Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When The Life of Leonard DaVinci first aired on American Television, I believe it was on ABC, my wife and I had only been married a few months. But, every Sunday night as I recall, for about four or five weeks, we watched this fantastic production. Years later, we saw it again on PBS. When I began teaching, I found that our local educational resource center had this program on VHS. As a graphic arts teacher, I felt that Leonardo and this documentary were of such great importance, I would show a chapter or two to my students during the course of a term. And, I would take it home at watch it again and again. Not only was Leonardo, as one of the Amazon reviewers describes, a bit weird, he was also brilliant and interesting. Brilliant and interesting also describes this entire Italian production. As much as I dislike foreign films with the out-of-sync English dubbed voices, I was able to over look it in this extremely informative and superbly produced film. I really liked the occasional interaction of the characters as they sort of stumble into the narrator; I thought that to be very clever and nicely executed. So, after seeing that it was available in DVD, I purchased a copy. I am so disappointed... What inept producer, or editor, of re-release material thought that he or she had the requisite skills to chop up so much of this production? I was so angered by this that I'm sorry I bought the DVD. The complete version deserves a FIVE STAR +, the DVD... TWO, if that much! This great program, unfortunately placed in the hands of a flaming IDIOT, ruined the overall presence and personality of this presentation by IGNORANTLY cutting away some wonderful clips that brought such a meaningful and complete story to an eager audience. I really love the quality of DVD, but for this, I'll just go check out the VHS version and watch it from time to time. Oh, just an afterthought... Is there a COMPLETE version of this available on DVD? Hey, you, bonzo with the editing shears... Do you still have the original? Well, how about releasing that for some of us - "I-want-to-see-the-whole THING" fanatics! Tony DeCaro Graphics Design/Video Production Instructor