Genius

This is a review on series 2 on Picasso. I just came back from Barcelona and after visiting the beautiful Picasso museum and discovering what incredible pictures he already painted as a young boy I felt the need to learn more about him. I found the series both educating and entertaining. The episodes are not in chronological order and jump from Picasso being a young man to him being older, with various stages of his life in between. WW1, Spain's civil war, WW2, it is all there. It is fascinating to get to meet all the artists, painters and poets Picasso befriended and all the women he loved and needed. The whole subject of his treatment of women can fill a whole book. But still, according to the series they all wanted him, regardless of his behavior.. What really bothered me is that most of the series takes place in France. Most actors were French but had to speak in English with a French accent! Why couldn't they speak French! It would have been so much better. Antonio Banderas was fabulous. I wish we could have heard him speak more in Spanish. The actor who played Picasso was excellent too. In fact the acting was very good. Altogether I really enjoyed this series and feel that I have learned a lot.

I am amazed that so many people would dismiss the whole series as "all sex and no substance." It was based on a fantastic book (in my view) by Walter Isaacson who paints a portrait of a Jewish man, husband, father and scientist who lives through WWI as a convinced pacifist and "free thinker." He is a ground breaking scientist, respected by his peers who becomes an important element in convincing Roosevelt to begin the process of developing an atom bomb which helps end WWII. He is slow to warm to the idea of a State of Israel but he does help in fund raising for it, advises on the establishment of its first University and was considered for the presidency of this new country. Einstein the proud US citizen could not help but condemn Nazi treatment of Jews and American treatment of black US citizens.

I found the visualization and explanation of some of his insights very helpful.

I found him to be funny, thoughtful, collaborative, religious, political and definitely "an original."

My only criticism was that I found the "time switching" to be confusing at the start - child, student, newly married, teacher, world celebrity scientist and aging scholar at Princeton University.

Read the book if you are interested in "the whole story" of Einstein the man. Be frustrated with the movie if you are looking for a simplified explanation of his scientific studies. Stay away from it, if you see no need for any of the sex scenes or political involvement.

I disagree with 95% of all the reviews submitted.

I managed to find this 4 DVD set at my public library. Ten episodes at 50 minutes each, over 8 hours on the life of Einstein.

In college and graduate school I studied Physics, Mathematics, and Chemistry. As a result I became very familiar with the contributions of Einstein and his fellow Physicists during the first half of the 20th century. The reason I enjoyed this series so much is that it put Einstein's whole life in a proper perspective.

Surely there are many "created" situations and conversations as the filmmakers' way of making all this interesting enough to invest 8+ hours in watching it. To me it doesn't matter if everything happened the way depicted here, as long as everything depicted is plausible, and it all is.

Other than that the story told here appears to be very faithful, historically, to Albert Einstein's whole life, his early struggles to get accepted, his marriages and romances, his difficulties with his sons, his being forced to flee Nazi Germany in the 1930s, his being hunted by J Edgar Hoover in the 1940s after Einstein became a USA citizen and professor at Princeton.

Overall a superb series especially for someone who has made a career in the sciences.

After reading other reviews about this show I was hesitant to watch it. But there are e few points I'd like to make after seeing it up until now:

First of all: as anyone should know this is not a documentary. Don't expect a 100% accurate description of Einstein's life or complex explanations of his theories. It's a drama and you should know this while watching it. That being said: The first episode is actually a really bad introduction for the rest of the series: the drama aspect is way too high, they jump back and forward (which they don't in later episodes) and the focus of the episode is all over the place. In later episodes you get a much more structured way of looking at Einstein's life. There is a clear story line which you can understand and empathize with.

In conclusion: don't judge the entire series in the first 20 minutes of the first episode like seemingly a lot of others have done here.

Although the story about Einstein's life as depicted in this show might not be the accurate to every detail, the show captures the nuances that highlight his brilliance via great acting and directing. There are not one, but many scenes where I am exhilarated by the way everything is presented - the story, the emotions and the science. There are a lot of scenes where I was hit by a train of emotions that left me tearing up. I agree with the most reviewers that view this show as an incorrect portrayal of his work and his life, but I don't agree with them in rejecting it straightaway. I always give time to a series to develop, despite it's inconsistencies. It helps the people involved to learn from their shortcomings. Where would our world be if we start rejecting stuff by just a glance of it? Thankfully, they brought the series back on track giving it the edge it needed to become a masterpiece. I thank the producers, the directors, the writers and the actors for venturing me into this incredible journey to witness the life of a great man.