This wonderful film successfully re-creates the period by filming on location and by meticulous attention to costume and sets. Inevitably there are gaps in its treatment, even as there are gaps in what we know of Leonardo's life and thoughts. The 'reconstructed' episodes of lost biography help, but other periods are ignored. Or are they?
Then I thought to time the episodes. Here are some questions for Questar, who released the film on VHS and DVD. The feature length is given as four and a half hours (270 minutes) on the packaging. The actual length is three hours 50 minutes (230 minutes). To be exact, the parts are 60, 39, 41, 45 and 45 minutes respectively. Questar, why did you remove 40 minutes of Castellani's film? The parts I can remember as missing are those featuring Giulio Bosetti as the modern dress narrator giving the 20th century perspective on what had happened in several of the scenes. There could be other missing parts. Again, Questar, why? Would anyone here want to buy a truncated, censored film which masquerades as the complete version? And why, Questar, given DVD technology, did you not restore the original Italian soundtrack and provide subtitle options? The dubbed voices were good but there was a synch problem the whole way through the film.
This is a very good film with a very poor American release.
And Leonardo? This film shows him to be a stranger in a strange land, someone who lived his whole life excelling his contemporaries' standards, yet somehow, marching to a different drum. The reason has to be Caterina, his mother, taken from him when still a child yet always a haunting memory. A child has to make sense of this inexplicable experience, has to question the world in which it exists to make sense of something unexplainable. And was it after his mother died that Leonardo began to paint the Mona Lisa with such an enigmatic smile? Did the child Leonardo see that rueful, sad and accepting smile on the face of Caterina?
Brings the quintessential Renaissance man back to life
It's unfortunate that the first thing many people would think of today at the mention of Da Vinci's name is the fictitious Da Vinci code rather than, say, the Mona Lisa. I think this presentation's subtitle is absolutely correct when it names Da Vinci "the most brilliant mind in history." Artist, scientist, architect, military designer - he was all of these and more. The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci covers the Maestro's complete life over the course of four and a half hours and then throws in five impressive bonus features on top of that. Philippe Leroy gives an impeccable performance in the starring role, backed up by a cast of hundreds against a backdrop of more than 90 locations in Italy. Produced in 1972, the production looks its age, but it also shows the care and respect with which it was filmed.
We really don't know all that much about much of Da Vinci's life. It sounds a little funny when the film points this out and then goes on to dramatize it all, anyway. Clearly, though, what was put on film here was the result of meticulous research. Of course, probably the greatest treasure trove of history is the remaining collection of Da Vinci's notes, which provide early sketches of some lost works, a record of Da Vinci's incredible inventions, and a record of his anatomical studies of the human body. Truly he was a man hundreds of years ahead of his time, coming up with the original ideas for the tank, an underwater breathing apparatus, the helicopter, the parachute, the machine gun, etc. Tragically, many of his notes and sketches were lost to history, as were some of his artistic creations. Many might be surprised to learn that we have only eleven completed pieces of Da Vinci artwork today. This film takes you through the creation of all of those masterpieces - plus some that have been lost or were never finished.
Da Vinci was a truly fascinating man, and this film does an excellent job communicating his isolation from the rest of the world. He was an illegitimate child who never really had a home of his own. In his prime, he sojourned between his native Florence and Milan, forced to flee on several occasions when the constantly shifting tides of military power among the Italian city states shifted or when France invaded. In his later years, he was forced to suffer the abuse of the hot-tempered upstart Michelangelo, before finally finding some sanctuary in France in his last days.
I think the film does quite a fair job of dramatizing Da Vinci's life. Many biographical treatments resort to sensational charges concerning the mysterious legal troubles that fueled his original exit from Florence and indulge in unfounded speculations of homosexuality. Everything here is based as accurately as possible on what history tells us. Da Vinci's biggest problem was that he was really too brilliant. Forever fascinated with nature, he found himself distracted all too often from other work he was doing, and his meticulous methods required great patience on the part of his clients. He could go days without touching a brush, yet he was working all the same - unlike any other artist, Da Vinci's art pieces were "written" as well as painted. He studied every facet of horses and how they moved, for example, before attempting to make a bronze horse sculpture.
Da Vinci was not only the most brilliant mind in history, he was also probably history's most brilliant failure. Besides the number of commissioned works he never completed, some of his works were plagued with problems: his Battle of Anghiari mural was ruined as the result of a failed experiment with drying the oil-based paint, for example. Even his marvelous fresco of The Last Supper began suffering cracks shortly after its completion. Seeing both his successes and his failures recreated on the screen, one gets a much deeper appreciation of the man and his humanity. It's not really a happy story, as Da Vinci suffered many wrongs in his life and was never really given the respect he deserved (even his grave was desecrated and his bones hurled into a mass burial pit by foreign invaders several years after his death).
Besides the feature film, the DVD also includes five short bonus features: The Rise of Renaissance Italy, Leonardo's Masterpieces, Da Vinci's Inventions, The Maestro vs. Michelangelo, and The Works of Two Great Masters: A Timeline. The whole presentation brings Da Vinci to life in as realistic a way as possible, and that makes The Life of Leonardo Da Vinci a masterpiece of sorts in and of itself.
Original and Inspiring
The acting and narrative bring this story to life... BEAUTIFUL women and HANDSOME men... great costumes and settings... great actors for Leonardo as boy, young man, and adult. Wonderful reconstructions of the art and inventions.
What I didn't expect, and loved, was the reflection in the narrative about THINKING of things versus ACHIEVING things. Leonardo was much less productive than his contemporary Michelangelo, yet is regarded as the better painter and finer mind. Why? Many of Leonardo's inventions (parachute, helicopter, submarine, tank) were never realized but instead reinvented centuries later, yet he is given credit for them. Why?
In the end I find this production inspiring for its actors, settings, reconstructions, narrative, and thoughtfulness. I highly recommend it.
Note, it was produced in Italy and has a quirky sound quality not unlike watching "A Fistful of Dollars." A surprise for the first few minutes but not an issue after that.
It just doesn't feel right having Michelangelo as a speaker with an old man's voice, telling about his own life. I would have much appreciated an historical approach, instead of this "Hollywood type" comedy. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Robert Snyder DVD Release Date: Released the 18 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This epic documentary does a wonderful job of recapturing the revolutionary impact the impressionists made while providing a historical and artistic context for this extraordinary group of painters. The work of Monet, Degas, Morisot, and their fellow impressionists has now become so familiar that its power to shock has all but disappeared.
Young and resolutely modern, these artists threw off the shackles of academic art to capture everyday life in paintings that were iconoclastic in both style and subject. At first they struggled to survive because their work was rejected by the conservative Paris Salon, but those with independent means helped those without (Monet in particular was frequently rescued from poverty by his friends), and gradually they became impossible to ignore. Bruce... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Bruce Alfred DVD Release Date: Released the 28 August 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Fans of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code should prepare to have their minds blown all over again watching The Da Vinci Code Decoded, a mesmerizing documentary featuring several authors whose research provided the basis for Brown's bestselling novel. Henry Lincoln (Holy Blood, Holy Grail), Dan Burstein (Secrets of the Code), and Margaret Starbird (The Woman with the Alabaster Jar) are among interviewees who can tease from Da Vinci's few paintings sometimes spooky references (e.g., the disembodied, knife-wielding hand in "The Last Supper") to the artist's heretical convictions about Christ. Much evidence is presented to support the view that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and that the latter's flight to France with Christ's child is the real basis of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dan Brown DVD Release Date: Released the 02 November 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Leonardo da Vinci was probably the most brilliant thinker to ever live. We all know he painted the Mona Lisa and the definitive portrait of The Last Supper, but he was also a scientist, an engineer, and so much more - a true Renaissance man. In fact, he was the original Renaissance man of the 15th century. He changed the art world forever by introducing a three dimensional aspect to his paintings and by giving life to human portraits so vivid and realistic that one almost forgets that they are not real people. I've never been much of an art fan, but da Vinci inspires in me an inspirational, almost devotional fascination with the truly great art he created. Just think how good a painter he could have been if he had been able to concentrate on his work - da Vinci was utterly fascinated... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leonardo Da Vinci DVD Release Date: Released the 10 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Carol Reed (The Third Man) directed this 1965 portrait of the relationship between Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison), who commissioned the artist to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Based on a novel by Irving Stone, the script plods along, juggling the dynamics between the two men along with a somewhat perfunctory love story and distracting battle sequences. Reed seems more attuned to the nuances and great pains of the artistic process, as seen in sequences of Michelangelo working. But the overall focus of the film is unfortunately fuzzy. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Rex Harrison Director(s): Carol Reed DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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