Of Martyrs and Men: Brecht's Galileo and the Shaping of Historical Myth
Of Martyrs and Men:
Brecht’s Galileo and
the Shaping of Historical Myth
In the Academy Award-nominated film The Trial of the Chicago 7, the character based on real-life activist/war protestor Abbie Hoffman has been arrested for conspiracy to incite violence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. When asked by the Prosecutor, Richard Schultz, if he intended to have a confrontation with the police when he came to Chicago, Hoffman pauses to consider the question. Incredulous, the prosecutor expresses dismay that he needs to think about it. Hoffman responds, “Give me a moment, would you friend? I’ve never been on trial for my thoughts before.”
Chicago 7 writer and
director Aaron Sorkin synthesized hours of testimony into a single line that any
one of the witness could have said, had it occurred to him in the moment, while
also expressing a primary thesis of his film:
these men were on trial for who they were, not what they did. Hoffman’s pause is used by Sorkin to reveal
how complex and multi-layered revolutionary actions may be; the individual may
not fully understand the totality of his or her motivation. Likewise, the Prosecutor’s inability to
comprehend that not all questions have yes-or-no answers has long
plagued legal practitioners eager for quick confessions and simple, tidy
morality. This exchange is one of the film’s instantly memorable lines of
dialogue. Although these words were not
actually spoken during the trial, one can easily imagine that one day it will
become a quote attributed directly to Hoffman, as the line between history and
historical dramatization blurs in the minds of the audience.
Dramatizing
historical events and people inevitably invites both praise and criticism. While Sorkin’s artistic license may have had
the parameters of recent history and living people with which to contend,
German playwright Bertolt Brecht did not have the same concerns when he decided
to adapt the life of Galileo Galilei for the stage. While it is not hard to identify why Brecht
chose to write about Galileo, the question remains as to why his view of
Galileo became increasingly critical – especially considering his own actions
when faced with an inquisition himself. As
theater critic Eric Bentley observed, the paradox of history plays is that
historical figures only become good subjects for a play once they pass from
history into legend. What we know about them is shaped as much from
storyteller’s imagination as it is from the historical record. Brecht saw the character
of Seventeenth Century Galileo as fertile material for commenting on events of
the Twentieth Century.
An
often-repeated legend of the story of Galileo tells us that the astronomer
followed his recantation of the Copernican model of a moving Earth and a
stationary sun by saying, “And yet it moves!” Although it is highly unlikely
that Galileo would have made this declaration after pleading for forgiveness,
it has become part of his life’s story, nonetheless. Speaking revolutionary truth to power
certainly resonated with an intellectual and devout Marxist like Brecht during
the waning days of the Weimer Republic and the rise of the Third Reich. So much
so, early working drafts of his play would bear the title The Earth Moves. Still another title that Brecht considered was The Cunning of Survival. From this we can see that Brecht’s initial narrative construct for Galileo was
that of a stubborn truth seeker. A rebellious Galileo emerged, one with strategic
motivations that would justify his capitulation in Rome.
Galileo’s
defiant spirit, both historical and legendary, took on new relevance for Brecht
in in 1930s Germany. The black cloud of
Hitler and fascism swept the country, alongside news that scientists had split
the atom. Was mankind at the dawn of a
new era, or the start of an endless night? Always interested in scientific
advancements and what it meant for the working class, Brecht attended a meeting
addressed by Albert Einstein, talking about the new physics. With the consequences of this new revolution
in the physical sciences turning over in his mind concurrently with increased
political hostility in his homeland, he resumed work on his play about Galileo
in earnest. Completed in 1938 after fleeing Germany for Denmark, The
Life of Galileo (often referred to as the “Danish version”) would
be the first of three attempts by Brecht to focus his thoughts on Galileo’s
discoveries and subsequent recantation, and this initial text would be the most
sympathetic to Galileo.
This
first Galileo can be seen to derive its relevance from the forced exile
of the intelligentsia from Nazi Germany, and the underground workings of those
who remained and attempted to continue their work in secret. While
Brecht would not have been one to absolve the Church for its past mistakes,
here the Church stands for any tyrannical power structure that suppresses
challenges to its authority. Likewise, the Galileo in this version seems to
represent not only the scientist, but any individual and their potential for
resistance. This Galileo is not a lofty genius, rather, he is
surrounded by craftsmen, artisans, and shopkeepers. It is very much a play for
“workers” and Galileo concerns himself with their welfare and the need for
wisdom that will improve ordinary life. We see very little of
Galileo’s intellectual equals, other than Cardinals Bellarmin, Barbarini and
the Cardinal Inquisitor. What we do see resembles mafiosos worried
about leaks in their organization. Frederic Ewen, an early biographer of Brecht, observed:
[Galileo] sees in the church and
papal authority only another vested interest of the ruling class; and so he
becomes a warrior against feudalism with the weapons of science. Cardinals
discuss his discoveries like executives of a chemical trust faced by a new
scientific coup of a rival firm that threatens their monopoly.
Throughout
the play, we see Galileo’s students, rather than his peers, question and
challenge him. For a play that is ostensibly about the trial of Galileo, the
only verdict that really matters to Galileo is the one given by those young men
in the scientific community. Brecht’s
empathy for common folk is illustrated best in Galileo’s debate with “The
Little Monk” in Scene 8 of Galileo. It is through this young priest – not a
powerful prince of Rome, but merely a provincial clergyman – that the strongest
argument on behalf of the Church is articulated. The young man is also a
curious physicist himself, and visits Galileo in the home of the Florentine
Ambassador in Rome to tell Galileo his reasons for giving up his study of
astronomy. He comes to urge Galileo to
leave the Heavens undisturbed, not because of Executive Order, but out of pity
for the masses. The monk suggests that
there may be a superior moral position than the pursuit of knowledge. He proceeds to recount a story of his parents who are old peasants in
Campana. He describes them as simple
people, with hard lives in which they toil and suffer all week and have only
the Bible passages read to them every Sunday to sustain them:
They have been assured that God’s eye is always on them, probingly, even anxiously, that the whole drama of the world is constructed around them so that they, the performers, may prove themselves in their greater or lesser roles. What would my people say if I told them that they happen to be on a small knob of stone twisting endlessly through the void of a second-rate star, just one among myriads? What would be the value or necessity then of so much patience, such understanding of their own poverty? What would be the use of Holy Scripture, which as explained and justified it all – the sweat, the patience, the hunger, the submissiveness – and now turns out to be full of errors?
No: I can see their eyes wavering, I can see them letting their spoons drop, I can see how betrayed and deceived they will feel. So nobody’s eye is on us, they’ll say. Have we got to look after ourselves, old, uneducated and worn-out as we are?
The only part anybody has devised
for us is this wretched earthly one, to be played out on a tiny star wholly
dependent on others, with nothing revolving around it. Our poverty has no
meaning: hunger is no trial for
strength, it’s merely not having eaten: effort is no virtue it’s just bending
and carrying.
Brecht writes a passionate response
for Galileo questioning why order in society must always include the order of a
bare cupboard. He wonders if there is really nothing else for the parched lips
of the peasants to drink, or if one must work himself to death, when the land
is teeming with vineyards and cornfields. The Church needs the Earth to be the center
of the universe, argues Galileo, so that the See of Rome can be the center of
the Earth. To accomplish this, no one must ever know that the Earth moves. Seeing the irony of his argument, Galileo
concedes that the monk is right: this
isn’t about the planets at all, it is indeed about the peasants. In
the end, Galileo refuses to lie to people, because temporary comfort is no
substitute for permanent knowledge. The
angles of a triangle cannot be varied to satisfy the Vatican, and he “cannot
calculate the courses of the flying bodies in such a way as also to explain
witches taking trips on broomsticks.”
The Little Monk’s final tactic is to
propose that the truth, so long as it is true, will eventually be known,
without anyone’s assistance. Galileo does not find that idea persuasive:
The only truth that gets through will be what we force through: the victory of reason will be the victory of the people who are prepared to reason, nothing else.
Your picture of the Campagna peasants makes them look like the moss on their own huts. How can you imagine that the sum of the angles in a triangle conflicts with their needs? But unless they get moving and learn how to think, they will find even the finest irrigation systems won’t help them.
Oh, to hell with it: I see your
people’s divine patience, but where is there divine anger?
Brecht ends his scene with a
commentary on those minds that thirst for science and reason but have hearts
devoted to God. Galileo tosses the
Little Monk a manuscript on his theory concerning ocean tides, calling it an
apple from the tree of knowledge. A true
scientist, the monk cannot resist and is soon lost in the papers, forgetting
their discussion or the reason for his visit.
As Galileo witnesses the monk becoming his student, he ends the scene
with a powerful reflection on discovery:
I sometimes think I’ll have myself shut up in a dungeon ten fathoms below ground in complete darkness if only it will help me to find out what light is. And the worst thing is that what I know I have to tell people, like a lover, like a drunkard, like a traitor. It is an absolute vice and leads to disaster.
How long can I go on shouting into the void, that’s the question.
As the Danish version of Galileo draws
to a close, Galileo’s followers learn that he has recanted. Interestingly, Brecht chooses to dramatize
only the reaction of the people, not the trial or Galileo’s abjuration. Mankind is his jury and his judge; the
scientific community are his peers. His students, realizing that fiction has
triumphed over fact and that Galileo facilitated their defeat, express disbelief,
and anguish. Galileo is abandoned by all
but his daughter.
The penultimate scene takes us to Galileo
living under house arrest. His former
student Andrea has come to visit him one last time and discovers that Galileo
has been secretly writing by moonlight and hiding a manuscript in a
hollowed-out globe in his study, which he gives to Andrea. Overjoyed, Andrea now believes this was all a
strategic plan to smuggle knowledge out of Italy by backing out of a pointless
political struggle and returning to the real business of science. Even in this version, Brecht attempts to
quash sympathy for the scientist. Galileo denies this was ever his plan,
stating that they showed him the instruments of torture and he was afraid of
physical pain. Galileo scolds himself and expresses moral disapproval of his
course of action. He continues to work in isolation because he must
do it, just as he must eat to go on living.
As Galileo says goodbye to Andrea he turns
away saying, “Look out for yourself when you pass through Germany, with the
truth under your coat.” The final image of the Danish version of Galileo
ends with Andrea crossing the Italian frontier and he has taken Galileo’s Discorsi
with him. Hidden from the border guard, the manuscript passes out of Italy into
the rest of Europe. The truth gets out, but is it because of
Galileo’s perseverance, or despite his weakness? In true Brechtian fashion, the audience is
asked to resist easy answers.
The story of Galileo and Brecht did not
end with the play written in 1938. By
1945, Brecht was ready to revisit the life and trial of Galileo, this time from
his exile in America. Brecht arrived in
Los Angeles in 1941, with his sights set on Hollywood. As a foreign Marxist
committed to art that broke down artificial emotion, Brecht was hardly a good
fit for movie studios. His contemporary,
Dalton Trumbo, may have also been a Communist, but he was an American one and
he knew what would sell. In April of
1945, the terror of Nazi Germany came to an end with the death of Hitler. Four
months later, America would drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Combined with revelations about experiments
conducted in Nazi concentration camps, Brecht’s long-held suspicion and fear of
science used for immoral and catastrophic purposes had been realized. Fair or not to the legacy of Galileo Galilei,
Brecht returned to his play and reworked it from a story of the flawed father
of modern physics into a more dire warning of the ramifications of a science
with no moral obligation to humanity. This time there would be little ambiguity
in the final scenes: Galileo betrayed
mankind by recanting the truth.
The 1947 version of Galileo was
written in English and in collaboration with actor Charles Laughton who would
play the title role in the American production.
With the knowledge of nuclear war on the table, the American version inhibits
our empathy for Galileo the man and “emphasizes the role of the scientist as
physicist and engineer.” A
number of lines concerning the Church were cut, Galileo’s relationship with his
daughter is hardened, and he is more explicitly indicted for his failure to martyr
himself in the name of truth and reason. Most importantly, the
penultimate scene now focuses on Galileo’s brutal self-condemnation and less on
the smuggling of the manuscript out of Italy.
Andrea still takes Galileo’s Discorsi, but of his own volition, secretly
hiding it under his coat while Galileo appears distracted. Furthermore, the theme emerges that “a
science which denies its political affiliation will be bound by default to the
ruling ideology, which presents itself as ‘natural’. It is only by consciously
opposing it that science will not become subject to it.” Galileo
echoes Brecht’s fear of the new science in his final monologue:
I take it that the intent of science is to ease human existence. If you give way to coercion, science can be crippled and your new machines may simply suggest new drudgeries. Should you, then, in time, discover all there is to be discovered, your progress must become a progress away from the bulk of humanity. The gulf might even grow so wide that the sound of your cheering at some new achievement would be echoed by a universal howl of horror.
As a scientist I had an almost unique opportunity. In my day astronomy emerged into the marketplace. At that particular time, had one man put up a fight, it could have had wide repercussions. I have come to believe I was never in any real danger; for some years I was as strong as the authorities, and I surrendered my knowledge to the powers that be, to use it, abuse it, as it suits their ends.
I have betrayed my profession. Any
man who does what I have done must not be tolerated in the ranks of science.
If the Danish version of Galileo defended
the freedom of thought against authoritarianism, the American version instead
demands from scientists themselves a social responsibility to the destiny of
mankind. Brecht seems to argue that the pursuit of scientific discovery is not
an end in itself but serves a utilitarian function with monumental potential
along with grave consequences. In Brecht’s view, the recantation of
truth is a crime, not to be balanced by the work, no matter how important. If Brecht’s dramatization is not entirely accurate or fair to Galileo, it is no
less so than Shakespeare’s treatment of historical figures. The purpose is not
to revisit the past, it is to interpret it in light of the present and, by
doing so, prepare for the future.
An intriguing political interlude would
occur while preparing the American Galileo. Brecht was subpoenaed, along with 18 other artists,
to testify before the House Un-American Activities Commission in 1947. Part of a broad witch-hunt for Communist
agitators in Hollywood, the Commission had already found several writers and
directors in contempt for refusing to answer questions. These men would
eventually be sent to prison. Brecht was the eleventh person
called to testify. Brecht’s performance
at the hearing would be the last seen by the beleaguered Commission – it never
convened again to take testimony from the remaining men. Although
he had prepared a statement about his history and beliefs, and planned to read
it aloud at the hearing, he was not permitted to do so.
Brecht’s testimony on October 30,
1947, has been described as “a zoologist being cross-examined by apes”, and a
polite exercise in cunning and duplicity. He deflected their
questions with his vast arsenal of techniques, trained as he had his whole life
for sparring with ideological opponents. He pretended to know even less English than he
did, using an interpreter to gain time to formulate an answer, and then blaming
misinterpretation for anything that hit a sour note. He re-focused his past work in the context of
being an enemy of the Nazis, a revolt against fascism in his homeland from
which he was exiled, reminding everyone that not long ago the Soviets were our
allies in the same war. When confronted
with some damning poetry, Brecht claimed they were quite different from the
original German poems that he had written. The Commission had no member that
spoke the language and quickly moved on to another topic. When asked directly
if he were a member of the Communist Party, Brecht could answer truthfully that
he was not, as he had never joined the Party in America and, although he
associated with other members, he was careful to never engage in their
activities. So skillful was Brecht in this confrontation, he was
dismissed and commended for being what the others were not: a cooperative witness. Brecht
boarded a plane for Switzerland the next day.
Whether Brecht saw any hypocrisy in
his own actions (he was, after all, a Communist - just not on the American roll
call) is unknown. He was not successful
in America and felt little connection to it, including its brand of Socialists. Perhaps his lack of commitment to America is key. As Brecht once said, he had
nothing against men like Copernicus who never committed to anything and instead
left a book for men to do with as they please. But Galileo set out to change
the world, and then quit. It was this abandonment that Brecht saw
as betrayal. He likely did not see his own
exit as any more significant` than his presence had been. Brecht’s influence
was only felt after he left, prompting American theater to reflect on the artist
who got away.
Brecht, like the Galileo he created, was a
man driven to doubt, to test opposites, and to hunt for truth, unraveling layer
after layer. They are perhaps the least likely of men to die for a
cause. Like the Abbie Hoffman of Chicago 7, they need a moment to think
about it. Galileo was too much a scientist to martyr himself for any theory,
including his own. Brecht never found anything in America to justify such a
commitment. Galileo avoided the decisive moment of action, and so did Brecht.
While Brecht passed his verdict on Galileo, he kept his own open, and continued
to rewrite.
Brecht would eventually return to East
Berlin (he was denied entry to West Berlin) to form his legendary Berliner
Ensemble, and would continue to work on the Life of Galileo until his own
death in 1956. The Berlin version would be the longest, reinstating many
passages about the Church, broadening the implication for all
intellectuals, and imposing a duty to speak truth to power when tyranny shows
itself. Galileo is not forgiven, but a larger context allows for
the work of the man to speak on his behalf, a legacy that is perhaps stronger
than the person who gave it to us. The
same can be said for Brecht, as contemporary critics have begun to question the
moral implications of Brecht’s failure to oppose the worst aspects of the East
German regime, or to publicly rebuke Stalin’s purges in any meaningful way. He was always mindful of the needs of his new
Ensemble and kept its survival as his priority.
But Brecht’s unique contributions to theater have continued to inspire
generations of drama students ever since. That Brecht’s work is performed
primarily in academic settings rather than commercial houses is no accident. He
and Galileo were revolutionaries of the mind, and they endure and attract
admirers no matter the context in which one views their actions. Brecht’s life,
his work, and his art are often a paradox, creating a mythical figure as ripe
for dissection as any other.
Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that
despite Brecht’s attempt to prevent his audience from feeling an overwhelming
amount of sympathy for his Galileo, he failed.
He never found an actor, including Laughton, who performed the
self-denunciation scene in a way that did not make Galileo, with all his human
failings, endearing. Perhaps
it is just the actor’s ego that refuses to condemn Galileo for choosing
survival, or maybe Brecht was not able to shape his Galileo myth in such a way
to overcome the man’s greatness. In the end, we expect men to make mistakes. We
love them even more when they admit it.
We are comfortable judging Galileo by the discoveries he made, not the
failure to die on their behalf. We will
likely do the same for Brecht.
Like Shakespeare, or Sorkin, or any other
dramatist who uses historical figures as their subjects, there is a certain
reliance on public ignorance to make the point you wish to convey about the
present. These are, after all, stories about the ideas that shaped our world,
not biographies. Brecht collaborator and
friend Eric Bentley recounts going to the opening night of the American Galileo
and spotting a Hollywood film director he knew in the audience. After the play,
Bentley asked this director what he thought of it. His response: “As a play? I don’t know, but
it is always thrilling to hear the truth, to see what actually happened.”
The mechanics of our traveling star are
now known, and Brecht’s fear of a nuclear holocaust has not come to pass. Whatever
Brecht got right or wrong about Galileo or the Seventeenth or the Twentieth
Centuries, he was not misguided in thinking ‘The Truth’ would one day need all
the defenders it could get. When important people shirk their duty to uphold
fact and reason, the masses follow their example. “Trust the Science!” is the
politicized slogan of our own day and age, but no one can agree on which science
(or whose science) we should trust. And yet,
the Earth continues its journey, turning towards a new dawn anyway. Meanwhile, the ongoing stories of its
inhabitants are still being created, and revised, to make sense of it all.
Bibliography
Bentley, Eric. The Brecht Commentaries, 1943-1980.
New York: Grove Press, 1981.
Brecht,
Bertolt. Galileo. Edited by Eric Bentley. New York: Grove Press,
1966.
Ewen, Frederic. Bertolt Brecht: His Life, His Art, and His Times. New York: Citadel Press, 1967.
Losey, Joseph, director. Galileo, American Film Theatre, 1975. 2hr., 18 min.
https://kinonow.com/film/galileo-new-hd-transfer/5cffec0f0c4ebb5903546e80
Lyon, James
K. Bertolt Brecht in America. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1980.
Sobel,
Dava. Galileo's Daughter. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
Sorkin, Aaron, director. The Trial of the Chicago 7. Netflix,
2020. 2 hr., 10 min.
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81043755.
Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks, eds. The Cambridge
Companion to Brecht. 2nd ed.
New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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