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11 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
TV Drama at its best, 7 September 2001
10/10
Author: Imnozy from Sydney, Australia

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.

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11 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
A timely epic, 23 July 2000
Author: W Mitchell Morgan (dagwort@ebicom.net) from Ellisville, MS

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.

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11 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Time flew, 6 January 2001
10/10
Author: lllama from United States

This film was absolutely stunning, and after watching it we were amazed at how quickly the time flew. Though the entire movie (DVD) was 200 minutes long, we felt as though it had taken less than an hour. The sets and costumes were beautiful, the acting was superb, the meshing together of the two different times worked extremely well, the "timing" was impeccable, the tension built wonderfully, and the climax was powerful. We never dreamed we would feel so strongly about a movie depicting what we originally thought would be a mundane, boring subject. We are grateful to the makers of this film for the attention to detail and the feeling they put into this movie. It came alive for us, and we now feel more appreciative toward those geniuses of former times who persevered against all odds to improve the human condition. Kudos to Michael Gambon and Jeremy Irons for their exquisite performances of complex characters, and for the depth of feeling they both portrayed.

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9 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Separated by Time, United By Fate, 26 October 2000
Author: degracia from University of Texas

A&E's "Longitude" is perhaps the most emotionally compelling, made for TV dramas yet. I was so impressed when I first saw Longitude on A&E that I had to buy it on DVD the minute it came out. A highly realistic, fully drawn out, historical drama of how one man's dream tamed time and space, "Longitude" strikes home with its all-star cast (including Jeremy Irons and Micheal Gambon) and two-part storyline. The first story is that of a carpenter, John Harrison, who struggled for almost 50 years to perfect a "practical and useful" marine chronometer. The second story revolves around Commander Rupert Gould, a man who discovers Harrison's forgotten prototypes and fights to not only restore the timepieces but to also restore the honor of Harrison.

"Longitude" is filled with tons of edge-of-your-seat, gritty scenes, and every second of the 200-minute film glows with a profound message. The ending scene is especially powerful, in which Rupert Gould remarks, "What makes a man great? A man may be great in his aims, or in his achievements, or in both...but I think that man is truly great who makes the world his debtor..who does something for the world which the world needs, and which nobody before him has done or known how to do."

Definitely a great educational film to watch, and an excellent film to own. "Longitude" is an unforgettable experience and a demonstration of just how good a movie can be.

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8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
great masterpiece, 15 November 2002
9/10
Author: AirWolf1984 from USA

I ran into this at late night on A&E a couple of years ago. Although I missed about 30 minutes of the beginning part, I immediately got 'glued' to TV by the casts' great performance, great story line, and its historical-correct setting.

As a side note, Sir Isaac Newton (1642--1727) was in the same era as in the time setting of the story. I wonder if Sir Isaac Newton had ever involved with this 'board of longitude' ;)

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Absolutely first rate!, 10 July 2000
10/10
Author: 8-Foot from Montgomery Village, Maryland

Despite its feared four-hour length (including commercials as shown on A&E), "Longitude" gets my top rating. Totally engrossing, with absolutely no false or phony notes. Acting, photography superlative.

(Available on home video without commercials and with additional footage.)

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Remarkably Good, 12 July 2000
9/10
Author: Judger from Cranford, NJ

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".

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
The British really know how to make movies..., 8 January 2000
Author: Aleksis Razza (axr@ic.ac.uk) from London, England

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.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Obsessive clockmaker beats City Hall, 3 September 2001
Author: Philby-3 from Sydney, Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

WARNING - may contain spoiler for the historically challenged

Dava Sobel, one-time science writer at the New York Times, wrote a little book published in 1995 on the 18th century search for a reliable method for determining longitude at sea. Since longitude is time, essentially, it seemed that the solution might lie in accurate time-pieces, and John Harrison, a carpenter from the North of England who had already built some superb wooden church clocks, decided to have a crack at the 20,000 pound prize put up for a solution. But he had rivals, not fellow clock makers but astronomers who thought that their understanding of the celestial clockwork, the motions of the heavens, would give them a solution. The astronomers, being generally an upper-class lot, and having representatives on the Board of Longitude which supervised the contest, had the edge, but in the end after over thirty years of clock-building, and trials at sea and in the committee-room, Harrison won, more or less, as his clock was far easier to use that the cumbersome lunar observation method worked out by the astronomers (`the lunatics' as Harrison dubbed them).

The producers here have turned this relatively simple tale into an epic spanning 70 years or so of maritime history. There are over 80 speaking parts, numerous voyages, a naval action or two, and endless committee meetings. Despite early success with his larger carriage style clocks, Harrison, wonderfully played by Michael Gambon, strikes continuing obstacles thrown up by the Board (he has not the guile to go round them), but plods on, latterly with the aid of his son William, until at last the Board is shamed into paying him for the invention, though the actual prize is never awarded. You can beat City Hall, at least if you get the mayor onside. A youthful and then fairly sane George III, a keen `natural philosopher' (scientist) eventually took an interest in Harrison's case and put pressure on the Board.

There's not a lot to say about this British production (made with A & E money), which is fine. The parallel story of war-damaged Rupert Gould (Jeremy Irons) who dedicated himself to restoring Harrison's clocks in the 1920s, destroying his marriage and social standing in the process, is artfully intercut with the main tale and works as a kind of a coda to Harrison's story, though it comes perilously close to interfering with it sometimes. We spend a lot of time at sea, visit Jamaica and Barbados, and get a fairly good picture of the beastliness of the 18th century sailor's lot. Without a doubt things were better at the end than at the beginning of the century in the Navy, partly due to Captain Cook and sauerkraut, but Harrison's work made an enormous difference to life at sea, once his designs were produced in quantity. The British can legitimately be proud of Harrison, if not the upper-class twits who tried to thwart him, and here they have paid him appropriate tribute.

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Great movie for its historical and scientific significance, a definite "10"!, 12 July 2000
Author: TxMike from Houston, Tx, USA, Earth

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, ironically in the year 1776, 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.

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