March 18, 1991
REVIEWS: A SEASON OF GIANTS
PARTS I & II
Sun.-Mon. March 17-18, 5& 7 p.m.

“A Season of Giants,” a heavy, often confusing look at the era when Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci paced Renaissance Italy, offers little threat to the elegant 1965 feature “The Agony and the Ecstasy.”

The four-hour telefilm looks gorgeous-what with Maurizio Monteverde’s splendid costumes, Bruno Cesari’s set decoration, Daniel Nannuzzi’s rich camerawork and the authentic scenery in Italy-but it doesn’t shed any new light on its subject.

In fact, writers Vincenzo Labella and Julian Bond expect too much of the audience. Though it’s pointed out that “certain scenes have been created for purposes of dramatic clarity,” the production doesn’t clarify relationships, illuminate plot developments or clear up the muddy accents being tossed about by the international cast.

And “Season” lumbers along under Jerry London’s determined direction, which is at best ambitious.

Michelangelo, played intensely by Britisher Mark Frankel (recently of TNT’s “Young Catherine”), is the plot’s central figure. He’s introduced in the Medici gardens, where he’s studying art. Championed by Lorenzo the Magnificent (Ian Holm), the 17-year-old sculptor hits the road with the death of his patron.

In Bologna, he suffers a nightmare over a model to whom he’s attracted, creates the Pieta and, in a cliffhanger ending Part I, contemplates the huge mass of marble from which he’ll carve the David.

Part II picks up on David’s face as Michelangelo chips away, then follows his fortunes through encounters with Pope Julius II and his work, under protest, in the Sistine Chapel.

He also bumps into the older Leonardo (John Glover in an ill-fitting hairpiece), whom he doesn’t like.

Leonardo and Michelangelo snipe at one another, trying to work out the frescos for the Palazzo Vecchio, and play a constant game of one-upmanship.

Cuts between Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo creating the David suggest that the two great men were goaded on by one another’s work. Maybe.

After the two masters comes Raphael (Andrea Prodan in a bland perf), whose matinee-idol status among Florentine women isn’t borne out by evidence here.

F. Murray Abraham portrays a quick-tempered Pope Julius II, and Raf Vallone is in for a cameo as a Spanish ambassador.

Steven Berkoff presents a strong, impassioned Savonarola and Ornella Muti is beautiful as a love interest.

The craftsmen and designer Enzo Bulgarelli have ingeniously re-created Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, site of the David, at Rome’s Cinecitta soundstages. Much of the opus was filmed at the 15th-century Orsini-Odecachi Castle in Bracciano.

But as for learning anything about the real Michelangelo and Leonardo, viewers would do well to turn to text books.-Tone.

 

 

VARIETY
March 18, 1991
REVIEWS: A SEASON OF GIANTS
PARTS I & II
Sun.-Mon. March 17-18, 5 & 7 p.m.

“A Season of Giants,” a heavy, often confusing look at the era when Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci paced Renaissance Italy, offers little threat to the elegant 1965 feature “The Agony and the Ecstasy.”

The four-hour telefilm looks gorgeous-what with Maurizio Monteverde’s splendid costumes, Bruno Cesari’s set decoration, Daniel Nannuzzi’s rich camerawork and the authentic scenery in Italy-but it doesn’t shed any new light on its subject.

In fact, writers Vincenzo Labella and Julian Bond expect too much of the audience. Though it’s pointed out that “certain scenes have been created for purposes of dramatic clarity,” the production doesn’t clarify relationships, illuminate plot developments or clear up the muddy accents being tossed about by the international cast.

And “Season” lumbers along under Jerry London’s determined direction, which is at best ambitious.

Michelangelo, played intensely by Britisher Mark Frankel (recently of TNT’s “Young Catherine”), is the plot’s central figure. He’s introduced in the Medici gardens, where he’s studying art. Championed by Lorenzo the Magnificent (Ian Holm), the 17-year-old sculptor hits the road with the death of his patron.

In Bologna, he suffers a nightmare over a model to whom he’s attracted, creates the Pieta and, in a cliffhanger ending Part I, contemplates the huge mass of marble from which he’ll carve the David.

Part II picks up on David’s face as Michelangelo chips away, then follows his fortunes through encounters with Pope Julius II and his work, under protest, in the Sistine Chapel.

He also bumps into the older Leonardo (John Glover in an ill-fitting hairpiece), whom he doesn’t like.

Leonardo and Michelangelo snipe at one another, trying to work out the frescos for the Palazzo Vecchio, and play a constant game of one-upmanship.

Cuts between Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo creating the David suggest that the two great men were goaded on by one another’s work. Maybe.

After the two masters comes Raphael (Andrea Prodan in a bland perf), whose matinee-idol status among Florentine women isn’t borne out by evidence here.

F. Murray Abraham portrays a quick-tempered Pope Julius II, and Raf Vallone is in for a cameo as a Spanish ambassador.

Steven Berkoff presents a strong, impassioned Savonarola and Ornella Muti is beautiful as a love interest.

The craftsmen and designer Enzo Bulgarelli have ingeniously re-created Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, site of the David, at Rome’s Cinecitta soundstages. Much of the opus was filmed at the 15th-century Orsini-Odecachi Castle in Bracciano.

But as for learning anything about the real Michelangelo and Leonardo, viewers would do well to turn to text books.-Tone.