Richard Dawkins is well known for his outspoken scientific and theological stand points on life and on the back of these he has sold a hell of a lot of books. In all fairness, these have all been written with the level of detail and scientific reasoning befitting an evolutionary biologist and now he’s turning his attention to the big screen as he talks about his new film, The Unbelievers.
Dawkins’ first major work, The Selfish Gene, was released in 1976, discussing the nature of evolution from a genetic stand point. Unlike Darwin, Dawkins’ brand of evolutionary science has little room for a god and the writer has himself evolved in recent years to become the active proponent of atheism that he is famous for, spawning the 2006 bestseller, The God Delusion.
It is his atheistic standpoint on life that has motivated him to turn his practical sensibilities to the world of cinema and in The Unbelievers he brings with him a whole host of speakers from all walks of life to discuss the concept of atheism and its place in modern life. With his wayward eyebrow hair and slightly odd mannerisms in toe, along with his new-found sidekick, Lawrence Krauss, he travels the world to talk about the importance of science and reason in the face of overbearing religious opinions.
What we love about the prospect of this film is not that it features the pair of unbelieving scientists, with reason, experimentation and cold hard facts to back them up, it’s the thought that the only way to actually make the film palatable in any way for viewing audiences is to bring in a string of Hollywood celebrities to corroborate what they’re saying.
The long and short of it is that the addition of interviews from apparent celeb supporters of the atheist viewpoint will probably make the film a lot less stilted. Dawkins’ 2010 Channel 4 documentary summary of The God Delusion is a pretty awkward affair, so getting Cameron Diaz, Ricky Gervais, Woody Allen, Stephen Hawking, Bill Pullman, Sarah Silverman, Tim Minchin, Eddie Izzard, Ian McEwan and Cormac McCarthy to take up the fight in The Unbelievers is probably a good move.
The down side is that according to director, Gus Holwerda, there is still no full release date set for the indie documentary, although it has been previewing at international film festivals throughout 2013. He posted an update recently on the film website that the details of a world-wide distribution are still being finalised, so either it’ll end up missing the boat and going straight to DVD or it will be getting a smaller art-house distribution for independent cinemas.
The Unbelievers DVD release has been confirmed to contain additional footage that isn’t in the film itself, including longer interviews with the film’s A list interviewees. My favourite line on the movie website is that they ask visitors to “keep the faith” about the distribution of the film and tag it with a smiley face. It’s ingeniously tragic.
