Product Description

At a time when heretics were burned alive for dissent, scientist Galileo Galilei risked his life to advance his revolutionary concepts of the universe. British actor Simon Callow (Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral) brings Galileo to life, humanizing the great thinker’s passion, intelligence, and arrogance while depicting his frustrations with fellow philosophers and scientists, and with Roman Catholic church leaders.

Based on Dava Sobel’s best-selling biography Galileo’s Daughter, this two-hour film offers a vivid re-imagining of Galileo’s incredible achievements that forever changed the way we view our place in the universe. It also investigates the momentous personal and spiritual conflicts Galileo faced- most especially in defending the controversial theory that the earth revolves around the sun.

Join noted Galileo authorities and experience the remarkable life behind the discoveries, and see letters from his illegitimate daughter, Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun, have shed new light on Galileo’s pioneering telescopic observations, his fateful Inquisition trial for heresy, and life in the seventeenth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16053 in DVD
• Brand: WGBH BOSTON VIDEO
• Released on: 2006-03-28
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 120 minutes

Customer Reviews

New York Times' rave review (and a correction)
Amazon has the wrong description of this show. It's really an Emmy winning 2 hour Nova Episode with Simon Callow as Galileo, first broadcast in 2002.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:

''GOOD philosophers, like eagles, fly alone, not in flocks like starlings,'' declares the father of modern science in ''Galileo's Battle for the Heavens,'' a two-hour special on PBS's ''Nova''
The same goes for intelligent television shows...With this handsome, unabashedly earnest production, ''Nova'' demonstrates a continuing willingness to believe in viewers who are interested in how ideas have taken hold.

The two-hour program, written and produced by David Axelrod, recalls the uproar over Copernican theory at a time when Roman Catholic theology placed a stationary earth at the center of the universe. This is no dry science lesson but a dramatized vision of the contradictory forces pulling on Galileo, who was both a scientist and a devout Catholic. He lived during the Inquisition, in an era when unpopular ideas were grounds for torture or being burned at the stake.

The program was adapted from ''Galileo's Daughter,'' Dava Sobel's best-selling book based on letters written to Galileo by his daughter, who became a nun. She took the name Maria Celeste, perhaps in deference to her father's fascination with the stars, and her letters reveal a touching desire to understand his obsession.

His feelings for her are less clear, because his letters to her have not been found. But Galileo was a prolific writer, expressing his scientific theories as literature in his ''Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems.'' He had the necessary arrogance to combat prevailing wisdom. ''I render grace to God that it has pleased him to make me alone the first observer of an admirable thing kept hidden all these ages,'' he said. But he would die humbled by the Inquisition; his writings were banned. In dramatic recreations, Simon Callow plays Galileo with melancholy grandeur.

engaging, entertaining, and informative
I've been enjoying learning about influential scientists lately, and this was a good resource in my self-education. It was really well made, combining standard documentary techniques with reenactments of episodes from Galileo's life, making for a program that's very informative and also easy to watch. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of science.

Galileo's battle....
This is a well made documentary and I enjoyed watching it. However, the actor who played Galileo I felt was somewhat miscast and the re-enacted scenes were a little overlong, but it is in my opinion still worth a look.