Educational Media Reviews Online

Last Supper in New York essentially an exercise in art appreciation for those young people who have never had the opportunity to consider paintings as richly textured works with many levels of meaning. The film follows art historian Amelia Arenas through New York City as she elicits responses to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper both from people in the street and from a group of high school students.

The film also has segments describing the restoration of the painting in Milan which led to the digital recreation of the image. Arenas uses a full size digital reproduction for her discussions with the students, who are asked to identify Judas. The film is interesting and informative, and Arenas is a very engaging facilitator. The students are quite perceptive and by the end of the film, the viewer is left with a great deal of new information and insight to one of Western art’s most enduring icons.

However, the film’s audience is unclear, and at times it seems almost as if the production consists of two entirely separate projects. The shift in tone and overall production quality between the New York segments and the restoration/digital reproduction segments is dramatic. The sections focusing on Arenas and her New York activities are badly shot, with lots of boom microphones dropping into the frame and poor sound quality. The other parts of the film are of a standard PBS documentary quality, with a smooth voice over and snazzy graphics. This film could be of interest to art education students, who might like a model for discussing art with young adults, and it might also be of interest to high school art teachers. However it would be shame to spend time in class watching all of this film instead of engaging students themselves in the discussion of the painting. Recommended for high school and introductory art history/education classes at the University level.