While working on his 2022 documentary series Benjamin Franklin, Ken Burns had lunch in Washington, D.C., with Walter Isaacson, a fellow chronicler of history’s great geniuses (and Franklin biographer). Isaacson, also a professor at Tulane University and former editor of Time magazine, had just interviewed Burns about the Founding Father but was eager to turn talk to another innovator: Leonardo da Vinci. Isaacson insisted that it was time for Burns to make a film about the Renaissance polymath, whom Isaacson had written a book on in 2017.
It took some convincing, but Burns, who up until that point had only made documentaries about American subjects—covering everything from Mark Twain and the Civil War to the American buffalo and country music—finally gave in to his friend’s appeal. The astounding result is Burns’s latest film, Leonardo da Vinci, which he co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband, David McMahon.
Last Wednesday evening, at AIR MAIL’s latest Night at the Newsstand, Isaacson sat with Burns again, this time onstage, and explained that he felt so strongly about Burns following Franklin with Leonardo because both men “knew everything you could know, about every subject that was knowable.”
Wednesday evening’s conversation was driven by fluent praise of Leonardo’s singular, astonishing greatness and, five centuries after his death, his trailblazing embrace of the scientific method, remarkable understanding of anatomy, and extensive notebooks containing studies of flying machines and dentistry—not to mention his paintings, two of which (Mona Lisa and The Last Supper) are arguably the finest ever produced.
The mood among attendees was one of reverence: here were two authorities on the subject holding forth on their shared fascination, with eloquence and wonder in equal measure. Actors Christine Baranski and Tony Danza sat enthralled, and at the end of the talk Danza offered a comment about Leonardo’s state of mind in his final years.
There was a strong turnout from the literary crowd, from agent Binky Urban and her husband, Ken Auletta, to editors Thomas Beller, Carl Swanson, and David Friend; writers Josh Duboff and Molly Jong-Fast; and AIR MAIL contributors George Kalogerakis, Michael Hainey, and Sam Kashner. (One guest was heard wondering, hopefully in jest, if the evening’s talk would have anything to do with The Da Vinci Code: “Where the hell is Dan Brown?”)
Also in attendance were illustrator Ed Sorel, Oscar-nominated filmmaker and Burns associate Buddy Squires, and the Better Angels Society C.E.O. Katherine Malone-France, plus Snap Inc. chairman Michael Lynton and AIR MAIL Co-Editor Alessandra Stanley.
Conspicuously absent from the event was Leonardo himself, who, according to Burns, would adapt better than most if he were hurtled 500 years into the future. Isaacson was quick to point out that, in a way, he sort of has: “We may not have da Vinci, but we do have Ken Burns.”
Jack Sullivan is an Associate Editor at Air Mail
