Word: galileo
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Galileo Galilei, you will recall, got himself into a great deal of trouble back in the early 17th century by daring to confirm the Copernican theory of the universe. The Italian astronomer-physicist also formulated certain principles of dynamics and refined a new invention called the telescope-accomplishments that were considered acceptable, even exciting. But insisting that the earth revolved around the sun was pushing things too far, and the church got in a terrible tear. The idea that the earth was not the center of the universe held disturbing theological and philosophical implications, unacceptable to Rome. Galileo was urged...
Rueful Humor. There is something piquant and warmingly cynical in the spectacle of civilized man rejecting truth, and one of the best things about this production of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo is that it is full of rueful, at times raucous, humor. Joseph Losey (Accident, The Go-Between) staged the American premiere of the play 27 years ago, and for this film adaptation he has pruned some of Brecht's more arid ideological asides without substantially damaging the original text. Somewhat less comfortably, Losey flirts with Brecht's best-known theatrical devices: he uses a chorus...
...Galileo is about both the unreason able fate of reason and the attempts to thwart and subvert truth. Knowledge and truth, for Brecht, would ultimately be nurtured and fueled by the proletariat, the working man being the true repository of hope. This seems a pretty romantic proposition, especially for a man who had dedicated himself to abolishing every article of romantic faith. But Brecht knew well, and portrayed with ruthless accuracy, the inbred conservatism of power, the stale air of the cloister that can smother the free, creative spirit. What makes Galileo impor tant, finally, is its ironic accounting...
Strangely, Losey did not apply Copernican tenets to his casting. Galileo, who ought to be the radiant center of this dramatic universe, is so insubstantially summoned up by Topol that he is outshone and outdone by the secondary heavenly bodies. He seems to revolve around them. Topol, who last loped in Fiddler on the Roof, has a sort of toothy ingenuousness that gives Galileo an unfortunate puppy-dog quality. Topol misses the role's strength, both in character and intellect. Most of the actors around him, however, are superb: John Gielgud, Margaret Leighton, Edward Fox, Patrick Magee, John McEnery...
...briefly, an appearance by Colin Blakely, an actor of consummate accomplishment. Blakely - who plays a Venetian official - has a self-effacing power that makes him one of the best actors now at work on the English stage. One would have thought those qualities qualification enough for the perfect Galileo...