''The Age of the Medici'', originally released in Italy as ''L'età di Cosimo de Medici'' (''The Age of

Cosimo de Medici Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth ...

''), is a 1973 3-part

TV series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...

about the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

, directed by

Roberto Rossellini Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (8 May 1906 – 3 June 1977) was an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was one of the most prominent directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing to the movement with films such ...

. The series was shot in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

in the hope of securing a

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...

n release, which it failed to achieve, and was later dubbed into Italian and shown on state television. The three television films are: ''Cosimo de Medici'', ''The Power of Cosimo'' and '' Leon Battista Alberti: Humanism''. It is

Fred Ward Freddie Joe Ward (December 30, 1942 – May 8, 2022) was an American actor and producer. Starting with a role in an Italian television movie in 1973, he appeared in such diverse films as '' Escape from Alcatraz'', '' Southern Comfort'', '' The ...

's debut role.

Overview

Like several other TV series directed by Rossellini during the 1970s, ''The Age of the Medici'' is a form of

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas ty ...

, in which historical information is communicated via dramatized conversations between figures from history, and between ordinary people. They are unabashedly "teaching films." As Dave Kehr explains, "The dialogue is bluntly didactic, with characters telling one another things they would already know entirely for the benefit of the audience.... Rossellini isn’t asking his viewers to identify with his characters or become caught up in their personal dramas ... Instead he creates a detached perspective." Each scene plays out in a single

long take In filmmaking, a long take (also called a continuous take or continuous shot) is a shot with a duration much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera movement and elaborate bl ...

, with the camera slowly moving and zooming to create different framings of the action, or, as Kehr puts it, "to close in on details or investigate relationships". When the films debuted in New York's Public Theater in 1973, ''New York Times'' movie critic Vincent Canby noted that while not difficult, the austere style of the films, "as well as Rossellini's total lack of concern for what might be called performance, take some getting used to. Yet once you've grasped the method and the rhythm of the films, they are a ravishingly beautiful experience":

The actors make few attempts to act. They recite as they walk about magnificent locations, sounding and looking like ferociously gifted dress-extras. The talk has been rather flatly dubbed into English so that it's not always possible to tell who is speaking.

Forget these problems, though. The film is about what is being said and what you can see around and behind these figures. When you connect with ''The Age of the Medici'', it has the effect of reducing every other film you've seen recently to the status of an ornament.

Rationale for the films

In his book, ''Un Esprit Libre'' (''A Free Spirit''), published in France in 1977, the year he died, Rossellini wrote of his belief that the cinema had reached a dead end. Instead he felt there was a pressing societal need for an education for the whole person in order to free people from the terrible dangers of specialization, which he saw as another form of ignorance. "We are neither ants, nor bees, nor spiders," he wrote, "and yet we have become regimented, stereotyped. . . ." He believed that education today has an effect of "fixing and maintaining" what is already established in a society. He also found ridiculous educational methods that fill brains with facts while suffocating all interest into the why's of life and the world."Canby, ibid.

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Age of the Medici, The 1972 Italian television series debuts 1973 Italian television series endings 1970s Italian television series Italian documentary television series Films directed by Roberto Rossellini Television series set in the 15th century Television series set in the Renaissance Culture in Florence House of Medici