Critique on the Bernini Video

I finally watched the entire documentary on Bernini's life.

I didn't knew that artist before, it was nice to discover his work and know more about who collaborated into building parts of the Vatican.

I think it was a funny documentary. As well as documenting Bernini's life, it was overdramatized. The personification of the characters were pushed to its limits for this kind of documentary. For example is Bernini's mother. She was useless in the story and the way they portrayed her was more coming out from imagination than from realism. They made her be rude and sufficient, speaking very small but rough comments and quotes throughout the film. The way they presented the characters was also awkward. They did as if the actors playing in the film really were the people they played. It is a documentary, not a movie. When they presented Borromini, they presented the actor as: "Here is Boromini. He is like this, and that and also like this". They refereed to the actor too much for me, in the words they chose.

I felt, at some points, that I was given too much useless information. Some little parts could have been cut off or just explained differently. Again, I would have cut off Bernini's mother comments. Some aspects of his personal life were also useless. It was good to talk about some, but too much is like not enough.

Another funny aspect were the bad jokes, or quotes, the narrator was trying to fit through. Some comments he made were completely useless, moving us away from the main information, the main purpose of this film. It also seemed to me that he was putting a lot of himself into the documentary.

I'm still happy that I got to watch that documentary, I learned new things and I also know a new artist whom, I think, was important in Art History. He is not as well known to the public, but going to Rome and being able to know who made several sculpture and a part of the Vatican is always nice. Knowing about his story is knowing more about what we see today. It makes everything more interesting and now I have great, overdramatized stories to tell my friends or family if they go there someday!

If I compare, I think the Medici documentary we have watched before was more professionally done than this one. It surely was less entertaining and funny though.