonderful film which has more science and much better docudrama of the species and discoveries that Darwin came across.

Darwin's Darkest Hour -- a new drama about Darwin's decision to publish his work on evolution -- aired 2009 October 6 on public broadcasting stations around the country.

I really enjoyed Darwin's Darkest Hour. The story used many flashbacks to briefly show us some significant points in Darwin's career and for the most part presented them accurately. The script used many quotations from Darwin's letters and books to depict him truthfully. The high prevalence of infant mortality in the nineteenth century was dramatically illustrated. Darwin lost two sons in infancy, but the most devastating loss was his daughter Annie when she was ten. That was the end of whatever religious belief he had left. Anne Darwin--who was lovingly portrayed in the drama in flashbacks--was Darwin's favorite child. When she died of scarlet fever, he wrote in his personal journal, "We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age ... Oh that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly we do still & and shall ever love her dear joyous face." Annie died in 1851, seven years before the major events of the drama. The drama depicts the death of an infant son in 1858 in more detail.

The main story is Darwin's emotional reticence to publish his radical theory with all the evidence he had compiled that proved its truth. He knew there would be a public outcry and the prospect was unpleasant to him, since his wife was a religious believer as were other members of his family and friends, such as Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker. Finally Wallace's letter forced him to publish. Darwin's friends Lyell and Hooker arranged to publish simultaneously Wallace's letter and Darwin's earlier written--but never published--essay on evolution. After this was done Wallace gave Darwin complete priority when he learned that Darwin had come to the theory 20 years earlier and was still compiling evidence for his "big book." This book was never published in Darwin's lifetime but parts of it were published in The Origin of Species which Darwin quickly wrote using much of the information he had already compiled. The religious conflict between Darwin and his wife is mentioned but not really emphasized. Emma comes across as much more sympathetic to Charles and supportive of his goals than as someone who is hurt by his new scientific discovery that revolutionized the human relationship to nature and undermined Christian religious beliefs.

As is well-known, the joint publication of Darwin and Wallace's new hypothesis of natural selection had virtually no impact on biology, but Darwin's book about a year later finally had a major effect, since it had, in addition to proposing the hypothesis of natural selection in much greater detail, the much greater benefit of providing the abundant scientific evidence that species evolved, most of which was unknown to the public. Within a decade, evolution replaced creationism among almost all scientists and the educated public as the explanation for the origin of species, including humans. Natural selection, on the other hand, was not fully accepted by biologists until the 1930s, long after Darwin died.

The Charles Darwin depicted is very kind to his wife, explaining everything to her about his theory and asking for her help in editing letters and manuscripts. Emma is very supportive and enthusiastic for her husband's success. These two are the main characters of the drama, and both are portrayed by very attractive actors. I told my wife that "Emma is hot" and she replied "Darwin is hot, too." The story is a costume drama and very beautifully produced and filmed. A few minutes of extras at the end told us that all the scenes were shot in Nova Scotia, filling in for the beaches of Scotland and the Galapagos, the mountains of the Andes (with some CGI additions), the streets and buildings of London, and the English countryside, lakes, manors, and gardens.

Of great interest to me was the depiction of Darwin's father, Dr. Robert Darwin, who was the physician to many wealthy English aristocrats and businessmen and their families. His lucrative practice left him a wealthy man and enabled Charles to live the life of a gentleman scientist. Also, both Robert and Charles married Wedgwood daughters (Emma and Charles were first cousins!) who both inherited extremely large bequests upon the death of their fathers who were among the wealthiest men in England (and as has been recently revealed in Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution, the major financial supporters of the successful abolition movement in Britain). In the drama, Robert is depicted as a "Unitarian" like his father, the famous natural philosopher and writer Erasmus Darwin, but in fact both were nonbelievers who kept their religious views very private. Robert's first son and Charles' older brother, Erasmus, not pictured in this drama, was also a nontheist. Charles had been prepared for the Anglican clergy and was slow to adopt the religious beliefs of his male family members, but eventually did so.

In the drama, Robert advises his son during a carriage ride to be very careful about publicizing his new theory of evolution, because it would strike against the religious beliefs of much of his family and friends, dishearten them, and perhaps damage his reputation among the public (as in fact happened to Charles's grandfather Erasmus when he was publicly denounced by a conservative British MP) . Since Dr. Robert Darwin died in 1848, ten years before the main action of the drama, this carriage ride was fictional and the scene was created for dramatic effect. However, the sentiments are genuine, since Robert, unlike his father Erasmus and eventually his son Charles, shied away from all controversy. The earlier scene in which Robert berates his son and initially refuses to allow him to journey on the Beagle is also true.

Darwin's Darkest Hour did not portray the loss of Darwin's faith due to the problem of innocent suffering in nature, a theological problem that theodicy, a branch of Christian apologetics, tries to explain. However, the new movie Creation, starring another beautiful couple, Paul Bettany as Charles and Jennifer Connelly as Emma, does deal much more with Annie's death, Charles's loss of religious faith, and the sensitivity of Charles's conflict with Emma's devout Christian beliefs. This movie finally found a U. S. distributor after some controversy, and I hope to be able to see it in the near future. When I do, I will review it here.

For more insight into Darwin's loss of faith and the reasons for it, see my essay on Darwin Day. Humanity should celebrate Darwin Day every year, for Darwin was the first to attempt to understand and explain the human mind's connection to biological nature, which was ultimately his greatest discovery and the one that still haunts us the most today.

I only saw the Blu-ray disk and cannot compare to the standard DVD or TV. Naturally, we get great visuals and sound. However, visuals and sound does not make this story or acting.

Henry Ian Cusick as Charles Darwin, and Frances O'Connor as Emma Darwin.

This is a skillfully integrated drama about family and the personal life of Charles and that is inner dispersed with fragments of his work.

This presentation is very slow paced with low-key background music. I do not know if this is for drama's sake or do you time to reflect. It starts out with Alfred Wallace, rival, trumping Charles on his theory of natural selection. The rest of the presentation is a series of flashbacks and unresolved scenes. Yet after a while, you forget that this is a stilted bunch of scenes and see a direction.

"Honest and consciences doubts could never be a sin", Emma Darwin.

http://darwin-online.org.uk/

Darwin's wife was one of strong character grace. She was a very good wife and stood by his side through thick and thin. There are some tragedies in this documentary, but it was good nonetheless. Darwin goes through his accounts and discoveries as he comes to his conclusion of the theory of evolution. Even though his wife is a devout Unitarian Christian, she supports him fully. He goes to different parts of the world making discoveries,which all help him form his theories. Really nice addition to a blu-ray/DVD collection. Most know who Charles Darwin is, so I don't have to go into specific details of the movie. It's rather short, but a great source of history. It's not out to prove that there isn't a God, only to ask questions, which we all should do.

As far as I'm concerned no one does these kinds of movies better than the British. I'm not a Darwin expert and never will be, but I enjoyed this movie as a visually stunning and wonderful story. I don't usually watch movies to critique them (no criticism intended here), I very much enjoy reading the very detailed comments about the accuracy and how the movie was made, it's like I'm getting a history and movie making class for free. But for me, I just want to be entertained. So if you want to be a critic......go for it, if you want to see an enjoyable movie go for it, to each his own. I hope you enjoy this movie as much as I did. :o)

"Darwin's Darkest Hour" is visually gorgeous, whether it's the many scenes in Darwin's upper-middle-class British home or the nature shots that are sometimes interspersed with them. It's also intellectual, consisting almost entirely of Darwin carefully explaining his theories to his wife Emma and his children. Never mind that in real life Emma had probably heard them all many times: The goal of this film is clearly to educate the viewer. I was hoping to learn something, because I'm an adult who does not work in the hard sciences and who has not heard Darwin's theories explained in detail since high school. It turned out that I've remembered all the material in the film, and have considered it part of the basic stuff that "everyone knows." The film lacks real drama; it ends with Darwin receiving a copy of his just-published _The Origin of Species_, and does not enter the controversy that followed publication. Therefore, it was a overall a bit of a disappointment to me.

BUT, I think this would be a fantastic movie to show to high school kids, and younger kids with good vocabularies, to explain Darwin's principles of evolution to them. And, since theories of evolution have also evolved since Darwin, this movie inspired me to start reading Stephen Jay Gould's books.