Leonardo da Vinci

The greatest painting in the world is by far "La Gioconda", known in the English-speaking world as "The Mona Lisa" by the quintessential renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci. The scholarly art world believes the sitter is Lisa del Gioncondo, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant in Florence, part of the Gherardini family of nobles and merchants.

And yet this documentary spends way too much valuable screen time on the notebooks and uncompleted works and much less time on the Mona Lisa. One unfinished work on a battle scene receive two to three times the screen-time of Mona Lisa! Ultimately it was unfinished!

I think a golden opportunity was missed. I hope it wasn't one of those erroneous beliefs sometimes made by documentary filmmakers that everyone knows about certain things. Not everyone does, especially in an age where people don't read books as much as they used to. Many people don't know about Mona Lisa's origins and history. Yes it is somewhat shrouded in mystery but even that should have been explained.

The documentary doesn't even arrive at the Mona Lisa until near the end. There's lots of earlier set-ups about it, where the narration says that Leonardo's greatest work was to come. When Mona Lisa finally arrives, it is a bit of a disappointment. I wanted to hear about the original commission which was rejected by the Giocondo family. Why it was rejected by the family is nearly as interesting as why it is now considered to be possibly the greatest portrait ever created. There is some analysis by art experts about it's greatness but I also wanted to hear about the history.

The documentary's other shortcoming is the music. They didn't use any music from the time of Leonardo. Lots of music from the late 15th and 16th centuries are extant and there are many recordings of this music. Instead the filmmakers opted from kind of string quartet with lots of violin solos. The violin doesn't appear in Europe until circa 1530, about 10 years after Leonardo's passing. And the kind of virtuoso music used in the doc doesn't begin to be written until the very end of the 17th century, nearly 200 years after Leonardo's lifetime.

The notebooks are essentially the star of the show. I like the notebooks but I think far too much of the doc was spent on them at the price of giving a thorough discussion about Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa is the star artwork of the Renaissance, possibly of all time. In this case she ends up in a supporting role. I found this doc to be less than satisfying.

Somehow Ken managed to do this. And it is due to a combination of factors. The narrative is clunky. The art is presented frustratingly. The closeups of the hand writing is monotonous. Important parts of the story are lost in subtitles that are almost impossible to read at times or when your eyes shift to the art being simultaneously shown. Many times we don't even know if the art we are looking at is even his.

But honestly I think all of that could have been forgiven if not for it just having no soul. Da Vinci the man in the soul, but it feels like he's missing the entire time. This should have been our chance to get to know the genius so his work he left behind has a whole new dimension and life to it. But instead of we are just given what feels like a reading of a dry Wikipedia article.

Based solely on all their previous work, i expected to be blown away once again - but was instead profoundly disappointed !

The life and times of leonardo da vinci should have provided a veritable feast of fascinating and entertaining material...notwithstanding several well presented relatively unknown historical narratives, the documentary droned on with a hodgepodge of too many unrelated observers without a common thread or coherent theme

basically, the musical score just didn't seem to fit and i found the effect of captioning was annoying....there was a lot of meat in the two episodes, it just wasn't cooked well !

Ken Burns makes solid, comprehensive documentaries about self-counsciously big subjects - not for him small, quirky tales. Leonarda da Vinci is thus perhaps an unsurprising subject, and the result is genuinely educational, but also extremely reverential. The narrative talks about the maestro's sense of fun, but the documentary itself is characterised by awe. In its conclusion, it does mention that a previous view, of Leonardo as a self-contained superman aside from broader renaissance thought, has gone out of fashion; but it might almost be seen as trying to restore it. To its credit, the series isn't all gush, and it does explain what made his art (and thinking) revolutionary. It's certainly worth watching even if it tries a bit too hard.

I basically agree with Jezlang's comments on the use of subtitles in this presentation. This is a film about ART; the subtitles are just annoying and distracting. This would have been more effective if there had been a translated voiceover of the non-English speakers. That way I would not have had to split my attention between what was being said, and the art that was being discussed. And yes, somebody should have noticed that small yellow subtitles don't work well on a sepia background!

Ken Burns should know better. Imagine the great Civil War series with subtitles instead of narrations.

These subtitles are almost as annoying as the IMDB character count!