Radio Rockall Movie Club Report Our Movie Club screened a film back in March. On the way in a friend said, ‘This is obviously your kind of film’. It portrayed the life of a 19th century, academic, family-loving, English gentleman who was distraught by the death of his eldest daughter. This is not obviously my kind of film. In fact that is obviously not my kind of film.
However, the film was Creation, the gentleman in question was Charles Darwin, and the sub-plot was the forty years gestation of his great work, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, so that is more likely what said friend meant. Creation was based on the notes in ‘Annie’s box’, inherited, opened and published by Randal Keynes, Charles Darwin’s great, great grandson. Annie’s death from a ‘bilious fever’, probably tuberculosis, cast a long shadow over Darwin’s work and his family life but his ideas were well developed by the time Annie died. She had been an inquisitive child who had innocently encouraged his work but her death reinforced his growing view of a world where there was no point, plan or purpose to life. Life simply emerged and changed in a ‘natural’ way.
Annie’s death delivered the more immediate challenge of exacerbating the rift with Charles’s wife, Emma. She remained a devout Anglican believer at a time when the six-day myth of creation in Genesis 1 was read literally, not allegorically as the early church had read it, nor as a device to reinforce the Sabbath as the priests who wrote it probably intended for the Israelites in exile to ‘keep the faith’.
The younger Darwin would have known the passage about man being made in God’s image, on day 6, and having dominion over the animals made earlier in the week. Like many boys the young Charles was quite cruel and as a youthful student hunting and shooting took precedence over his studies, even at Cambridge. However, he passed his examinations and then exchanged his gun for the mightier pen, dropping cruelty for creation.
Darwin would also have known the earlier myth of Genesis 2 where God makes Adam first from the dust of the ground then makes animals as potential companions for Adam which he names. Darwin would doubtless have mused on these passages as he realised the close affinity of man with all the creatures, in spite of carefully hiding the human connection in Origin. He saved that for later.
Early scenes show Darwin’s voyage as naturalist on HMS Beagle. It includes the return of three children from Tierra del Fuego cheaply purchased from the natives on an earlier voyage. They had been named York Minster, Fuegia Basket and Jeremy Button, tamed with English manners and returned as missionaries. They failed wonderfully but it caused Darwin to wonder on the scope of human development. As part of his research, Darwin observed a lonely orangutan in a zoo. It, too, had been captured, then caged, clothed and called Julie. In the film, Charles often tells Annie her favourite story:
Julie’s sad life and death.
Charming scenes show Charles, with his children, quietly observing animals on the beach or in the woods. A fox leaps on a rabbit and one child cries, ‘Daddy it’s not fair’. He agrees but adds that even Mr Fox must eat. The film poignantly portrays the rift between Charles and Emma by the manner of Emma’s piano playing, by their gradually more stilted conversation and by the delicate scenes of their separation in bed.
The film peaks with Charles completing his book and bringing it to Emma for judgement: either it is to be consigned to the fire by her hand or it goes for publication – but not before she has read it. Emma settles to read the daunting manuscript. Then we see the bonfire smoke but Emma emerges from the house with a parcel addressed to John Murray, Publishers.
The final scene shows Charles slowly walking back to his house not with Emma but with Annie. We are left with the vision of Annie as the vital inspiration of one of the world’s top ten books containing one of the top five greatest ideas of all time. We’re all animals now.
Five years ago Richard Layard published Happiness:
Creation, starring Jennifer Connelly and real-life husband Paul Bettany, was released on DVD ON 18 January 2010.