Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Galileo and the Movies

  • Published:
Physics in Perspective Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We analyze the character of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), one of the most famous scientists of all time, as portrayed in three significant movies: Luigi Maggi’s Galileo Galilei (1909), Liliana Cavani’s Galileo (1968), and Joseph Losey’s Galileo (1975), the last one of which was based upon Bertolt Brecht’s drama, Das Leben des Galilei (1947). We investigate the relationships between the main characteristics of these fictional Galileos and the most important twentieth-century Galilean historiographic models. We also analyze the veracity of the plots of these three movies and the role that historical and scientific consultants played in producing them. We conclude that connections between these three movies and Galilean historiographic models are far from evident, that other factors deeply influenced the representation of Galileo on the screen.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Giovanni Giolitti (1842–1928) was Prime Minister of Italy five times between 1892 and 1921.

  2. (1) Galileo studies the movement of the earth’s rotation; (2) From the oscillation of a lamp, Galileo discovers the law governing the pendulum; (3) To revenge himself, an unfaithful scribe steals Galileo’s papers describing the earth’s movements; (4) Galileo’s theories are judged to be in conflict with religion; (5) Galileo, accused of heresy, is arrested; (6) The Inquisition condemns Galileo’s theories; (7) The rebellion of the soul: and yet,… it moves! (8) Death of a genius.

  3. Giuseppe Dossetti was an Italian jurist, a politician, and from 1958 a Catholic priest.

References

  1. Pietro Rendondi, “Dietro l’immagine. Rappresentazione di Galileo nella cultura positivistica,” Nuncius 9 (1) (1994), 65–116.

  2. The cinematography inspired by Galileo is not among the better known. Many famous films were dedicated to other great figures in the history of science and were well received by critics. One can think, for example, of Pasteur (1922), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), Madame Curie (1943), and Robert Koch (1939). See, for example, Alberto Elena, “Exemplary lives: biographies of scientists on the screen,” Public Understanding of Science 2 (1993), 205-223, and Jacques Jouhaneau, “Les scientifiques vus par les cineastes,” in Alexis Martinet, ed., Le cinéma et la science (Paris: CNRS Editions, 1994), pp. 248–257.

  3. Aldo Bernardini, Cinema muto italiano. II. Industria e organizzazione dello spettacolo 1905–1909 (Rom-Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1981), pp. 95–103.

  4. Gian Piero Brunetta, Guida alla storia del cinema italiano 1905-2003 (Torino: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2003), p. 28; translated by Jeremy Parzen as The History of Italian Cinema: A Guide to Italian Film from Its Origins to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 34.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Gian Piero Brunetta, Storia del cinema italiano. Volume primo. Il cinema muto 1895–1929 (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1993), p. 153.

  7. Aldo Bernardini, Il cinema muto italiano: i film dei primi anni. 1905-1909 (Roma: Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia and Torino: Edizioni RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana, 1996), pp. 306–307, on p. 307. A period of great turmoil was being experienced then in the cinematography sector, with numerous film magazines being published and then being rapidly stopped or changing their characters. Bernardini cites the critical synopsis dated January 1909 in the monthly publication Lux, which was then a reference work for specialists in the film employment and distribution sectors.

  8. “Galileo di L. Cavani (Italia),” Bianco e Nero 29 (9–10) (settembre-octtobre 1968), 84–85.

  9. Elena, “Exemplary lives” (ref. 2), p. 207.

  10. The influence on Losey has been summarized in eight points, among which stands out “the stripping of natural reality and the reconstruction of reality through symbols”; see Maurizio Porro, Joseph Losey (Milano: Editore Moizzi, 1978), p. 15; see also Foster Hirsch, Joseph Losey (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980), p. 11.

  11. For analyses of the failures of the film renditions of Brecht’s works, see George Lellis, “Re-Interpreting Brecht: His influence on Contemporary Drama and Film,” Film Quarterly 44 (1991), 39–40.

  12. “Barbara Bray on Joseph Losey & the Cinematic Theatre of Bertolt Brecht,” in Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo, The American Film Theater, The AFT Cinebill for Galileo, Special Features, KinoVideo DVD (AFT Distributing Corporation, 1974, and Kino International Corporation, 2003).

  13. Michael Ciment, Il libro di Losey: Un dialogo autobiografico. Versione italiana a cura di Lorenzo Codelli (Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1983), p. 300; Conversations with Losey (London and New York: Methuen & Co., 1985), pp. 335–336.

  14. Vincenzio Viviani, Vita di Galileo, a cura di Luciana Borsetto (Bergamo: Moretti e Vitali Editori, 1992), pp. 12, 66.

  15. “An Interview with Topol” (June 11, 2003), in Brecht’s Galileo, Special Features (ref. 12).

  16. Antonio Banfi, Vita di Galileo Galilei (Milano: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, 1962).

  17. Antonio Favaro, ed, Le opera di Galileo Galilei, 20 Vols. (Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1890–1909).

  18. Banfi, Vita di Galileo Galilei (ref. 16), pp. 5–6.

  19. Rendondi, “Dietro l’immagine” (ref. 1), pp. 89–92.

  20. Paolo Rossi, “Ci sono molti Galilei?” in Paolo Rossi, Un altro presente: Saggi sulla storia della filosofia (Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino, 1999), chapter V, pp. 133–143, on pp. 135–139.

  21. Ernst Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwickelung historisch-kritisch Dargestellt (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1883; achste … Auflage, 1921), pp. 117–149; translated by Thomas J. McCormack as The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of its Development (La Salle, Ill. and London: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1942), pp. 151–191.

  22. Pierre Duhem, Les Origines de la Statique. Tome Premier (Paris: Librairie Scientifique A. Hermann, 1905), pp. 236–262, especially pp. 237–238, 245–248, 253–255, 260–261; ibid., Tome II (Paris: Librairie Scientifique A. Hermann, 1906), pp. 160, 212, 284; translated by Grant F. Leneaux, Victor N. Vagliente, and Guy H. Wagener, as The Origins of Statics. Vol. 1 (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991), pp. 166–183, especially pp. 167, 174, 177, 182; ibid, Vol. 2, pp. 362, 396, 443.

  23. John Herman Randall, Jr., The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1961).

  24. Alexandre Koyrè, Études Galiléennes (Paris: Hermann et Cie, 1939); translated by John Mepham as Galileo Studies (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1978); I. Bernard Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, 1960), pp. 90–107; Marie Boas [Hall], The Scientific Renaissance 1450-1630 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962), pp. 313–343.

  25. Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. xviii.

  26. Thomas B. Settle, “An Experiment in the History of Science,” Science 133 (January 6, 1961), 19–23; see also idem, “Galileo and Early Experimentation,” in Rutherford Aris, H. Ted Davis, and Roger H. Stuewer, ed., Springs of Scientific Creativity: Essays on Founders of Modern Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), pp. 3–20.

  27. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge (London: NLB and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1975), pp. 69–161.

  28. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press and Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1962), pp. 117–124.

  29. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A history of man’s changing vision of the Universe (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1959), pp. 352–378, 425–495; translated by Massimo Giacometti as I sonnambuli: Storia delle concezioni dell’universo (Milano: Jaca Book, 1982), pp. 346–371, 417–493.

  30. Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, London: Cambridge University Press, and Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1955); translated by Giacinto Cardona and Anna Abetti as Processo a Galileo: studio storico-critico (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1960).

  31. Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Galileo and the Art of Reasoning: Rhetorical Foundations of Logic and Scientific Method (Dordrecht, Boston, London: D. Reidel Publishing Co., (1980).

  32. Drake, Galileo at Work (ref. 25), p. xix.

  33. William R. Shea, Galileo’s Intellectual Revolution (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1972).

  34. Rossi, “Ci sono molti Galilei?” (ref. 20), p. 138.

  35. Ludovico Geymonat, Galileo Galilei (Torino: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1957); translated by Stillman Drake as Galileo Galilei: A biography and inquiry into his philosophy of science (New York, Toronto, London: McGraw-Hill, 1966); Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (ref. 29); Banfi, Vita di Galileo Galilei (ref. 16).

  36. Carlo Lizzani, Il cinema italiano 1895-1979 (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1979), p. 9.

  37. Brunetta, Storia del cinema italiano. Volume primo (ref. 6), pp. 143–151.

  38. Teatro Stabile di Torino, ed., Materiali per vita di Galileo (Milano: U. Mursia & C., 1972), p. 121.

  39. Ciment, Il libro di Losey (ref. 13); Conversations with Losey (ref. 13).

  40. Ibid., p. 302; 339.

  41. Teatro Stabile di Torino, Materiali per vita di Galileo (ref. 38), p. 124.

  42. Liliana Cavani, Francesco e Galileo: due film (Torino: Piero Gribaudi Editore, 1970), p. 188.

  43. Brunetta, Guida alla storia del cinema italiano (ref. 4), pp. 280-281; The History of Italian Cinema (ref. 4), p. 227.

  44. Tullio Kezich, “Galileo,” Bianco e Nero 30 (5–6) (maggio-giugno 1969), 146–147, on 147.

  45. Alfredo Baldi, Claudio Camerini, and Marco Zambelli, ed., La storia nel cinema (Municipality of Reggio Emilia: 1984), p. 5. These considerations began to be proposed and discussed by film historians quite recently. Among their first supporters were Pierre Sorlin and Marc Ferro; see Pierre Sorlin, Sociologie du Cinéma (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1977); translated as Sociologia del Cinema (Milan: Garzanti, 1977), and Marc Ferro, Cinema e storia: Linee per una ricerca (Milano: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, 1980); translated by Naomi Greene as Cinema and History (Detroit: Wayne State University press, 1988).

  46. Pierre Sorlin, The Film in History: Restaging the Past (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), p. 5; translated by Matilda Baldazzi and Gianfranco Gori as La storia nei film, a cura di Gianfranco Gori (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1984), p. 5.

  47. Enrico Bellone, Caos e armonia: Storia della fisica moderna e comtemporanea (Torino: UTET Libreria, 1990), p. 30.

  48. Teatro Stabile di Torino, Materiali per vita di Galileo (ref. 38), p. 134.

  49. Quoted in Gaetana Marrone, The Gaze and the Labyrinth: The Cinema of Liliana Cavani (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 53; translated by Simone Marchesi as Lo sguardo e il labirinto (Venezia: Marsilio Editori, 2003), p. 59.

  50. Ibid., pp. 53–54; 59–60.

  51. Rima D. Apple and Michael W. Apple, “Screening Science,” Isis 84 (1993), 750–754, on 750-751.

  52. Rossi, “Ci sono molti Galilei?” (ref. 20), p. 152.

  53. Piccolo (Teatro di Milano–Teatro d’Europa), Visioni di Galileo (Milan: 2005/2006 Season), p. 5.

  54. For examples, see Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (ref. 29), pp. 358–363, 368–370, 374–378, 430, 436–439, 474; quotations on pp. 436, 474; I sonnambuli (ref. 29), pp. 352–357, 361–363, 367–371, 422, 428–431, 468–469; quotations on pp. 428, 468–469.

  55. Teatro Stabile di Torino, Materiali per vita di Galileo (ref. 38), p. 36.

  56. Ciment, Il libro di Losey (ref. 13), pp. 302-303; Conversations with Losey (ref. 13), p. 339.

  57. Ibid., pp. 79–80; 75–76.

  58. Quoted in Viviani, Vita di Galileo (ref. 14), p. 22.

  59. Ciment, Il libro di Losey (ref. 13), pp. 301–302; Conversations with Losey (ref. 13), pp. 337–338.

  60. Teatro Stabile di Torino, Materiali per vita di Galileo (ref. 38), p. 38.

  61. Ibid., p. 159.

  62. Koestler, The Sleepwalkers (ref. 29), p. 339; I sonnambuli (ref. 29), p. 346.

  63. This reaction in Il popolo is quoted in Cavani, Francesco e Galileo (ref. 42), p. 185.

  64. Kezich, “Galileo” (ref. 44), p. 147.

  65. Marrone, The Gaze and the Labyrinth (ref. 49), p. 54–55; Lo sguardo e il labirinto (ref. 49), pp. 60–61.

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank Professor Pasquale Tucci, our doctoral-dissertation supervisor and director of the Vedere la Scienza scientific film festival, for his advice and support, our colleagues in the Physics Department at the University of Milan for their interest in our work, and Roger H. Stuewer for his careful and thoughtful editorial work on our paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Brera 28, 20121, Milan, Italy

    Cristina Olivotto & Antonella Testa

Authors
  1. Cristina Olivotto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Antonella Testa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Olivotto.

Additional information

Cristina Olivotto, to whom correspondence should be addressed, received her Ph.D. degree in the history of physics at the Università degli Studi di Milano in 2007; her research focuses on the history of twentieth-century physics and the popularization of science. Antonella Testa received her Ph.D. degree in the history of physics at the Università degli Studi di Milano in 2005; her research focuses on the history of twentieth-century physics, the history of scientific instrumentation, and the popularization of science.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Olivotto, C., Testa, A. Galileo and the Movies. Phys. Perspect. 12, 372–395 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-010-0027-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-010-0027-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation