Longitude
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Movie Reviews of Longitude
Movie Review: You just gotta see this!
Summary: 5 Stars
The first three customer reviews really say it all!
So why am I writing here?
Because you just gotta see this!
Truly a great movie.
Movie Review: Amazing True Story
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a fantastic documdrama. My daughter and I watched it together when it aired as a miniseries on A&E.Amazing story.
Movie Review: Well Worth Your Time
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a visually stunning 2-disc dramatization of Dava Sobel's book about 18th century struggles to produce an accurate, seaworthy clock that would enable sailors to know their location by knowing precisely what time it was.
The acting is superb; the settings and production values are magnificent. This film does a worthy job of telling the story of John Harrison's 50-year battle to be granted the prize promised by the English Crown to the man who could produce a reliable timepiece.
However this film attempts an expansion of Sobel's book that I'm not sure was quite warranted or that works. There is no full-length Director's Commentary on these DVD's. There is only a relatively short "Making Of" bonus feature. In that extra, it's revealed that the producers/director thought that they would bore modern audiences if they stuck to Sobel's almost exclusively 18th century narrative. They thought they had to introduce a more contemporary dramatic line that modern audiences could identify with better. So they layered Harrison's story with the story of Rupert Gould, the Englishman who in the 1930's undertook the task of restoring Harrison's clocks.
The two men's stories are closely interwoven and indeed do have a lot in common. Both men became fixated on the minute workings of clocks - to the exclusion of most human relations. Both let their projects grow to engulf their whole lives. Both were continuously balked by the English Maritime bureaucracy.
The movie often cuts so quickly from one narrative to the other that it is almost like watching split-screen action. The intention is perhaps to imitate the two armatures that extend from Harrison's counterbalance mechanism as these armatures nod towards each other, then separate in courtly, symmetrical minuet - over and over. However, the effect is more often simply disruptive and distracting.
At least, it was jarring to me for the first 45 minutes or so. After that, I became a little more accustomed to the quick volley between Harrison and Gould. Still, I think Sobel's account of Harrison would have been able to stand on its own and be amply relevant to modern audiences. There were so many interesting episodes in the book that had to be omitted here in order to make room for the stereopticon duet involving Gould's life. However enough remains. There are swashbuckling sea adventures, intrigue in periwigged counsel chambers, and glowing scenes around the hearth.
The occasional jaggedness of the interjection of Gould's story is a minor flaw in what is overall a wonderful cinematic achievement. "Longitude" is a prime example of how a film can be truly educational and entertaining at the same time. It's a movie suitable for all ages - and all times.
Movie Review: Excellent historical drama
Summary: 4 Stars
This compelling historical drama based on Dava Sobel's bestseller, tells the story of how one lonely genius solved the problem of how sailors could locate their position at sea. Until 18th-century clockmaker John Harrison (Michael Gambon) came on the scene, sailors could calculate what their latitude was but had no way of knowing their longitude. This meant they were constantly running into hazards with great loss of life. To solve the problem, the British Parliament set up a Longitude Board and offered a reward of 20,000 pounds -- an unimaginable fortune for that time -- to the man who came up with a practical solution.
There were two approaches to the problem. The first, favored by the scientific elite of the time, depended on using celestial observation to make the calculation. The problem was that the math was very complex -- and that if the skies were not clear, there was no way to take the required measurements. Despite these obvious difficulties, the gentlemen-scientists of the day proved extraordinary stubborn, refusing to abandon an approach that could never work.
Anderson, a bluff, working-class Yorkshireman and amazing craftsman, came up with the other approach -- which was simply to build a timepiece that kept accurate time in all extremes of temperature and weather. Anderson build four amazing clocks, each more accurate than the last. The first was a beautiful but cumbersome timepiece. The last was simply an enlarged pocket watch that could be easily transported and protected -- and which was uncannily accurate.
But the Longitude Board, in charge of deciding whether the problem had been solved and giving Anderson the prize he had earned, put one obstacle after another into his path. Their unwillingness to recognize his solution (that of a tradesman rather than a scientist) was based on acute, English class consciousness, otherwise known as snobbery of the worst kind.
This series mixes Anderson's tale with that of shell-shocked British Navy veteran Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons)who in the 1930s devoted himself to restoring Anderson's beautiful creations to working order. I must say I found this part of the story much less compelling. It slowed down the really interesting stuff -- as Anderson's quest for recognition and justice reached a climax.
The 1930s scenes mar this movie -- but not too seriously. They slow it down and freight it with unneeded and unwanted mawkishness. But the original 18th century story is fascinating -- I would say riveting. Gambon is excellent as always and the rest of the cast equally fine.
Movie Review: Should be better known
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a well done movie that is about a real historical event - the navigation problem of fixing longitude and the lives saved by finally finding a solution. The acting is good, and the plot can be folllowed fairly easily.
The movement (cutting back & forth) between circa 1700 effort of John Harrison to develop his maritime clocks and the WWI-era efforts of Rupert Gould to rebuild Harrison's old clock that he finds stored away and in disrepair, is a bit disconcerting sometimes. You have to remember what the other was up to when it cuts back.
The movie is a bit sad at times as Harrison grows older and fights to get the prize money he deserves (over 20 yrs delay); and also Gould's problems as his marriage dissolves and he deals with his reputation as being "shell shocked". But assuming these events did occur, it makes the movie properly accurate and adds personal drama.
One drawback is the length of the film. Its rather long.I still recommend it though, especially as historical fiction.