Product Details

• Format: Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Acorn Media
• DVD Release Date: July 13, 2010
• Run Time: 164 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003HE2AY0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,160 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

“Insightful and absorbing” —The Times (U.K.)
The artistic past and precarious future of the floating city

Art, architecture, music, and theatre in Italy’s most enchanted city

For centuries, Venice has fired the imaginations of painters, poets, composers--and millions of visitors. Join writer and historian Peter Ackroyd for an in-depth tour of the art, architecture, music, and theatre of Europe’s most mysterious and seductive city.

Here, the pale Mediterranean light reveals cityscapes as painted by Canaletto and Guardi, modern voices revive the soaring spirituality of Vivaldi’s hymns, and Venetians still don disguises to revel and role-play at Carnival. Exploring private palazzos, magnificent churches, and winding alleyways, Ackroyd also discovers the truth beneath the artifice, where beauty masks terminal decay. He interviews preservationists now working desperately to rescue the city’s treasures from the ravages of time and the sea. Always a perceptive critic and spellbinding storyteller, Ackroyd serves as the perfect guide for an unforgettable journey.

An award-winning novelist and bestselling historian, Peter Ackroyd (London: The Biography) has written over 30 books and presented many TV documentaries. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BBC AIRED IN 2009--NOT AIRED IN THE U.S., May 21, 2010

By 

Harold Wolf "Doc" (Wells, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Venice Revealed (DVD)

It would be impossible to learn more, see more, experience more of Venice even if you lived in the city for a month. Peter Ackroyd does an excellent job as narrator, and writer, for "VENICE REVEALED." It is based on his own book, "Venice Pure City", and this in-depth, entertaining, but also educational experience leaves the viewer as enchanted as if you actually were there in person. You will feel the passion and seduction of this romantic city by way of the visuals and Ackroyd's tutorial guiding through the 4 distinctively different episodes of Venice.

I wish I'd seen this DVD set, 'VENICE REVEALED', prior to my own visit of the city. This set offers subtitles which I found helpful for location names. It also subtitled when an interview was conducted with a Italian-speaking individual. About the only thing visible in person, but not shown on this documentary, is the trash floating on the water, left behind by inconsiderate tourists. This DVD is powerful, both audibly as well as visually. Wonderful music accompaniment.

Episode details:
1 THE CITY AS ARCHITECTURE-Arrival is by boat taxi. Buildings were built in this city on water. Venice is like no other earthly city. The visual is so captivating that listening closely to the historical accounts is a trial. John Ruskin's, "The Stones of Venice", highlights the masonry architecture of 5 styles. Venice is architecturally a mask: facade over decaying brick. Yet, underwater wood piles support the unique aesthetic structures.

2 THE CITY AS ART-There is not a parcel of Venice that has not been featured in fine visual art. The city itself is so powerfully ready for the artist, it's like the master painter arranged buildings, canals, bridges, and water as he did fruits for his still-life works. Old masterpieces show the history of Venice as well as how little has changed. Of course, Tintoretto, a life-long Venice artist, is a focus. Also highlighted is the city's own artistic style: prestezza.

3 THE CITY AS MUSIC-Music describes life in Venice as much as any other facet. Gondoliers and working women sing constantly. In Venice the madrigal was born; Venice was opera's capitol; and it was birthplace of Vivaldi and his spirited, fiery, music; including the orphan girls' choir. "The texture of Venetian music is the texture of the Venetian soul."

4 THE CITY AS THEATRE-Venice is full of small and large theatres and is itself a stage, a set, with the town folk, the gondoliers, each a player on its stage. It happens constantly from street pantomime to great productions--and of course the opera. Even religious ritual and pageantry is elaborately staged. In Venice, theatre is life.

Bonus material includes a helpful booklet, written bios of 2 architects, 6 artists, Ackroyd, 2 composers, 2 theatres, and a filmography list of 26 feature films shot in Venice since 1954. A well done companion DVD, that I'd recommend watching with this ground-level vista, is the aerial footage in "Visions of Italy/The Great Cities".

"VENICE REVEALED" is so very much more than just another travelogue. This is sophisticated education and cultural enlightenment. Perfect for public and school libraries, as well as discerning home DVD collections. An aesthetic value.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Embarrassingly bad, December 15, 2010

By 

P. Strayer (Oakland CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Venice Revealed (DVD)

Contrary to his other works on famous cities, Ackroyd's book and now, much much much worse, this DVD is among the most vapid and terrible documentaries I have ever seen.

The pictures bear no relationship to the narration about 50 percent of the time and the same footage is used in episode after episode.

Do not buy this.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Skip This One and Get "Francesco's Venice", October 14, 2010

By 

501a - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Venice Revealed (DVD)

Yikes, I really thought that this would be better than it was. Ackroyd has next to no original insights into Venice, its art or history. Cliche ridden drivel about Venice being a city of decay and death,a city of surfaces and illusion, etc. Very typical Anglo-centric (it was Byron who started the death myth and the Brits ate it up) misinterpretation of Venice. Ackroyd's shallowness is revealed in an interview on another website about this video when he states he loved making this video because he got to meet real Venetians, something he never did while writing the book that this series is based on!

Other annoyances: while talking about a work of art they show some work other than the one he's referring to; playing the Dies Ire from Mozart Requiem waaaay to much: barely mentioning Monteverdi in the segment on Venice and music; using the same footage of Ackroyd in a boat on a canal over and over again. Admittedly these last failings are the directors faults and not Ackroyds. I will say the segment on Venice and theater was not as bad as the other sections.

A good point is that some interesting scholars and writers get interviewed like Ruskin exponent Sarah Quill and Vivaldi researcher Micky White. One only wishes they were the focus of the series and not Ackroyd and his hackneyed observations.

I'd say skip this one and get "Francesco's Venice" a way superior look at Venice by a Venetian with better cinematography and greater depth and scope than this. I would say that but for some reason this excellent BBC series still is only available in Britain in a Region 2 version. But if you have hacked your DVD player to play all regions by all means pass on Ackroyd and go for Francesco.