Those of us who are crazy about books are very often also crazy about movies, and especially movies about the origin of books. The movie Creation tells the story of Charles Darwin's struggle to produce his masterpiece, On The Origin Of Species and his "war with God." In this movie, Paul Bettany reprises the role he played in Master and Commander which borrowed heavily from another book by Darwin, Voyage Of The Beagle. Both books can be had in one volume with the call number 576.82 DARWIN. In the movie, Darwin's wife is played by Jennifer Connelly (Rocketeer, A Beautiful Mind) who is also in real life, Paul Bettany's wife. The most interesting twist in this story is that Paul Bettany is an atheist and his wife Jennifer is a Christian, exactly the same as Darwin and his wife and cousin, Emma. The movie makes the point that had Darwin not married his first cousin, he might not have been able to see the effects of inbreeding on his children and might have missed the boat on evolution. Agnostics, atheists and religious people can all enjoy this movie because it shows the mental anguish Darwin went through trying not to offend his wife, his friend and pastor and society in general. We highly recommend that you read both books before watching Creation to get the most out of it. The only error in the movie was to cast the diminutive Toby Jones as T.H. Huxley, who was in real life as tall as Darwin, but Toby was chosen (according to insiders) for his irascible and combative portrayal of the irascible and combative Huxley. Still, it's a great way to see how one of the most important books of all time was created.
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