Movies relating to atheism and religion have always been an arena of both idiocy and disappointment. In general, attempts to misrepresent the non-religious come off as thinly-veiled evangelizing pieces; whilst scripts from our side carry a good story and message, but have been let down in the past by it’s execution.
The scientific, and atheistic, community collectively face-palmed at Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which was most certainly the working title, in which the monotone professor from The Mask explained how any scientist who put forward an Intelligent Design (the “theory” that relies on magic) oriented paper was immediately chucked out of their institution. To show how fair and balanced this was, it was peppered with old film-reels of the Nazis, Hitler and the Holocaust; Stein never explained what their relevance was, but the implication was laid on thick, because that’s what propaganda does. Complete with token interviews with Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers with selective editing so obvious it can be seen from space. Incidentely, the studio that produced Expelled recently went bankrupt and had to sell the film rights, complete with all production materials (e.g. footage cut from the movie) to cover their debts. There was a murmur about TalkOrigins bidding to buy it, but nothing came of this and the film was ultimately “won” by an unnamed buyer for around $200,000. You’ve got to admit though, for all Stein’s idiotic displays, he has managed to work out how to be a moderately prolific actor (albeit almost entirely as brief background characters) with no acting talent, or ability to inflect his voice, whatsoever.
Even fiction, such as 2009’s Creation, a biopic of Charles Darwin’s life as he struggles with the death of his daughter and the implications of his developing theory of evolution, can be touchy. Despite the film having surprisingly little to do with the theory, the lion’s share of the screen time exploring Darwin’s grief (the story being based on the book Annie’s Box by Darwin’s descendant Randal Keynes), the very thought of a film about Charles Darwin was enough to make most film distributors in the US resist showing it, fearing it would be too controversial. Every review written by an explicitly religious website talks less about the movie and more about the theory of evolution, in all cases failing to understand it and simply going on what they’ve been told by creationist preacher and noted soap-dropper Kent Hovind. The film itself is actually nothing special, it’s a visually amazing film with great cinematography, but the acting is sub-par.
There was also Bill Maher’s Religulous, which was mostly just the American comedian and pundit knocking around the world looking at different religions, making a few (but too few) valid criticisms and mostly just taking the piss; very entertaining but a bit superficial. Not to mention the countless films made for or about religions, such as Kirk Cameron’s abysmal Left Behind, even the title is one big line-feed for the actor-turned-Evangelical-fuckwit to ham up.
So it’s with a sense of unease that I read about a new film that will address this debate. Another descendant of Charles Darwin, Matthew Chapman, has written and directed The Ledge for release later this year, a film explicitly regarding atheism and the way that affects how one looks at life and death. I like that the atheist community is increasingly being represented, but that’s more of a feeling of empathy given that the atheist “controversy” is a much wider issue in the US than it is for me in the UK. It all depends on how the religious aspect of the story is addressed. From what little of the synopsis I’ve been able to find, it seems to be a Phonebooth-esque psychological thriller, though there’s certainly a religious aspect involved and, as it’s included in every synopsis I’ve read, this appears to be being emphasised. I suspect the dialogue in the film will make little reference to it, but it’s marketing is such that some people are now referring to it as “the Brokeback Mountain” moment of atheism, given what that film did for the gay rights movement. Good on you, New York, by the way.
I don’t know if this is the case, but I certainly think that any intellectually honest examination of religion, and those who lack a faith, can only be a good thing. Expelled did nothing to turn the opinions of normal people, only the zealots who wanted an excuse to hate “evolutionists” anyway, simply because of how transparent it was. I hope that the message in The Ledge is subtle (both to make it an enjoyable film and to stop it looking like propaganda) but clear, that it might make people think about this issue in more than the black-or-white/good-or-evil way that religious propagandists like Ben Stein wish to portray it.
If the film carries the “atheist” banner too highly, then it’ll put religious people off, it’ll put off the people who simply aren’t interested in the debate (let’s face it, if you’re not interested then this argument is tedious!), and it’ll come off simply as propaganda. That’s not to say the people behind the film should shy away from the message, far from it, but they need to understand that to portray the message you want to put across you have to get your audience interested, and then make them think.
