Let me get one thing clear from the start: the History Channel's documentary Da Vinci and the Code He Lived By has nothing to do with the bestselling suspense-novel-soon-to-be-movie The Da Vinci Code. The documentary is a perfectly straightforward look at Da Vinci's life that happens to take the unfortunate approach (probably dictated by the marketing guys) of trying to tie in to pop culture. So don't buy into the "Da Vinci Code" hype: just look at this program for what it is: a serious biography of an important Renaissance figure.

The 91-minute Da Vinci documentary starts with Leonardo as a child, filling viewers in on his humble origins and - more importantly - explaining how his origins influenced the young genius throughout his life. We follow him as he grows up and begins to excel in the fields of painting and engineering, with the political winds shifting him from place to place. Forever in search of a patron who would let him use his talents to the full, Leonardo would have a varied and interesting career during the tumultuous years of the Italian Renaissance.

Told with a combination of tastefully done reenactments and interviews with historians, the documentary does a nice job of revealing what Leonardo Da Vinci's career and accomplishments really were. Most viewers will likely be familiar with him as an artist, since his paintings of the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper have a place among the greatest works of art ever made. What came as a surprise to me, and will likely surprise other viewers as well, was how Leonardo really didn't think of himself as a painter... and how little work he really did overall. It's really because of his exhaustive (but unpublished) notebooks that Leonardo is famous. As we see in the documentary, these notebooks give us a fascinating insight into Leonardo's restless and active mind, and enable us in the modern day to know as much as we do about his career and his contributions to science, engineering, and the arts.

Overall, Da Vinci is a fairly well done and interesting documentary. Two things, however, conspire to make it, at times, downright irritating to watch. The first and more minor flaw is the frequent and quite forced references to Da Vinci's "code." It's used in the sense of his code of conduct, his philosophy of life, but the emphasis on his "code" is awkward and is clearly an attempt to play at the popularity of The Da Vinci Code. (Which I've read and enjoyed, by the way - I just don't need a constant reference to it in order to keep my interest in the documentary.)

The other, more significant flaw is that Da Vinci was obviously produced for a television audience with the attention span of a distracted flea: after every commercial break, the program backs up and repeats several minutes' worth of the material that was presented before the break. Let me be clear here: we're not talking about a 30-second refresher or a summary sentence from the voiceover narrator. We're talking about whole repeated scenes that take us back significantly in the chronology of Da Vinci's life. It's puzzling the first time, distracting the second time, and maddening after that. This is a clear example of a program that should have been edited for release on DVD: now that it's being presented in a format that's intended to be watched straight through, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to include the idiotic repeats that were done for the television broadcast.

I'm glad that I watched Da Vinci, and I feel that it is a solidly done program, if a flawed one in terms of presentation. It's done in an intelligent manner, and while it's not jam-packed with information, it's pretty well paced and has a decent amount of interesting information.

The DVD

Video

Da Vinci is presented in a widescreen transfer, but it is not actually anamorphic, despite what the back of the case implies. The picture quality is satisfactory, with good colors and contrast, and clean overall presentation.

Audio

The stereo soundtrack does a satisfactory job of presenting the voiceover narration and the voices of the various interviewed experts. The track is clean and clear.

Extras

The only special feature is a 21-minute featurette called "History in the Making: Da Vinci." It's a promotional-style "behind the scenes" piece that's really just an extended preview of the program, complete with heavy use of clips from the documentary; it doesn't add anything really worthwhile to the program.

Final Thoughts

Da Vinci and the Code He Lived By is a reasonably interesting documentary following the life and career of one of history's most famous artists. With its good production values, intelligent content, and interesting subject matter, Da Vinci is worth watching. However, its appeal is reduced by a very annoying habit of repeating information after every commercial break. I'd suggest this as a good rental choice.