Some months back, I did a post on the movie A Delicate Balance which is an adaptation of a play by Edward Albee and produced by a man named Ely Landau who had a daring idea of bringing prominent modern (or more modern that what Hollywood generall adapted) plays to the screen. The AFT only lasted two "seasons", releasing about 14 films. Another one of the AFT movies that I've had on my DVR is Galileo based on a play by German dissident playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Galileo is of course the famous Italian scientist and astronomer who, among other things, was one of the first to use a telescope in astronomy and in doing so discovered four of Jupiter's moons. As the film opens, that's where the action begins, with Galileo (Chaim Topol) in Padua having discovered the moons and wanting to show his discovery to the Medicis because of its importance. The Medicis don't even want to look into the telescope because they don't believe Jupiter can have moons: the Earth is the center of the universe, and everything must revolve around the earth. Jupiter having moons would decisively prove Copernicus' theory about the universe not being geocentric, which has major theological implications.
Galileo's evidence is controversial, but he has a modicum of safety in that Padua has been aligned with Venice, which can abide with new knowledge of the heavens if it makes navigation easier and safer, thereby saving them money. But the other Italian city-states as well as the Papal States are a tougher nut. Galileo has an ally in the Church in the form of Cardinal Barberini (Michael Lonsdale), who would later become Pope Urban VIII, but there are many more people, and more powerful forces within the Church hierarchy who do not support Galileo's teachings. It's also a problem for Galileo's personal life. He has a daughter Virginia who has for a long time been engaged to the wealthy Marsali. But Marsali doesn't accept heliocentrism, causing him to break off the engagement. Galileo does have several students who support him.
The acting advances to 1633, and the forces against Galileo have become so strong that not even Pope Urban can save him. Galileo is brought to Rome to recant his views publicly, with the inducement being that if he does so, he'll only be subjected to house arrest and will be able to do "research" in scientific areas that Church doesn't have any problem with yet. Otherwise, he faces death: the Inquisition is still that strong. Of course, we know from history that Galileo did recant publicly even if he didn't really believe his recantation. As the movie concludes Galileo has been working on a new treatise the he wants smuggled out of Italy.
Now, one thing to know about Bertolt Brecht is that he was a Marxist and believed is using art -- in his case the theater -- to advance philosophical ideas even above the narrative. So his Galileo was supposed to be the villain of the piece by virtue of his having recanted. But somehow, few directors have been able to Brecht's Galileo that unsympathetic. Having Topol as Galileo certainly doesn't help, although the first translation into English was done by Charles Laughton in conjunction with Brecht; Laughton then played that Galileo on stage and there was no way a Laughton Galileo was going to be unsympathetic.
This 1970s version has another problem, which is that it retains the chorus that Brecht used (from my reading about the play; I've never seen a stage production of it) to inform the audience of what was going to be happening. I'm guessing that Brecht did this in part to try to get the audience's attention on something other that Galileo as a hero as well as to make a more didactic statement as to what the play was about. Here, the chorus is three young boys whose voices have not yet changed; this combined with their singing makes it difficult to understand them.
I think Ely Landau and the whole American Film Theater idea deserve the benefit of the doubt for trying to come up with something daring and new. However, trying to stay so close to the plays doesn't always work, and the flaws in doing that are certainly evident in Galileo. It's not a bad movie, but opening up the play in the right way -- even though that probably would have gone against what the AFT was trying to do -- could have made Galileo so much better.
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