Longitude - Der Längengrad

Dec2004 update: I did eventually buy the DVD set, and it is very nice.

"Longitude" is a towering achievement as a movie. Shown in 4 hours on A&E network, I taped it to skip the commercials and was able to watch it in just over 3 hours. I only give ratings of "10" to truly remarkable movies, and this is one. It helps to be a scientist, and to have had a life-long fascination with navigation and timepieces.

The story is historical - the British government passed an act in the early 1700s for a prize of 20,000 Pounds for the first to provide an accurate and practical means of establishing longitude at sea. A Board of Longitude,comprising self-important scientists, would judge when the challenge was met.

John Harrison, a carpenter who understood the sun's apparent movement with the Earth's rotation, figured you could do it with a very accurate clock. He, with help from his son William, did it over a period of about 50 years, and met all conditions with his 4th clock, but the board kept throwing up roadblocks to avoid giving the award to someone who was not a scientist but a mere "carpenter." Finally, when Harrison was 80, in the year 1774, was given the prize by Parliament. He died only two years later.

The ancient story was interwoven with a WWII-era story of a man, played by Jeremy Irons, who undertook to restore all of Harrison's old clocks, and finally succeeded against similar resistance that Harrison had faced.

If you either are not a scientist, or do not appreciate the magnitude of Harrison's effort, and its contribution to modern navigation, then it is possible that you would find this movie somewhat boring. Do yourself a favor - don't waste your time. For me, it remains one of the absolute best movies I have ever seen, both in significance of the story and the mastery of the acting and direction.

Longitude is an example of the very best in television drama. Based on a true story, meticulously acted and directed, this is the type of movie that the British do better than anyone else in the world.

The performances of the two principals, Michael Gambon and Jeremy Irons were awe inspiring, the excellent supporting cast did not let them down.

What on the surface sounds like a dry story - the search for a means of accurately determining longitude at sea - and the obsession many years later of a returned WW1 soldier with locating and restoring the devices invented for that purpose - was turned into a genuine cliffhanger by the producers. Initially I found the switching from one story to another somewhat disconcerting, but it was done so well that it soon felt quite comfortable.

This is the story of one man's lifelong trial and error search to perfect his devices and to win the prize offered for the solution to the longitude problem. Against all odds and at great damage to his health he and his son eventually succeeded. Interspersed with this is the story of another man centuries later who was determined to locate & restore the devices and to ensure their preservation for future generations.

I can really recommend this show to anyone with an enquiring mind, who enjoys a fascinating story, excellently told.

Long, but worth it! A blessed antidote to MTV's Tom Green and the rest of the scumbag-chic that passes for culture these days. Based on the brilliant history of the same name by Dava Sobel.

In the days when ships measured themselves by yardage of sail and bank of cannon, knowing your north-south latitude was easy. Finding your east-west longitude however (and keeping your ship off the reefs) was hit-and-miss. That could get you killed. The cure was to know the time in London, precisely, but keeping time accurate on a rolling ship was tougher than keeping milk fresh; pendulum clocks need stable ground, and pendulum clocks were all they had.

Queen Anne (Br., 1665-1714) had another idea: a 20,000 pound-sterling prize to anyone who had a solution. Problem was, no one expected a country carpenter cum-clockmaker to do it. John Harrison (Michael Gambon) was that carpenter, and it became *his* problem--a three-decades-long problem. It would also pose one for Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons) two centuries later, as a marriage-busting, sanity-breaking obsession over restoring Harrison's neglected prototypes: clocks that could keep time at sea better than the quartz-timed digital you might be wearing now.

"Longitude" weaves seamlessly--almost--between the two eras, tracking the exertions and miseries of John Harrison and Rupert Gould with the same kind of synchronicity Harrison spent half his life pitching to astronomers who had scarce respect for the tinkerings of a hayseed. Michael Gambon's passionate performance as John Harrison is truly Oscar-calibre, eclipsing Irons--but only because the tunnel-visioned Rupert Gould is hardly a vehicle for the memorable. Too bad this was "only" a TV mini-series. As a theatrical release it would have lent due reknown to a scarce-remembered true epic of genius.

Watch this when you get the chance. Then go punch Tom Green in the nose.

Who would of thought that a movie about Longitude could be so engaging? Great acting and a compelling story telling turn an historical footnote into a great drama.

The story flip flops back and forth between the life of a shell shocked (literally) 20th century academic and the tale of an 18th century clockmaker, John Harrison, obsessed with winning the Prize of Queen Anne for calculating longitude.

The surprising part is that the two loosely related plot lines work so well together, despite frequent and rapid cuts back and forth. This is a tribute to the great acting skills of the cast, including Jeremy Irons as the 20th century academic. At times, you have to wonder what the heck Iron's struggles with sanity have to do with the 18th century story, but it all seems to quietly tie together in the end.

Harrison knows that if he can develop an accurate watch, solving longitude was a breeze. This may seem academic, but the lives of British seamen were literally at stake. Developing an accurate timepiece was a far more difficult task than we can today imagine, and Harrison faced a skeptical board of theoreticians who preferred more complex scientific solutions than they thought could be provided by a humble clockmaker. The board utterly fails to grasp that the simple solution is the product of a profoundly complex and innovative device.

We think so highly of the great technological achievements of our times, and they are great. We need to be reminded from time to time, as this film does so well, that the breakthroughs of other generations were in there time quite profound. Moreover, we would not be where we are today without them. As the great Sir Issac Newton once said, "If I have seen further, it is because I have stood on the backs of giants".

I'm a great fan of British filmmaking. As an American who's lived in the UK most of his life, I've had the plesure of being exposed to British cinema. In no small way is this through British television.

Logitude is another in a long line of excellent British films that have not received the viewership they deserve. I watched this film on Channel 4 shortly after the new year. And I admit, all the hype over this film in the previous weeks was justified. Accute performances on Gambon's John Harrison as well as Iron's part, of whom mind I must admit I am no fan, plus the usual assortment of marvelous west end stage performers in particular John Wood as Edmund Halley proclaim Longitude as excellent entertainment.

The story was, on the other hand somewhat mellowed down and excessively lengthed. Yet I suppose in order to transpire the scientific details presented in the novel, length was required. But overall it is a great recount of history and I strongly recommend it to American audiences who won't find this sort of thing at home easily.