Leonardo da Vinci

This is not a review of the series, because I think it is compelling and interesting.

My review is of the idiocy of the reviews. The main complaint seems to be that there are subtitles and people don't want to read, which to me is pure laziness. Italians speak italian. Get over it. If you need things narrated for you and hate hearing non-English speakers, you are the problem. Not this documentary.

And the other complaint is there is not enough focus on the Mona Lisa, which has been discussed ad nauseum by others. I loved learning about his sketches and writings and smaller works. This is not a Mona Lisa doc. There are plenty of others out there for you to watch.

Reviewers, do better.

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.

Okay. So. Two 2-hour episodes make up this documentary on da Vinci on PBS. It has the Burns name attached to it, and is about a fascinating subject, so what could you possibly not like about it?

It turns out it is boring to the point where I was unable to stay awake. I am so disappointed in this. It had nothing new to add to the wonderful Isaacson biography and frankly, I'm not sure why they made it... unless it was because they needed something for their membership drive.

It would have been okay if there was nothing new AND if what was presented was done so elegantly -- beautifully -- and gracefully. But it lacked those things. It was tedious. I felt like I SHOULD like it because it was Ken Burns and on PBS. But I did not like it.

Trying to watch it, I felt it wandered aimlessly and totally missed a sense of cohesion.

If you watched it and enjoyed it I am so glad for you. I did watch the whole thing but felt it was a waste of time.

It made me want t go back to rewatch da Vinci's Demons. It was crazy but it was fun crazy. This was simply... tedious.

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!

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 !