That's just Religulous!

Tonight I saw the film Religulous from Bill Maher. In this documentary, Maher uses all the subtlety of an Islamic extremist deploying a suicide bomb to tackle the Fairy Tale nature of religion.

Maher travels to the Vatican, to Jerusalem, the Morman temple in Salt Lake City, and an Orlando amusement park, among other places. Along the way, he interviews religious leaders, religious scholars, political leaders, actors portraying religious figures, and ordinary folk who are true believers. Along the way he has one simple question: "tell me why I should believe this crap?"

Maher takes great joy in pointing out the contradictions in the bible, the incongruity involved with "men of christ" building decidedly non-Christlike churches and wearing non-Christlike wardrobes (a preacher in a $2,000 suit?). He unveils the truth that many religions bear striking similarities in their mythologies, along with the convenience that most religious leaders received their marching orders in a private conversation with god.

Ironically, the most seemingly level-headed individuals in the film are a pair of Catholic priests. One states emphatically that there is no relationship between the bible and science, even though more and more religious types try to "prove" that there is a scientific basis to the stories of the bible. (Ultimately, this requires yet another leap of faith for one to believe the message.) The other stands in front of the Vatican and tells us that there is no way Jesus would have lived in a place like that, and that most of the dogma presented by the church is ridiculous.

But, more and more, violence overtakes the world in the name of religion. The government of the US is populated by lawmakers, including the current President, whose worldview is guided by their religious beliefs. However, all seemingly religious violence is denounced as "politics." Maher shows that the two are dangerously intertwined.

Maher risks having his message undermined with his sledgehammer style, as well as his openly mocking the beliefs of those he is interviewing. Further, the clever, razor-sharp editing makes the viewer wonder if the interviews are being cut to put statements in the least-favorable light. But ultimately the film prevails as carrying two important messages. First, humans will never live peacefully as long as so many faithfully follow ancient teachings claiming that those who believe in other gods are infidels who must be destroyed. It's not politics after all, it's a basic tenet for many religions. The second message pertains mostly to the US, where so many evangelical Christians populate the highest offices in Washington - when the world is run by people who believe in the End of Days and that the Rapture is imminent, then world leaders might not make decisions that take into account the long-term health of the planet and its inhabitants, human or otherwise.

This movie is not for the faint of heart or the strong of faith. The show I attended at the Eveningstar Cinema in Brunswick was attended by a small audience that seemed united in it's non-believer status. It is, however, quite poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. Brilliantly subversive filmmaking.

A Flock of Dodos

I did get a chance tonight to attend my first Green Mountain Film Festival movie, and it was a real good one - Flock of Dodos. Dodos is former marine biologist Randy Olson's examination of the growing "debate" between those who want schools to teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution, and scientists.

The crux of the ID proponents is that there are some holes in Darwin's Evolution science. In other words, evolution doesn't explain everything that we've found in the development of life on this planet. Because evolution doesn't have all of the answers, ID proponents want to promote Intelligent Design as a potential "alternative" theory to evolution. The only problem is that ID doesn't have holes, it has wide, yawning chasms in its explanations. The other problem is that, given that ID does not stand up to any actual scientific scrutiny. It is a theory with literally no data to support it, therefore it does not belong in a high school science class.

The other pillar that ID stands upon is the supposition that some things are so elegant and so perfectly-constructed that they couldn't have happened by environmental adaptation and chance mutations. Some power must have thought these things through. Just as some power obviously designed Mount Rushmore. ("A person designed Mt. Rushmore" the filmmaker points out to a Pennsylvania School Board member.) The problem with this argument is that we have strong evidence that some genetic advancements were the result of environmental adaptation, and we have strong evidence that genes have mutated in the past, whereas we have no evidence of the existence of an intelligent designer. So why would we assume that those evolutionary advances that don't fit neatly into some of the premises of evolution that we know exist, instead are better explained by a phenomena of which there is no documentable scientific evidence? Indeed, the existence of an Intelligent Designer is something that one has to accept on faith. And while the ID folks will argue up one side of you and down the other that ID does not promote religion, the fact is that the words "faith" and "religion" are often used interchangeably in our society.

One question that gets examined toward the end of the movie is, why, in the absence of scientific support, is ID gaining steam in this country. One possible answer - Americans don't like to think that much, and ID (actually, I think we can call it "Creationism" now) doesn't require a lot of hard thinking. It's a neat, easily digestible answer. Another answer is that those who are in the best postition to debunk Creationism - the scientists - aren't interested in the debate. They see Creationism as non-scientific hokum and not worthy of debate, just as we no longer debate whether or not Earth orbits Sun. The scientists exacerbate the issue by failing to treat the Creationists with much respect. "They are ignorant," is a commonly-stated viewpoint. The Creationists, on the other hand, are in the position of having to respect the scientific validity of Evolution, and therefore only need to focus on the gaps in what evolution can explain. And, unlike the scientists, they are motivated to actually engage in the debate. And, frankly, I believe that they have an audience that wants to believe in Creationism, because many of us have spent a lot of energy in our lives believing that we have to accept, on faith, the presence of a higher power.

It's all heady stuff, but a topic that Olson handles fairly even-handedly even though we are aware early on of what his opinion is on the matter. There is a great deal of humor in the film as well. Most memorable is the discussion of how rabbits have to ingest their food twice (in other words, eat their own poop) to extract the nutrients from it. As one scientist asks, "who would design that?" And the scientists are not always portrayed in a positive light, particularly in a roundtable discussion of PhD convened by Olson. Okay, the roundtable is actually a poker table, and Olson films the scientists playing cards, getting drunk and obstinately denouncing Creationism. They are having fun, but they clearly are not respecting the Creationsists.

In the end, it is Olson's own mother, "Muffy Moose," who steals the show. A lively, eccentric octagenarian, Muffy lives around the corner from leading Creationist lawyer John Calvert. Molly has lived a full life, and has tried on lots of sprituality hats over the years, but she's a devout Evolutionist. When she is on screen, she never fails to fully engage the audience. She also has the line of the movie when, consulting a toy, she says "let's see what the Intelligent Eight Ball has to say."

Flock of Dodos is getting a lot of non-theatre play, and it will be coming to Showtime in May. The DVD public release is set for August of this year. I'm certain that most of us are so clearly entrenched in our beliefs that this movie is unlikely to change anybody's mind on the subject, but it's a fairly thorough and entertaining examination of the issue, and I highly recommend it to all.

Good Night, and Good Luck

See it now.

The latest in a long line of terrific movies offered at The Eveningstar, Good Night, and Good Luck documents CBS Newsman, Edward R. Murrow, and his co-producer, Fred Friendly, as they challenge the methods of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950's Anti-American hearings.

Directed and co-written by co-star George Clooney, Good Night takes us inside the production rooms of CBS' See it Now, the first television newsmagazine. Murrow and Friendly run a series of programs that questions the crusade to locate and out communists. The themes of this film have parallels in today's US, where Constitutional rights are routinely cast aside in the name of "national security". Murrow and crew soldier on, knowing that they will themselves come under scrutiny and attack from Senator McCarthy. They are also aware that they are risking the very existence of their show, as neither the network nor the show's sponsor (Alcoa) is all that keen on a series of programming that takes on the Federal government. Still, Murrow's unquestioned integrity, and the decision to primarily tell the story with footage of McCarthy himself, swiftens the turning tide against McCarthy that results in his ultimate censure by the Senate. The members of the CBS news staff are not without tragedies of their own, and the show itself loses it's prime-time viability when Alcoa pulls out.

The film captures the stress of this endeavor. Filmed in black and white and featuring a lush jazz soundtrack, the movie sports the feel of the 1950's. However, rather than the white-bread Happy Days America that we have come to define the decade, we see that not all is well in the US. Isolated to the tight confines of the newsroom, the board room and the barroom (all of which are filled with the smoke from infinite cigarettes), the tension is palpable. David Strathairn gives a magnificent turn as Murrow, capturing the newsman's resolve but also revealing the underlying nerves that are plying at his insides. Clooney also gives a solid performance as Friendly, however it is his work behind the camera, particularly his choice to use actual McCarthy archival footage, that gives the film its oompf. The entire cast, which also includes the always-terrific Patricia Clarkson and Robert Downey, Jr., give first rate performances.

Good Night, and Good Luck will likely stay in theaters longer than most so-called Independent films (the film is a production of Warner Independent Films, as in AOL Time Warner, so I'm not sure that I would classify this as a true "independent" endeavor). I encourage all to see it for the rich production, gripping performances, and timely history lesson.