Galileo (DVD)

Fiddler on the Roof’s Topol and a cast of British theatrical aristocracy (including Sir John Gielgud, Patrick Magee, and Tom Conti) recreate the troubled life and anxious times of 17th-century physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Under the direction of Joseph Losey, who originated the American stage version in 1947, The AFT’s Galileo focuses Bertolt Brecht’s characteristic mosaic of theatricality and immediacy into a keenly cinematic drama that pits public responsibility against private doubt. Neither coward nor hero, Brecht’s Galileo reveals the troubling human side of the struggle between science, government and religion, a conflict that is perhaps more relevant than ever.