NY Times article on evolution and audience pressure to choose

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March 19, 2005

A New Screen Test for Imax: It's the Bible vs. the Volcano

By CORNELIA DEAN

 

he fight over evolution has reached the big, big screen.

 

Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to

show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the

earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict

biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures.

 

The number of theaters rejecting such films is small, people in the

industry say - perhaps a dozen or fewer, most in the South. But because only a

few dozen Imax theaters routinely show science documentaries, the decisions of

a few can have a big impact on a film's bottom line - or a producer's decision

to make a documentary in the first place.

 

People who follow trends at commercial and institutional Imax theaters

say that in recent years, religious controversy has adversely affected the

distribution of a number of films, including "Cosmic Voyage," which depicts the

universe in dimensions running from the scale of subatomic particles to

clusters of galaxies; "Galápagos," about the islands where Darwin theorized

about evolution; and "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," an underwater epic about the

bizarre creatures that flourish in the hot, sulfurous emanations from vents in

the ocean floor.

 

"Volcanoes," released in 2003 and sponsored in part by the National

Science Foundation and Rutgers University, has been turned down at about a

dozen science centers, mostly in the South, said Dr. Richard Lutz, the Rutgers

oceanographer who was chief scientist for the film. He said theater officials

rejected the film because of its brief references to evolution, in particular

to the possibility that life on Earth originated at the undersea vents.

 

Carol Murray, director of marketing for the Fort Worth Museum of Science

and History, said the museum decided not to offer the movie after showing it to

a sample audience, a practice often followed by managers of Imax theaters. Ms.

Murray said 137 people participated in the survey, and while some thought it

was well done, "some people said it was blasphemous."

 

In their written comments, she explained, they made statements like "I

really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact," or "I don't

agree with their presentation of human existence."

 

On other criteria, like narration and music, the film did not score as

well as other films, Ms. Murray said, and over all, it did not receive high

marks, so she recommended that the museum pass.

 

"If it's not going to draw a crowd and it is going to create

controversy," she said, "from a marketing standpoint I cannot make a

recommendation" to show it.

 

In interviews, officials at other Imax theaters said they had similarly

decided against the film for fear of offending some audiences.

 

"We have definitely a lot more creation public than evolution public,"

said Lisa Buzzelli, who directs the Charleston Imax Theater in South Carolina,

a commercial theater next to the Charleston Aquarium. Her theater had not ruled

out ever showing "Volcanoes," Ms. Buzzelli said, "but being in the Bible Belt,

the movie does have a lot to do with evolution, and we weigh that carefully."

 

Pietro Serapiglia, who handles distribution for the producer Stephen Low

of Montreal, whose company made the film, said officials at other theaters told

him they could not book the movie "for religious reasons," because it had

"evolutionary overtones" or "would not go well with the Christian community" or

because "the evolution stuff is a problem."

 

Hyman Field, who as a science foundation official had a role in the

financing of "Volcanoes," said he understood that theaters must be responsive

to their audiences. But Dr. Field he said he was "furious" that a science

museum would decide not to show a scientifically accurate documentary like

"Volcanoes" because it mentioned evolution.

 

"It's very alarming," he said, "all of this pressure being put on a lot

of the public institutions by the fundamentalists."

 

People who follow the issue say it is more likely to arise at science

centers and other public institutions than at commercial theaters. The

filmmaker James Cameron, who was a producer on "Volcanoes," said the commercial

film he made on the same topic, "Aliens of the Deep," had not encountered

opposition, except during post-production, when "it was requested from some

theaters that we change a line of dialogue" relating to sun worship by ancient

Egyptians. The line remained, he said.

 

Mr. Cameron said he was "surprised and somewhat offended" that people

were sensitive to the references to evolution in "Volcanoes."

 

"It seems to be a new phenomenon," he said, "obviously symptomatic of our

shift away from empiricism in science to faith-based science."

 

Some in the industry say they fear that documentary filmmakers will steer

clear of science topics likely to offend religious fundamentalists.

 

Large-format science documentaries "are generally not big moneymakers,"

said Joe DeAmicis, vice president for marketing at the California Science

Center in Los Angeles and formerly the director of its Imax theater. "It's

going to be hard for our filmmakers to continue to make unfettered

documentaries when they know going in that 10 percent of the market" will

reject them.

 

Others who follow the issue say many institutions are not able to resist

such pressure.

 

"They have to be extremely careful as to how they present anything

relating to evolution," said Bayley Silleck, who wrote and directed "Cosmic

Voyage." Mr. Silleck said he confronted religious objections to that film and

predicted he would face them again with a project he is working on now, about

dinosaurs.

 

Of course, a number of factors affect a theater manager's decision about

a movie. Mr. Silleck said an Imax documentary about oil fires in Kuwait "never

reached its distribution potential" because it had shots of the first Persian

Gulf war. "The theaters decided their patrons would be upset at seeing the

bodies," he said.

 

"We all have to make films for an audience that is a family audience," he

went on, "when you are talking about Imax, because they are in science centers

and museums."

 

He added, however, "there are a number of us who are concerned that there

is a kind of tacit overcaution, overprotectedness of the audience on the part

of theater operators."

 

In any event, censoring films like "Volcanoes" is not an option, said Dr.

Field, who said Mr. Low, the film's producer, got in touch with him when the

evolution issue arose to ask whether the film should be altered.

 

"I said absolutely not," recalled Dr. Field, who retired from the

National Science Foundation last year.

 

Mr. Low said that arguments over religion and science disturbed him

because of his own religious faith. In his view, he said, science is "a

celebration of what nature or God has done. So for me, there's no conflict."

 

Dr. Lutz, the Rutgers oceanographer, recalled a showing of "Volcanoes" he

and Mr. Low attended at the New England Aquarium. When the movie ended, a

little girl stood in the audience to challenge Mr. Low on the film's suggestion

that Earth might have formed billions of years ago in the explosion of a star.

"I thought God created the Earth," she said.

 

He replied, "Maybe that's how God did it."

 

 

 

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