USA TODAY
Friday, March 15, 1991
LIFE

Lumbering 'Giants' of art
Matt Roush

A SEASON OF GIANTS
TNT Sunday-Monday
8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. PST

Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael are the heroes of this four-hour co-production with Italian TV. Not Donatello, who was before this mini's time.

And not that A Season of Giants refers to the Ninja Turtles' latest foes, although this might have been more watchable-if less noble-if it did.

One can empathize (if one is awake) with the creators of this reverent and arid but beautifully filmed docudrama about Michelangelo's early days, sort of The Agony and the Entropy, a portrait of the artist as a dull young man.

Coaxing drama from the solitary mystery of creation is as daunting a task as Michelangelo's challenge to "free what's inside the block" of marble that becomes the great David.

The best and most absorbing moments, coming near the end of Part 1, juxtapose the making of David with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. And even that is prefaced with dippy dialogue like, "What's Leonardo doing, anyway?" "A portrait, I've heard, of Mona Lisa."

If there's a great compelling story in this shapeless mass, it remains imprisoned in the granite of art history.

Reasons to watch this generic rehash of artists chafing at patrons, politics, religion and each other? Some fine set pieces, some fun performances-John Glover's usual mania as the visionary Leonard far outshining Mark Frankel's dull Michelangelo-and the laughable portrayal of Raphael (Andrea Prodan) as a prissy dilettante with giggling groupies.

In A Season of Giants, you take your jollies where you can get them.
 

ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Friday, March 15, 1991
FEATURES

TV REVIEW "A SEASON OF GIANTS"
STAFF
8 P.M. Sunday and Monday on TNT.

'Giants' falls miserably short of capturing artists' greatness BYLINE: Phil Kloer Television critic

Before they were Ninja Turtles, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael were known to liberal arts majors as Italian Renaissance artists.

It's a tough call as to which is more demeaning to their memory-being turned into masked amphibians or being memorialized in this movie, the TV equivalent of garlic breath.

A co-production of TNT and Italian television (mostly Italian television, judging from the credits), "A Season of Giants" plays like an old Steve Reeves Hercules movie, only with the muscles on statues instead of the stars.

Between the stilted dialogue and multi-accented cast (American, British, Italian and indeterminate), it has that awkward feel of a film that's been poorly dubbed, even though everyone's lips are in sync.

"Giants" focuses on Michelangelo (Mark Frankel), who was studly Count Orlov in TNT's "Young Catherine" and looks like the magician David Copperfield in some scenes). It follows him from 1492, when his patron Lorenzo di Medici died, to 1508, when he began to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Michelangelo is the young turk to Leonardo's (John Glover) elder statesman: Part 2 (Monday), Raphael (Andrea Prodan) plays the younger turk, stealing Michelangelo's muse (Ornella Muti).

DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Sunday, March 17, 1991
TV Magazine
COVER

Rich-looking Renaissance miniseries premieres on TNT
Harry Bowman

A Season of Giants is a big production-the kind of big production most producers stopped making a few years ago when the money men began demanding an accurate accounting of their financing.

It is, in fact, so big it seemed to me that most of the first half was taken up with nothing but the list of screen credits. These seemed to go on at such great length that there was little time left for a story to begin.

Or maybe, the credits just seemed to go on so long because I couldn't read any of them; they were in Italian.

The two-part miniseries (debuting Sunday and Monday at 7 p.m. on TNT) is a co-production of TNT and Radiotelevisione Italiana in association with Tiber Cinematografica of Rome; it was filmed entirely in Italy.

Whatever else it may be, A Season of Giants is lovely. It looks like a Florentine tapestry. Photographed in burnished hues, it sports a Renaissance look that is highly attractive.

This Renaissance look is no accident. The special takes place in Rome and Florence from 1492 to 1508 and dwells on the doings of Michelangelo, da Vinci and Raphael.

(We are not talking Ninja Turtles II here: these are the folks we read about in Art Appreciation.)

Some of the supporting characters are Pope Julius II, Lorenzo di Medici, Machiavelli and Savonarola. Not your standard cast of characters, to be sure.

The plot is supposedly based on history, but accuracy will always give way to a good plot device and I am not prepared to argue any of the finer points.

The story begins as Lorenzo di Medici, he of the poison-filled ring, is going to meet his ancestors. With his death, a period of political and religious unrest begins in the prosperous city-state. It is not a good time for the 17-year-old Michelangelo.

Stripped of his patron's financial support, the artist is forced to develop his craft elsewhere. He goes to Bologna, where he soon gains recognition. He returns to Florence, finds the city in turmoil and decides to settle in Rome. During all this traveling, he still manages to complete The Bacchus, the first Pieta and David. Not a bad body of work for a guy who can't settle down.

It isn't long before Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael are locked in stiff competition as they go about creating one masterpiece after another.

There are enough plots, counterplots, schemes, love affairs and villains to keep things moving right along. And, of course, the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are interesting, if none too lively.

F. Murray Abraham, who won an Oscar for Amadeus, stars as Pope Julius II, the Warrior Pope. It's a relatively small role, but Mr. Abraham attacks it with zest. If he made it interesting, he could be forgiven his tendency to shamelessly overact.

Mark Frankel, John Glover and Andrea Prodan are Michelangelo, Leonard and Raphael respectively. They give the sort of reverential performances one would expect from actors portraying Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael.

A Season of Giants is not a breathless dramatic experience, and it won't add a great deal to your sense of history. And there are times when you want to blow the dust off of it. But if you derive some pleasure out of long, moribund and somber dramas, it will perhaps be of some interest.
 

THE WASHINGTON POST
Sunday, March 17, 1991
TV TAB

CABLE LINKS
TNT'S 'A SEASON OF GIANTS': Rivalry of the Masters
Martie Zad
Washington Post Staff Writer

TNT's two-part, four-hour miniseries, "A Season of Giants" (Sunday and Monday at 8), brings to life the turbulent early days of one of the world's most accomplished artists, Michelangelo Buonarroti. Set in Rome and Florence in the years from 1492 to 1508, the story focuses on Michelangelo's public and private struggles and his rivalry with two other masters, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

The hassles over who is commissioned to create artworks are most interesting. Michelangelo storms off to Florence when he feels he is being treated unfairly at the Vatican, where the pope's architect is favoring his nephew, Raphael. When the affronted pope-Julius II, "The Warrior Pope"-threatens to attack Florence, the city fathers persuade Michelangelo to return to Rome. He does, and agrees to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel.

Mark Frankel plays Michelangelo, John Glover is Leonardo da Vinci, F. Murray Abraham is Pope Julius II, Andrea Prodan is Raphael and Ornella Muti is Onoria, muse of Michelangelo, and later, Raphael's mistress.

Repeats: Sunday and Monday at 10 p.m. Also complete four-hour airings March 21 at noon and March 24 at 2 p.m.

CHICAGO SUN TIMES
Copyright 1991

Friday, March 15, 1991

WEEKEND PLUS

CABLE TELEVISION

Tedious TNT epic belittles 'Giants' of art
Ginny Holbert

A Season Giants
(STAR)
Michelangelo          Mark Frankel
Leonardo da Vinci  John Glover
Julius II                   F. Murray Abraham
Raphael                   Andrea Prodan
Savonarola               Steven Berkoff

Stone came to life under Michelangelo's chisel.  Unfortunately, he's not around to knock any animation into "A Season of Giants," a two-part mini-series about the artist.

The TNT production, made with Radiotelevisione Italiana, is a big-budget bore.  It was shot in Italy and features a large international cast, but somehow it manages to turn the unparalleled artistic achievement of the Italian Renaissance into an unparalleled yawn.

As Michelangelo, British actor Mark Frankel flits from Florence to Bologna to Rome and back again, looking intense and quarrelling with his patrons and competitors.  But the conflicts never amount to much and Frankel's performance is coldly unaffecting.  Neither he nor the film ever gets inside the artist.