Ken Burns Documentary

Well, well.  We will soon see.  Perhaps.  At least we will be reminded or introduced to a brilliant man.  As noted in a recent announcement: 

Ken Burns Turns His Lens to Leonardo da Vinci: An upcoming two-part documentary will be the filmmaker’s first foray into a non-American subject matter by Julia Binswanger (February 14, 2024)  [from Smithsonian Magazine]

(begin) Ken Burns, the award-winning documentary filmmaker known for The Vietnam War, The Civil War, The Dust Bowl and more, is turning his attention away from American subject materials for the first time: His new two-part series, which will air on PBS in November, is all about Leonardo da Vinci.

While Leonardo’s paintings and drawings rank among the world’s most celebrated, the Renaissance artist was also an inventor, scientist and engineer. The new film, which Burns co-directed with daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon, examines the Italian polymath’s unrelenting drive to understand the world and the enduring influence of his legacy.

“As we set out to explore Leonardo’s life, we realized that while he was very much a man of his time, he was also interested in something more universal,” says Sarah Burns in a statement from PBS. “Leonardo was uniquely focused on finding connections throughout nature, something that strikes us as very modern today, but which of course has a long history.”

The film will mark a departure from Ken Burns’ previous work in several ways. In addition to covering a non-American subject, it will also stray from the documentary style that made him famous, featuring “split screens with images, video and sound from different periods to further contextualize Leonardo’s art and scientific explorations,” per the statement.

To this end, the documentary follows a non-linear timeline, drawing on Leonardo’s notebooks alongside archival film, photos and audio from different time periods. The filmmakers hope this approach will help immerse the audience in Leonardo’s world.

“Though we follow Leonardo’s personal journey and explore his artistic and scientific accomplishments, we’re also really focused on what went on in his mind and on understanding the depths of his curiosity,” says McMahon in the statement. “Leonardo’s thinking was so unique, and in many ways timeless, that our traditional approach alone would have been insufficient.”

The production will also show interviews with experts from around the world, as well as other artists and thinkers across multiple fields who were influenced by Leonardo’s work. One of those figures is the filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who says at the beginning of the film, “The modernity of Leonardo is that he understands that knowledge and imagination are intimately related.”

Part one of the documentary, “The Disciple of Experience,” airs on November 18 and examines the Renaissance artist’s early career. It focuses on the studio he trained in with his teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio, and the 18 years he spent under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of the Duchy of Milan. In this period, Leonardo created some of his most renowned works, including The Last Supper.

Part two, “Painter-God,” which debuts on November 19, follows Leonardo’s scientific endeavors and travels around Italy. During this time, he began working for military strongman Cesare Borgia, devising new ways to map cities.

“No single person can speak to our collective effort to understand the world and ourselves,” says Burns in the statement. “But Leonardo had a unique genius for inquiry, aided by his extraordinary skills as an artist and scientist, that helps us better understand the natural world that we are part of and to appreciate more fully what it means to be alive and human.” (end)

I wonder if this 2-parter will cover the claim that da Vinci created the Shroud of Turin?  I suspect not.  That would be too controversial.

Leonardo (1452-1519) was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, draftsman, architect, engineer, and scientist.  He was brilliant.  According to writer Walter Isaacson [author of “Leonardo Da Vinci” (2017)], “His science led him to adopt many heretical beliefs, including that the fetus in the womb does not have a soul of its own and that the biblical flood did not happen.  Unlike Michaelangelo, a man consumed at times with religious fervor, Leonardo made a point of not expounding much on religion during his lifetime.  He said that he would not endeavor ‘to write or give information of those things of which the human mind is incapable and which cannot be proved by an instance of nature,’ and he left such matters ‘to the minds of friars, fathers of the people, who by inspiration possess the secrets.” One can only imagine Leonardo’s relationship to the Church and its leaders.  It likely wasn’t agreeable and without conflict.  

I favor the hypothesis that the Shroud of Turin was a very clever medieval forgery made by Leonardo using a camera obscura and silver.  The camera was his invention that used a small slit in a box through which a bright image from outside the box was projected onto a wall inside the box. The image is projected upside-down. Perhaps da Vinci discovered he could retain the image if it was projected onto a silver and tempura mix – a precursor to photographic film chemicals.  If true, then Leonardo played a magnificent prank against the Church, especially if the head image on the Shroud is da Vinci’s.  That would be a fun fact.  We will never know.

I have read from Wikipedia: (begin) “In 1936, Pope Pius XII called the Shroud a ‘holy thing perhaps like nothing else’, and went on to approve of the devotion accorded to it as the Holy Face of Jesus. In 1998, Pope John Paul II called the Shroud a ‘distinguished relic’ and ‘a mirror of the Gospel’. His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, called it an ‘icon written with the blood of a whipped man, crowned with thorns, crucified and pierced on his right side’. 

In 2013, Pope Francis referred to it as an "icon of a man scourged and crucified’. Members of other Christian denominations, such as Anglicans and Methodists, have also shown devotion to the Shroud of Turin. In 1983, the Shroud was given to the Holy See by the House of Savoy [Note: A shroud was acquired by the House of Savoy in 1453].  However, as with all relics of this kind, the Roman Catholic Church made no pronouncements on its authenticity. As with other approved Catholic devotions, the matter has been left to the personal decision of the faithful, as long as the Church does not issue a future notification to the contrary. In the Church's view, whether the cloth is authentic or not has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of what Jesus taught or on the saving power of his death and resurrection.” (end)

Notwithstanding this Church guidance, many priests and parishioners have accepted the Shroud as the actual burial cloth of Jesus, and the image on the Shroud is that of his crucified body.  Moreover, the head-and-shoulder bust of the man imaged on the Shroud and displayed at Christ the King for weeks gave tangible, visible support for those devoted to belief in the Shroud’s authenticity.  

I’m left with my own conclusion that echos Pope Francis: “It is an icon of a man scourged and crucified” although I will never surrender the more intriguing possibility that the Shroud is a da Vinci scientific and artful masterpiece of illusion and creativity. Now I await another Ken Burns “masterpiece.”

Deacon David Pierce