Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher who excited the rage of the Catholic Church and finished in the flames of a pyre in Campo dei Fiori in Rome on 17 February 1600. Today a statue stands in his honor in this piazza. As a very young man he entered the Dominican Order, was ordained in 1572, but within a few years was running through Europe, publishing a variety of clever and original literary, theological, and philosophical texts that made many angry. In 1591 he reached Venice, where he displeased a Mocenigo and was denounced to the Inquisition. He was sent to Rome, where he spent six years in prison before he was burned at the stake for heresy. Gian Maria Volonté, one of the great actors of the century, who appeared in such disparate films as For a Few Dollars More, The Abyss, and Il Caso Moro, stars as the sensual and highly intelligent monk. The narrative begins with Bruno's arrival in Venice, and naturally the movie compresses much and doubtless has simplified. Nonetheless the skillful evocation the character of Bruno in the Venice and Rome of the 1590s is highly enjoyable. I watch this movie three or four times a year.

It's the story of first globalist. See the movie and you will understand.

This is nothing less than a formidable film of almost excruciating force and power in its overwhelmingly correct realism in depicting the tremendous passion of this the greatest of free-thinkers, his denouncement by his best friend and host and the horrible inhumanity of the bureaucracy of the inquisition. When once in the hands of the inquisition, the system was simply so constructed, that it was impossible to get out again - no revocation could help, and all that Venice could do, being after all a republic out of papal control, was to wash their hands and hand the case over to others, leading to a constantly more desperately dwindling spiral of a process to perdition. Gian Maria Volontè is magnificent as Bruno, he couldn't have been made more convincing in his increasingly desperate argument and protests, showing also his very human sides, while the chief merit of the film is its marvellous visual language, often turning the film into pure expressionism, aided by the at times overwhelmingly apt music by Ennio Morricone. This is more than a film, it's an inspired passion of a film, showing Italian historical realism at its best. I didn't know this film existed before I stumbled upon it searching for something else, and starting to watch it there was nothing else to do but to see it through till the end. It should be made more widely known, it pinpoints Bruno's case and arguments and presents a good summary of his very pantheistic philosophy, which makes the film also very educational and instructive and an invaluable shortcut and comprehensive overview of the everlastingly troublesome and actual case of Giordano Bruno.

First of all, this movie is extremely boring. Secondly, it is hilariously absurd, lacks any brim of realism and is extremely poorly acted. Barbariously simplifying the life and the trial of Giordano Bruno, it practically says nothing at all about the personality and the ideas of this important scientist and philosopher. All that it offers are some garments supposedly (and most surely) belonging to that age and some stupid sentences uttered by all characters (of course, mainly by Giordano Bruno), suffocated by clichés and "philosophy" that one could hear daily in all sort of circumstances, all of them worse than mediocre. One of the worst movies I've ever seen (watching it three or four times a year would be more than incomprehensible)

about freedom, knowledge, fight against prejudices. maybe, about the Church. Giordano Bruno becomes the symbol of the fight for ideas and ideals. for transform the philosophy as tool for everybody. for define the knowledge as supreme form of liberty. and for save an ideal, against the obstacles. a film who, for music and for the atmosphere, for the performance of Gian Maria Volonte and for the force of the last scenes, remains a must see. as political film, off course but, maybe more important, for the wise way to present and sustain ideals and force of faith. because, in fact, it is just a faith story. religious. but not only. the motif - the generous manner for give a touching, coherent and useful warning with universal impact.