BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

On the evening of November 10, we saw a stage production of "Inherit the Wind" and were astounded at how a play 50 years old, based on a celebrated trial more than 80 years old, could be so prescient.

Or maybe prescient is the wrong word, because "Inherit the Wind" appears as if it is a drama written this year, but set back in the 1920s to give it more charm and character. After all, it doesn't seem, in the age of Bushevism, that we have "evolved" beyond the basic issues at stake in the famous Scopes trial: creationism vs. evolution.

The play, and the gripping movie adaptation that BuzzFlash is offering appear to put on trial the Bushevik creationists -- and their PR packaged cousin, "intelligent design."

The remastered-for-DVD film starring Spencer Tracy and Frederic March, as Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, is a courtroom battle of acting titans playing the roles of brilliant legal minds. This is the utlimate debate of fundamentalism vs. the age of enlightenment: blustering Biblical oratory vs. the power of and right to individual thought.

It's a movie more than 45 years old that shows how far backward the religious right has taken us: to an argument that appeared settled nearly a century ago.

"Inherit the Wind" is a masterful dramatic presentation of one of the most basic issues still facing America: upon which side of the Age of Enlightenment did our Constitution put us?

This is a movie that mixes a great issue of public policy with golden age acting, where the drama, the script, and the performances have to carry the day -- not cinematic hi-technology.

Tracy and March, placed in a period piece, ironically make the issue of creationism vs. evolution even more relevant, because their clash makes the modern day evangelists vs. the television legal pundits appear so contrived.

"Inherit the Wind" should be seen by anyone who wants to see this vital issue to our republic through a cinematic lens.

Rather than looking at an "antique" America, "Inherit" shows how some conflicts -- such as faith vs. reason -- don't "evolve" after all, much to our dismay.

You can take comfort, however, in the fact that Clarence Darrow (who has a pseudonym in the film, as does Bryan), vanquishes the argument against teaching evolution.

Obviously, it's a lesson not learned by the religious right of 2006.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS