Nicholi assisted in writing the script and overseeing the filming of actors playing Freud and Lewis on sets in Great Britain, the Czech Republic and Ireland to ensure historical accuracy.

With advising from Nicholi, filming took place in Oxford, England, where Lewis was a professor at Magdalen College in Oxford University, and at a pub where Lewis met with the Inklings—a group of colleagues including J. R.R. Tolkien, one of Lewis’ closest friends.

Nicholi and the crew also traveled to Prague, which is near Freud’s birthplace of Moravia.

“What they did was find an old manor that was built around Freud’s time,” Nicholi says. “When we entered it, there was dust flying all over the place, and people carrying things and hammering. In a short time, the place was transformed into a beautiful room, which just seemed to appear out of nowhere.”

The documentary also features interviews with authors, lawyers, scientists, editors and other professionals discussing their worldviews and belief systems with Nicholi.

Frederick Lee, who is the course’s teaching fellow, and Jeremy D. Fraiberg ’92 appear in the film.

The documentary opens with brief shots of Harvard, including students from Nicholi’s course two years ago in the Barker Center classroom, and Memorial Church, where Nicholi delivered the Noble Lectures on Freud and Lewis.

Nicholi calls the filming and writing process “time-consuming,” and says that there was sometimes a tension between biographical fact and creative license.

“It’s been a constant tug of war between my emphasis on historical accuracy and [the filmmakers’] emphasis on telling a good story,” Nicholi says.

Still, according to Tatge, the documentary attempts to be as truthful as possible and to deal with sensitive issues objectively.

Nicholi says he, too, attempts to teach his course with an “objective, dispassionate, critical assessment of both worldviews.”

He says such objectivity is important because issues of faith resonate with so many people.

“Whether we realize it or not, we all possess a worldview. Everyone embraces some form of either Freud’s secular worldview or Lewis’ spiritual worldview,” Nicholi says. “A worldview is simply our attempt to make sense of our existence on this planet, to understand the purpose and meaning of our lives.”

Tatge says she thinks the general audience will be very receptive to the upcoming program, despite its academic nature.

“I definitely think you can, with a lot of imagination, take very academic material and translate it into something more accessible to a general audience,” she says.

—Staff writer Tina Wang can be reached at tinawang@fas.harvard.edu.