Don’t forget to dive into the companion book, which shares lots more stories about the artists, the art and Schama’s own interactions with them. The interview with Schama on the last DVD touches a bit on, for instance, his getting to hold the very key that Caravaggio painted dangling from the warder’s belt in The Beheading of St. John the Baptist but there’s a lot more, and very moving, detail in the book about this.
But nothing can surpass the high def cinematography that gives us a view of Bernini’s exquiste sculptures the way no one will ever get to see them again. One almost feels sorry for the people who make the trip to see, e.g., the Ecstasy of St. Theresa in situ; it’s up high, you have to pay money to light it up, and you see none of the amazing detail we get to see in this series.
Some of the dramatizations are a bit silly but not overly so; they’re not recreations and many feature no dialog at all. I was, however, very impressed with the parade of faces and voices assembled for the Bernini episode; the extras dressed as cardinals, the actor who played the gossipy biographer, had some of the most interesting, appealing and downright amazing faces I’ve seen in a long, long time. I found myself pausing just to take them in, like the sculptures they were there to help celebrate.
Bravo!
Also, as an aside, it’s pretty cool seeing someone finally call out David for the ass he obviously was!
