Blaise Pascal
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Year Released: 1972
Rating: 1.0
Noble attempt to film portions of the life of French intellectual heavyweight Blaise Pascal and his contributions to mathematics and physics - if cinema is partially an altar to worship the work of extraordinary action, this is crafted as an altar to worship the work of extraordinary thought - but its source of 'drama' (and I'm using the term loosely) is in reciting scientific discoveries and in tedious debate, which means it's more of a filmed textbook than a 'movie' (in the strictest sense). As 'lessons' in Pascal's discoveries (the vacuum, calculating the volume of solids) it would be far more advantageous and educational to dip into the texts themselves; Rossellini, too, thinks that taking excerpts from historical texts counts as adequate dialogue - here are two samples: "Your calculations will never rival the beauty of God's creatures" and "In this world, I'm wary of all the assurances of doctrine." The creepy soundtrack is out-of-place.
