Search - Longitude on DVD

Better Than the Book

Bruce Kendall | Southern Pines, NC | 06/30/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This film is described as an adaptation of Dava Sobel's book of the same name. It is far more than an adaptation, however. Charles Sturridge took a somewhat threadbare tale and turned it into a stirring, dramatic account of the life, tribulations, and ultimate achievement of the 18th century English horologist, John Harrison. It's not that Sobel's book is poorly written. It is in fact entertaining and engrossing as far as it goes. The trouble is that she doesn't go into enough detail and leaves a lot of questions unanswered for the reader. Sturridge takes up her story and fleshes it out, providing the sort of background and character development that the book lacks. Providing the audience with a parallel storyline involving the WWI veteran, Rupert Gould (briefly noted in Sobel's book) also is a stroke of genius on the writer/director's part. The parallels between the lives of the earlier inventor and the shell-shocked vet are striking and poignant. It does nothing to hurt Sturridge's cause to have assembled such a sterling British cast. Irons and Gambon have great roles to their credit, but they surpass themselves in this production. Sturridge has demonstrated that he can squeeze good acting out of a virtual lemon (Ted Danson in Sturridge's adaptation of "Gulliver's Travels"). He has far more to work with here, and the results are remarkable. Gambon, perhaps best known to American audiences for his lead role in "The Singing Detective," and the recent "Gosford Park," again delivers the goods in this masterful performance. He captures perfectly his character's idiosyncrasies, vicissitudes and ultimate triumph. Much of the series of course focuses on the "chase" for a solution to the longitude problem that plagued seamen from time immemorial. Methods for determining longitude before the chronometer was invented ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Heavenly charts were sometimes supplanted by such ludicrous schemes as "the wounded dog method". The following is a transcription of a dialogue delivered by the method`s inventor:
" Now, it is vital to my process, Sir Edmund, that each dog be wounded with the *same knife*, as these three animals have been, under my instructions, some three days ago. Now, the animals are then to be conveyed aboard one of His Majesty's ships, uh, under the supervision of a designated officer, whose task it is to *prevent the wound from healing*. Now the knife, however, would remain here, in London, and at *precisely noon*, each day, is to be plunged into the Powder of Sympathy, which would immediately aggravate the wound, so that each dog, no matter how many thousands of miles away he may be on his particular vessel, would begin to howl... thus." Clearly, there was a need for a practical solution to this age-old problem, as thousands of sailors were placed in constant peril, owing to the fact that, without a reliable method, they really couldn't get their bearings. This is one area where Sobel does a very good job in her book describing the difficulty in determining longitude, versus the rather simple methods for calculating latitude. That a rather simple man of humble origins could work out the method was disconcerting to several members of the vaunted Board of Longitude, which was composed of members of the ruling class. Harrison's chief detractor and a rival for his claim of the longitude prize (20,000 pounds, equivalent to almost a million dollars by today's standards) was Sir Nevil Maskelyne. Maskelyne comes across in the film and in Sobel's book as a rather arrogant, self-inflated snob, who engages in actual subterfuge of Harrison's claims. Viewers/readers may be interested to note that Maskelyne also appears as a character in Thomas Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon," also in an unflattering light. In terms of a recommendation, I would have to give Sobel's book between three and four stars. While it is highly readable and engaging, it leaves way too many avenues and dramatic possibilities unexplored. Sturridge fills in all the gaps, and then some. It is not often that I recommend a film over a book, but in this instance, the film is a far richer and satisfying experience."

Entertaining and historically accurate

Joseph H Pierre | Salem, OR USA | 08/07/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first watched this story on A&E network, but only saw the last few minutes of it. The second time I caught it was the same, but I saw even less of it, frustratingly broken up with the inevitable commercials. However, since celestial navigation at sea is one of my skills and interests, I ordered the VHS tapes (there are four of them.)One of my Bowditches (American Practical Navigator), attests to the accuracy of the research involved in the story. John Harrison, the son of an English carpenter, was born in Yorkshire in 1693. He followed his father's trade but soon became interested in the repair and construction of clocks. In 1714 the British Parliament offered a reward of 20,000 pounds sterling for an accurate method of finding longitude at sea, which can be found using spherical trigonometry with an accurate time piece set to and kept at the time of the place of departure. (For practical purposes, all such chronometers are set to the time of the so-called Greenwich meridian--the Prime Meridian, which traverses Greenwich, England.) Since it requires approximately 24 hours for a complete rotation of the earth (360 degrees), each hour of time the earth rotates 15 degrees regardless of the latitude (At the equator, the surface spin is faster.Harrison undertook to make such a timepiece, and submitted his first attempt (Harrison No. 1) to the Longitude Board in 1735, at the age of 42. Eventually he submitted a total of four separate instruments, before he was finally awarded the prize money at the age of 80, and then only through the intervention of the Crown and, in the story, the Parliament.This movie is the story of his struggle against the obstinacy, deceitfulness, arrogance, superciliousness and pomposity of the astronomers on the board, who sought to solve the problem with lunar observations, and to prevent it being won by a "simple carpenter."The movie is masterfully acted by Michael Gambon, as John Harrison, and a parallel story involving a Royal Navy commander, Rupert Gould (played by Jeremy Irons) is meaningfully incorporated, by flashing from one to the other, which relieves some of the tension and serves almost as well as background narration. As the story explains, at the end, Gould is also a historical person who died in 1948, and who did much to restore John Harrison's timepieces and eventually became director of the British Horological Society and curator of the museum in which Harrison's timepieces are shown.An excellent movie, well-acted and entertaining as well as educational.Joseph Pierre"

The Fourth Dimension.

Themis-Athena | from somewhere between California and Germany | 01/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the 18th century much had already been achieved in the exploration of the world: In addition to the achievements of Columbus, Cabot , Vespucci, Cartier, da Gama and others in the discovery of the Americas, Portuguese sailors commissioned by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) had sailed along the western African coast; Bartolomeu Dias (1457-1500) had circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope; Vasco da Gama had been the first explorer to reach India by sea (1498); 1518-19 had seen Francisco Magellan's almost-complete global circumnavigation; in the mid-16th century Portuguese merchants and Jesuit missionaries had made contact with Japan; and about 50 years later the Dutch had established their first trading posts in South-East Asia. On their voyages, these early explorers had overcome storms, hunger, scurvy and uncertainty about their exact course and the feasibility of their aim; and they had suffered from a severe navigational handicap: For while it is comparatively easy to determine latitude, the exact determination of longitude requires consideration of the world's fourth dimension - time. Only the knowledge how long the rotation of the earth vis-a-vis the sun takes from one point to another enables a seaman to determine where precisely he is at any given moment; wherefore he needs to know both the time at his departure port and the time aboard ship. The inability to make that determination invariably adds the danger of getting lost at sea to the perils of every naval voyage (and in fact, even da Gama's Indian expedition was almost derailed when the navigator miscalculated his position off the African coast).

Having emerged from the shadow of the continental European powers and become a major seafaring nation in its own right, the England of the Age of Reason was no longer willing to sacrifice thousands of sailors to the inability of determining longitude. After the 1707 death of over 2000 men under the command of Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovel, who had mistaken his ships' position for the coast of Brittany while in fact sailing right into the Scilly Islands off the coast of Cornwall, Queen Anne in 1714 signed an act promising a reward of 20,000 pounds (today, approximately $5 million) to the discoverer of a "practicable and useful solution to the problem of finding longitude at sea." Among those taking the bait were proponents of rocket signals, would-be scientists working with injured dogs and a so-called "powder of sympathy" - and a self-taught Yorkshire carpenter named John Harrison (Michael Gambon).

"Longitude," based on Dava Sobel's novel of the same name, tells the story of Harrison's quest; expanding the book's premise, however, and contrasting it with that of Navy Commander Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons), who - having suffered a nervous breakdown in WWI - unearthed and restored Harrison's by then almost-forgotten chronometers. Originally a TV mini-series, this is in fact one single coherent film; realized with the broad vision of a big-screen approach to filmmaking. Part naval adventure, part historic docudrama, the movie first and foremost explores the two lead characters' hearts and souls: That of the mercurial (yet, with his chronometers infinitely patient) Harrison and that of the fragile Gould; the former a puritan on a scientific mission, the latter searching for his peace of mind, hoping to regain it by giving new life to Harrison's timekeepers. They are united by their infinite respect for all watches and clocks, which to them are living things - dearer, in a way, than their own flesh and blood - and by a screenplay joining their stories into a single rhythm of discovery, setbacks, apparent triumph, despair and fulfillment; seamlessly cutting between the 18th century's candle-lit world and that of the 20th century and its technical advances.

Both Harrison and Gould are at odds with society's established rules: Harrison, in the eyes of the Board of Longitude created to oversee the 1714 act, is utterly unworthy of receiving the prize; awarding it to him, according to board member Lord Morton, would be letting "the longitude prize [be] stolen by a country toolmaker." Gould on the other hand, by sacrificing his marriage to the work on Harrison's chronometers, risks scandal and social isolation. And the juxtaposition of Harrison's ever-more practical approach (eventually resulting in the creation of a chronometer just a little over 5 inches in diameter, capable to measure longitude within the revolutionary degree of approximately 1 minute or about 1 mile) and the method favored by the astronomers on the Board of Longitude (lunar observation, soon earning them and their darling, Astronomer Royal-to-be Reverend Nevil Maskelyne (Samuel West) the nickname "lunatics" in the Harrison household) is a classic tale of David vs. Goliath, and remains so even after Harrison Sr. is joined by his son William (Ian Hart). Although his benefactor Graham has once suggested that, after having convinced the Admiralty and the Royal Society's initial appointees to the Board, Harrison's real test will be the politicians, it finally falls to Parliament to come to his aid, more than 50 years after he has begun his work; and after the intervention of stout Harrison supporter First Lord of the Admiralty and Secretary of State Lord Sandwich, Australian explorer Captain James Cook, and eventually even King George III, who likewise fancies himself a scientist.

In addition to director Charles Sturridge's vision, "Longitude" benefits from the great sense of authenticity displayed by cinematographer Peter Hannan, production designers Eileen Diss and Chris Lowe and costume designer Shirley Russell - and from a cast list that virtually reads like a "who is who" of contemporary British cinema; featuring inter alia, besides Gambon, Irons, Hart and West, Gemma Jones (Elizabeth Harrison), Anna Chancellor (Muriel Gould) and Brian Cox (Lord Morton), as well as brief appearances by Stephen Fry as "powder of sympathy" proponent Sir Kelnhelm Digby and German actress Heike Makatsch as King George's wife Charlotte. - This is a complex, fascinating movie; one of televisions's finest hours in recent years: Nothing for the mere casual viewer, but truly rewarding to anyone willing to join Harrison and Gould in their voyage of discovery.

Also recommended:
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love
A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks (Nation Books)"

Parallel Lives End Up In Same Spot

Mark R. Ferraro | San Mateo, CA United States | 09/27/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I saw this movie both in its original form as broadcast on A&E and as a VCR tape. The movie is a stunning example of the power of a well written script, a director with vision and actors that can portray real people. The editing of this movie would win an Academy Award if it were eligible. The weaving of two lives, 200 years apart into one cohesive story line is a wonder to behold. The movie subject is complicated and requires viewer attention. I found the science and the emotion of the time, including class prejudices to be right on. The movie making craft was no better than when the viewer is transported out to sea and witnesses the brutal reality of sailing in the 1700's. A scene when the young Harrison of about 6 or 7 lectures Sir Edmund Haley on the celestal observations of the sun and the accuracy of their own clock is priceless. Some might call the movie predictable at the end, but I think it is fine movie making to remind us that without Harrison, the voyages of James Cook and others after him would never have been successful without his time keepers.This movie has passion, action, love and devotion. It reminds all of us that to move the human race along to the next plateau requires more than what most of us are willing to risk today."