'Leonardo da Vinci' review: Ken Burns' documentary is magnificent, visually sumptuous

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Ken Burns, along with his daughter Sarah Burns and son-in-law David McMahon (2012's "The Central Park Five: A Chronicle of a City Wilding") have gone back 500 years to produce this four-hour portrait of the genius who put the "poly" in "polymath." Leonardo (1452-1519) wasn't merely an artist, but — deep breath — a scholar/inventor who filled thousands of pages on subjects like optics, geology, paleontology, oceanography, botany, ornithology, anatomy, physics and mechanical engineering. In Burns' and McMahon's telling, Leonardo was at times a reluctant artist who chased commissions to pay for his real passion, or passions. But what an artist.

This film is a major detour for Burns ("Jackie Robinson," "Country Music," "The Civil War") who exclusively focused on American subjects.

MY SAY Ken Burns launched his own illustrious career 43 years ago with "Brooklyn Bridge," and until now, never left these shores, while picking over the bones of every major American historical event and cultural landmark he could find.

Which raises the obvious question: Did he finally run out of bones?

That seems hard to believe. There's always something or someone else. And to get the Burns treatment is the documentary equivalent of a benediction. (Who wouldn't want that call from Ken?) Maybe he just wanted to spend six months in Florence. (His production company is called Florentine, after all.) Or maybe he wanted a new challenge.

If so, challenge met and then some.

Spend five minutes with "Leonardo" and it's easy to the point of obvious to see why Burns and company traversed an ocean and centuries to capture this subject. "Leonardo" isn't only visually sumptuous but easily the most experimental of Burns' many films. For example, this uses rotoscoping in various places — the frame-by-frame tracing of lines over live footage to create something akin to art in motion. When you see a rotoscoped flock of birds in flight or the guttering of candles, it's as if you've entered another dimension, which is the whole point, because with Leonardo, one does enter whole new dimensions.

There's no point in getting to the "why do this?" How could Burns not? Along with Shakespeare and Galileo, Leonardo was the greatest of Renaissance men — the essential "Modern Man" who opened wide the door to our own modern age. He predated both  by a hundred years, so that makes him singular too. But Burns does something much better than restating the obvious, or go where so many others have gone before. He makes Leonardo both exciting, and contemporary.

Leonardo's spirit of inquiry — which embraced everything from the corpuscles of human blood to the rushing of rivers — is a timely reminder of that hidden spirit in all of us, "Leonardo" seems to say. Airing two weeks after a divisive election, existential fears about artificial intelligence, and disinformation spread by social media, Burns' Leonardo stands as something of an exemplar: We not only can do better, but are better. Leonardo proved as much 500 years ago.

And of course, you want to know about the "Mona Lisa" — Lisa Del Giocondo, mother of five, and a mere 24 years old when she became the subject of the most famous work of art in world history in 1503. With the timing of an Oscar-winning actress, she makes her grand entrance an hour and a half into Tuesday's finale. "Leonardo" hardly makes the case, as an earlier biographer once did, that she's a living, breathing human being on canvas. Nevertheless, you may be shocked at how deeply emotional this moment in the film is. She too reaches across the ages to remind us of our better angels.

BOTTOM LINE Magnificent