The Lost Leonardo grabs your attention with all sorts of intriguing questions:
1. What is the history of the Salvator Mundi painting?
2. What is a "Salvator Mundi" painting? Were there other Salvator Mundi's that pre-dated this one?
3. How did this painting end up in the estate of Baton Rouge businessman, Basil Clovis Hendry Sr.?
4. What percentage of the severely-damaged painting was over-painted by Dianne Dwyer Modestini when she did her recent restoration?
5. And most importantly, what is the evidence for and against full or partial attribution of the work to Leonardo da Vinci?
6. If the attribution is only partial, roughly what percentage of the painting was done by da Vinci himself?
Unfortunately, the film never adequately explores the answers to any of these questions. As one IMDb reviewer commented, the filmmakers seem more interested in the mystery surrounding the $450 million deal than the mystery surrounding the work of art itself.
But perhaps the biggest reason why these questions don't get answered is the seemingly unshakable adherence by most documentary filmmakers, including the makers of this one, to the now clichéd talking-heads documentary style that eschews all narration. You hardly ever see a talking-heads documentary that couldn't be improved by some narration to fill in the gaps in information provided by the talking heads. I had to go to Wikipedia to get the rest of the story .
1. What is the history of the Salvator Mundi painting?
2. What is a "Salvator Mundi" painting? Were there other Salvator Mundi's that pre-dated this one?
3. How did this painting end up in the estate of Baton Rouge businessman, Basil Clovis Hendry Sr.?
4. What percentage of the severely-damaged painting was over-painted by Dianne Dwyer Modestini when she did her recent restoration?
5. And most importantly, what is the evidence for and against full or partial attribution of the work to Leonardo da Vinci?
6. If the attribution is only partial, roughly what percentage of the painting was done by da Vinci himself?
Unfortunately, the film never adequately explores the answers to any of these questions. As one IMDb reviewer commented, the filmmakers seem more interested in the mystery surrounding the $450 million deal than the mystery surrounding the work of art itself.
But perhaps the biggest reason why these questions don't get answered is the seemingly unshakable adherence by most documentary filmmakers, including the makers of this one, to the now clichéd talking-heads documentary style that eschews all narration. You hardly ever see a talking-heads documentary that couldn't be improved by some narration to fill in the gaps in information provided by the talking heads. I had to go to Wikipedia to get the rest of the story .