★ 7 / 10
I knew there had to be a reason
CinemaSerf
I knew there had to be a reason why anyone ever cared about Sean Bean. A more wooden actor I think I've never seen, but here his conniving "Ranuccio" is sexy…
I knew there had to be a reason why anyone ever cared about Sean Bean. A more wooden actor I think I've never seen, but here his conniving "Ranuccio" is sexy and provocative and put together with Nigel Terry's convincing performance as the eponymous artist and Dexter Fletcher's efforts as the younger, manipulative, Caravaggio, this is a no-holes barred/bared look at debauchery and hedonism in a papal Italy that was way more interested in sex and depravity than it was upholding the values of Christian decency. Indeed, the closer to the throne of St. Peter one gets the more licentious you seem to need to be. That's ideally epitomised by Nigel Davenport's "Giustiniani" and the under-rated Michael Gough as "Cardinal Del Monte" - now, he really does like to say "yes"! Robbie Coltrane doesn't doesn't quite fit the bill as the scheming "Borghese" though, nor does Tilda Swinton's cheated upon "Lena", but they don't really matter so much as this painter decides to abandon the more traditional, idealistic, style of portraiture and actually draw things warts and all - and boy, there are plenty of warts. Sexual fluidity, nudity, very little left to the imagination - and it all amalgamates to create quite a potent and plausible representation of the do as I say not as I do (high) society that prevailed at the time. It's got a few roots in history, but for the most part it can't really be considered much more than a sexually-charged fantasy from Derek Jarman who takes plenty of artistic licence as he uses just about any excuse to get some fit young men naked and writhing about in a not very subtly photographed fashion. The writing isn't the best, the dialogue is a bit dry but this is very much a visual experience that speculates well about just what drove a man capable of creating masterpieces of world renown amidst poverty and lots of lust. I wonder if Caravaggio really was quite this notorious in real life? If not, I doubt he'd be displeased but this colourful example of excess in just about every form. Not for everyone, and probably not for any serious art historians - but as tangentially fact-based soft gay porn, it sort of works!
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★ 6 / 10
Uneven, but captures the earthiness of the artist
gbill-74877
Standing before a painting by Caravaggio is an experience, particularly when the emotion of a dramatic scene is heightened by his intense lighting, attention…
Standing before a painting by Caravaggio is an experience, particularly when the emotion of a dramatic scene is heightened by his intense lighting, attention to detail, and chiaroscuro technique. It's a style that's instantly recognizable, and was influential far beyond Caravaggio's life (1571-1610). Aside from a wide range of artists who followed, like Rembrandt, Velazquez, and David, Martin Scorsese said that there were scenes in Mean Streets (1973) that were framed and lit like direct homages to Caravaggio.Derek Jarman's historical drama succeeds in giving a taste of the man behind the paintings, capturing a certain sense of the sordid way he lived his life, which was often among "low" people and violent. At its best, we feel Caravaggio's earthy background and the uneasy bargain he struck with the Church and wealthy patrons. I smiled over his meeting with the Pope, who in this fictional telling, confided his desire simply to keep the "quo in the status" and didn't care about finding the truth about a prostitute's murder. The prostitute was Fillide Melandroni ("Lena" here, played by 26-year-old Tilda Swinton in her very first film) who appeared in several of Caravaggio's works, and who was probably murdered by him. I also loved the occasions when we see paintings recreated by those posing for them with an astonishing likeness, like the one of Saint Jerome in his study.Quite a bit of what was shown seems to have been more of a reflection of the director than Caravaggio, however. Jarman didn't seem to have a problem freely bending history, saying among other things that "people tend to think that history is immutable, that there is something called reality." He didn't sugarcoat Caravaggio as others might, but downplayed his brawling and violence, and decided against actual evidence that Caravaggio was bisexual. Among other things, he infers that he molested a child servant that he purchases from a poor family, and that he himself was molested by a priest, his patron. There are elements that could fall under artistic license as interpretation, and there are elements that simply aren't accurate historically, which is a shame.Jarman also occasionally used modern items from the present, like calculators or radios, I believe as an homage to Caravaggio, who sometimes employed modern dress on his Biblical figures. In the paintings this brings the legends to life, giving them an immediacy in what was then the present; in this film, it just seems disjointed and odd. I have other quibbles, such as the amount of time spent on the deathbed scene spread out through the film, while there was very little on the artist's craftsmanship. He was wise to keep it to 93 minutes and to avoid trying to be comprehensive though, and I'm glad he cared enough about Caravaggio to make this film.
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Other movie about Caravaggio is: Caravaggio's Shadow (2022), maybe it will be on YTS.