Caravaggio 2010 Horror Movie Reviews

"Caravaggio"

A Tumultuous Life

Amos Lassen


This is the film that gives us the tumultuous and adventurous life of Michelangelo Merisi, controversial artist who was called by Fate to become the immortal Caravaggio. He was a violent genius that dared defy the ideal vision of the world imposed by the Renaissance painters. He was a provoker that scandalized patrons and institutions, raising the altars the outcast figures he knew so well: drunkards, vagrants and prostitutes. This is not the Derek Jarman film but something quite different altogether. This is a lush film filled with detail about Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the supremely great and more-famous-than-ever late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Italian artist. It is a glorious spectacle with a charismatic star. Marked by rich interiors, often lit as in Caravaggio's paintings, panoramic shots, sweeping music, and large cast, this is a pleasure to watch. It is beautiful to look at and richly eventful, if conventional, the film never errs in tone, though it may try to do a bit too much to leave one with a distinct impression of the brilliant artist's personality. What it does do is give a clear sense of the main figures in his life, his bisexuality, his patrons, lovers, and enemies; the ideological conflicts over his reliance on prostitutes and boys of the street as live models rather than drawings as the basis for his paintings, which often depict biblical scenes in an earthy manner; his dramatic lighting from a single point high above; his astonishing productivity (and dazzling virtuosity) despite a dissolute and violent existence that involved ten days of painting followed by a month of brawling; his struggle with malaria; his involvement with the Knights of Malta, and his end on a beach at the age of 39 after producing an extraordinarily rich and brilliant body of work, perhaps the first real modern paintings.
Originally this was a two part television series which stars Italian matinee idol Alessio Boni who gives a brilliant performance and takes on the role as if he was born to do it. What differentiates this from Jarman's film is that this is a large budget epic and it is filled with detail. There are many wonderful scenes and its sheer size better fits Caravaggio, the man and the artist. It is a spectacle in every sense of the word.