Customer Reviews

Caravaggio [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I remember seeing this film in theaters when it first came out. I was so struck by the shadowy drama and sparkling wit of the imagery that I dragged EVERYONE I KNEW to see it. They still have my fingermarks on their arms.

Jarman's film is not a biography in the strict sense. Rather, he uses Caravaggio's paintings and a loose chronology of events as a point of departure to present his own musings on art, love, sexuality and its politics. The photography is painterly in the best sense of the word and evokes the period acutely. The cast, a director's dream by any standard, is splendid. Tilda Swindon absolutely glows on screen, Sean Bean is as feral as a tomcat, and Nigel Terry is believably world-weary and laconic, a prisoner of his vision, his debauchery, and the unfolding destiny the intersection of the two character traits dictates.

Jarman makes excellent use of anachronistic elements in the film to point out the relevance of those issues to the present day. My favorite scene shows a Vatican functionary, wearing nothing but his nightcap, sitting in a porcelain bathtub and typing on a manual typerwriter...in the 15th century! The witticisms are unmistakeable and very ably presented. Ironically, they make the whole film seem even more convincingly Baroque.

Video was the last time this film was available, and I'm very glad that someone had the nerve to reissue it on DVD. It is a very long time coming.

That's biographical fiction - although Jarman started with a solid core of historical truth about this brilliant brawler, the film contains at least as much speculation and interpolation as actual fact.

Much of it works well. The film's stark contrasts of light and dark echo Caravaggio's own innovation in chiaroscuro. Numerous anachronisms appear as well, including cars, calculators, and modern clothing. Like the film's contrasts, these reiterate the anachronisms tha Caravaggio put into his paintings. Although jarring at first, these blends of era add to the movie's quirky charm.

Male homosexuality appears repeatedly in Jarman's career, so it's no surprise that Jarman makes the most of the allegations about Caravaggio's orientation. In fact, that offers a major motivation for some of the most dramatic events near the end of this movie - events that form around Tilda Swinton in her first movie role. This brings me to something I found odd in this movie (I mean odd even by this movie's standards): Nigel Terry plays his Caravaggio with an understatement that doesn't always match the magnitude of the events around him. Perhaps a poker face would have suited the dangerous circles in which Caravaggio travelled; perhaps Caravaggio was meant to express himself through his art.

The result shouldn't be taken as genuine history. Still, it creates an enjoyable drama in homage to this brilliant but eccentric and enigmatic painter.

-- wiredweird

Of all the Derek Jarman films I've yet come across, this is my favorite. I say this with reservation: Jarman is hard to like, not merely because his movies are stocked with gratuitous nudity and sex, not merely because he goes into overkill with lighting imagery (never thought I could say that about anyone), and not merely because he never had the money to use a proper set.

Those are reasons enough, I'll give. Most of the time, Jarman just seems to be in a different world. I hated what he did to "Edward II", but I must admit that the stills from the movie are themselves exquisite pieces of art. There's lots of moments that could be set aside from "Caravaggio", and appreciated alone. That's I think Jarman's greatest talent. Every scene is brimming with symbolism, light imagery, poetry and painstaking posing.

Jarman is a neat combination of underwhelming production and overwhelming camp. Often times his direction sets apart puerile categories of "good" and "evil". That's where the lighting imagery usually comes in. Worse yet, his movies are often boring.

In spite of these faults, Jarman still does things that I find worthwhile. Sincerity, for one. Even if he never really makes sense, or if he thinks that he's reaching some new art form, it's obvious that Jarman honestly cares for his work. His scripts are laden with outrageously vulgar love poetry, and his characters deliver them in dreamlike dazes, unperturbed and not really trying to shock.

People, similar, can be crass and sentimental in the same breath.

Typical Jarman, "Caravaggio" is bold, crass, sexual, and tragic. The surprise ending was a surprise strength in terms of complexing the plot and themes.

"Caravaggio" in particular was watchable for how Jarman would reinvent the original scene that a painting came from. The differences between the inspiration and the end result suggested all sorts of things about the artist: playfulness, cynicism, anguish or elation. This film has more humour than most of his other ones, with a main character - performed by game Nigel Terry - who blessedly can make fun of himself. That's a relief, given how dark the story turns out.

Sean Bean performed wonderfully, as did Tilda Swinton (a Jarman regular). Swinton carried her character with enigmatic innocence, while Bean gave the film its base of energy.

This movie is not for everyone, not even all art students. While the art direction is interesting, the explanations for certain paintings certainly worth considering also, Jarman's signature boldness offends many people. Violence, sexuality, and language give this film a high age rating.

Rarely would I ever say that 5 stars is not sufficient to express the magnitude of greatness that I see in a film, but Derek Jarman's CARAVAGGIO, the director's homage to the late Baroque painter, his life, his view of art, his sexuality and his struggle with life versus art, staggered my mind with the intense detail and love with which Jarman treats this interesting and tortured artist. The film's director and the film's subject is beest summed up in Caravaggio's quote while painting; "All art is against lived expression. How can you compare flesh and blood against pigment?!!....I have trapped pure spirit in matter!" This was the creed and the mission, almost Holy Grail of Caravaggio, as well as the late Jarman; to take life and mimic art, and to make art mimic life!

Writer/director Derek Jarman and Italian masterpiece artist Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) cannot and will not be separated in this film. The director and the artist are soulmates in life and art, 400 years apart in time, but indelibly linked in common purpose in life and purpose. Jarman, always the provacateur in film sees Caravaggio the same as himself; struggling against all convention, religion, and social norm to capture the human spirit on canvas and on film. Jarman honours Caravaggio's famous figures that illuminate out of the blackened background of the canvas rendering all of the film's scenes in that same spirit. Actors Nigel Terry, as Caravaggio; Tilda Swinton as Lena the prostitute; Sean Bean as the street trade object of desire Ranuccio Tomassoni; Michael Gough as the pederast Cardinal Del Monte; and Spencer Leigh as the deaf mute who is Caravaggio's lifelong apprentice Jerusalame
are all realistically portrayed as the true humans they were in forming Caravaggio's stable of models, friends, rivals, tutors, admirers and jealous lovers, all of which were the real life people who were the John the Baptists, Baachus' and Virgin Mary's of his 50 great masterpieces. Jarman frames each scene as Caravaggio would have seen it; he shows us how the artist saw the human life as it was and painted it into The Divine. This, of course, was a prevailing criticism of the time placed upon Caravaggio's work; he used live models, not pictures, to portray what he was to put to canvas. This upset many other artisrs, and infuriated the Church, though secretly Cardinals and Popes commissioned his work as "intimate chamber pieces known for their homoerotic ambience." (Interestingly, the religious commissioned these paintings, but hid them behind curtains in the Salon!)

Derek Jarman makes no apology for his open homosexuality, as Caravaggio made no apology for his work and fascination with the male form. Therefore, this film has a strong emotional connection between the filmmaker and the painter; the two understand one another deeply and Nigel Terry, as Caravaggio, is overwhelmingly the artist on screen. The subject of pederasty, older male taking under wing the younger male (which was quite common in the day- not just simply apprenticeship) is openly examined in CARAVAGGIO; Was the relationship strictly tutorial in the mind, but was it also educational of the body, also?

I have watched this film several times over before deciding to review it. There is just simply so many levels on which this film can be viewed. Jarman, undoubtedly intends it to be that way; CARAVAGGIO is about art and the artist, but it is also about human desire, passion in life, and passion in Art. One viewing of a Jarman film is NEVER sufficient. To see it as pornography (as some are wont to do) does no credit to the filmmaker or the 17th -century genius who gave us paintings such as "Death of the Virgin", "The Incredulity of Thomas", "The Cardsharps","The Calling of St. Matthew", "Amor Vincit Omnia","Boy With a Basket of Fruit", "Young Sick Baachus" as well as "The Entombment of Christ." Jarman cleverly and with awe and reverence "stages" all of these paintings with great precision within his film. Even the famous "The Calling of St. Matthew" is hilariously framed as a sniping news critic types his critique of Caravaggio in a bathtub with the famous "ray of light", that is in the painting,streaming through a window upon the man! Such is the imaginative Jarman, who never shies away from shocking images that to some seem senseless.

I admit, this film so intrigued me, upon my first viewing, that it cause me to do a more exhaustive search on Caravaggio. What that search yielded made me gain a far deeper appreciation for the artist, himself, who was sexually open with both men and women, who was put into exile, who needed a papal pardon, who painted life as he saw it, who was constantly arrested for brawling and who died under mysterious and controversial circumstances and whose life has been biographied countless times by "experts" who vehemently disagree about him!!! This makes Jarman's film all the more provoctive. Nothing that I see in this film contradicts anything that I have found in my discoveries. But Jarman is not just wanting us to see Caravaggio as an historical figure, as many movies tend to do; but is rather interested in painting, as it were, a canvas of the celebration and hardships of humanity on film.

In conclusion, Derek Jarman, I consider to be a genius filmmaker, but his films are quite unique and controversial. His films Edward II and Caravaggio [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ] I have found to be more accessible than some of his more "experimental" films, such as The Last of England and "Blue", but hey, I'm still learning to appreciate a lot of things!!!

Maybe I'm a purist, but I was surprised to see a man in a tux in what was supposed 1600s Italy. Not to mention a pick up truck that looked like it was dragged straight from the junkyard and plunked down on set. All of that made for a very jarring viewing experience.

The plot..Was there one? I realize this wasn't supposed to a literal biopic, but the writer could have at least tried for a story. It was all random scenes I couldn't follow. As for the love triangle, it all went by so fast I wasn't even aware of when it started and ended. There was very little dialogue.

All in all, not something I'd recommend in the way of an actual biopic. It was interesting at times, but I still ended up left with a "What the heck did I watch?"

Michelangelo Caravaggio was an important Italian painter who led a short, tumultuous life. He surrounded himself with earthy street people who became the models for his paintings.

If you're looking for a biopic about the life of Caravaggio, look elsewhere. This chaotic and bizarre interpretation of his life by avant-garde director Derek Jarman is like seeing art history on a bad acid trip. The story opens well enough around the year 1600, but I thought I was seeing things when I saw a man in a tuxedo. I scratched my head at the calculator, but the motorbike and truck were too much. The use of anachronistic images and odd sound effects (trains, crashing ocean waves) was too jarring and distracting for me. There was little dialogue, the range of accents included cockney and Irish, and the narration made no sense.

As a fan of Caravaggio's work, I did enjoy the scenes that showed models posing for his famous paintings, but the rest - a montage of unrelated scenes showing his depraved lifestyle - was just distasteful and speculative. Tilda Swinton made an impressive screen debut in the puzzling role of a street woman and a very young Sean Bean is interesting as her companion, but Nigel Terry was an off-putting Caravaggio. Not recommended.

Having recently read The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr, I've been pursuing other material about the early Baroque artist Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (ca.1571-1610). Derek Jarman's cinematography in this hard to find film is stunning. It's a pleasure to see (now familiar) Caravaggio works being painted from live models. It was helpful to have some knowledge of Caravaggio's life prior to viewing this film. And be forwarned that Jarman chose to include many anachronisms, such as tuxedos, cigarette smoking, and locomotive noises.

This was hands down the worst movie I've ever seen. I'm an art history major and I'm actually currently taking an entire class on Caravaggio. Nothing in this movie is based in fact at all. It's simply a gratuitous sex-fest. Jarman simply created a movie pushing his own sexual agenda using Caravaggio as his character. This movie has nothing to do with Caravaggio at all. Absolutely terrible. A disgusting waste of time.

Being a professional artist, when I saw this title I was excited; it's always ( well,almost always) informative,intriguing to see a Great Master's life story told on celluloid.
I am troubled by the effusive, sycophantish raves I see as reviews here. What Jarman has done with Caravaggio's tumultuous life is self-serving, proselytizing, diminishing, obscene, marginalizing & deeply offensive. This was about Jarman attempting to depict some misbegotten, self-aggrandizing pseudo-relationship to a Master, NOT about the true life the beleagured artist lived.
All the anachronistic nonsense (train sounds, typewriter,cigarettes, automobile) is distracting and lifts the viewer out of the film; it isn't artsy or clever, just awkwardly foolish ,cumbersome and self-defeating. Whatever Jarman was smoking when he came up with this treatment is surely illegal. Using actors whose accents were clearly Irish, British and even cockney was very silly, also a distraction.
This film puts me in mind of something an hormonal high school senior might conceive in an elective film-arts class. While there are a couple of moments where the sets-costumes do vaguely resemble a composed painting, they're not Caravaggio's palette and certainly not authentic to his work. Other posters have commented on the quality of the reproductions used in the film. Both Jarman and the arrogant hack who painted them ought to be horse-whipped for profaning the sublime canvases Caravaggio achieved at such great cost in his life.
There were so many directions Jarman could've gone in to tell this extraordinary story. That he chose such a vulgar framework reflects badly on him, suggest motives best left in the dark corners of Jarman's fetid imagination. I love Fellini, Kubrick and other ground-breaking avant garde filmmakers, so don't accuse me of hating. Substandard work is substandard no matter how avant garde the filmaker or director tries to play it off as being. It's one of those "if you don't get it you're a stick-in-the-mud dummy" kind of attitudes Jarman is holding over the viewer's head like a carrot.

How much more relevant & intriguing this movie would've been had Jarman been more of a student and less of a sensationalist. He could've expositioned Caravaggio's twisted relationship with the Catholic Church;he could've explored the conflict Caravaggio encountered in literally copying Titian; he could've illustrated how Caravaggio championed & refined chiaroscuro and won a solid, glowing place in Art History, something I doubt the artist could ever have guessed would happen.

Instead we were beaten over the head with the artist's sexuality. Actually,make that bludgeoned. By the way, in 1500's/early 1600's Rome, there were no fixed sexuality standards as there are today. Jarman is way out in left field in leaning so heavily on homosexuality.
As an aside, I was personally offended by the scene of the nude artist practically mauling the dead body of the prostitute he had painted. Now THAT was ugly.

It is my sincere hope my review disssuades you from watching this tripe; if people stop watching it, egomaniac filmakers will have to stop making it.

I purchased this film after reading the reviews of it by other viewers on Amazon so I was 'prepared' for the startlingly anachronistic elements that Director Derek Jarman injected into this tale of Renaissance Italian 'bad-boy' painter 'Caravaggio'. While it was immediately pretty evident that Jarman was attempting to bring modern 'relevance and/or identification' factors to this art history piece (an admirable concept) - I found the overall end result to be somewhat lacking. The film has a decidedly 'staged' quality with many of the sets really looking like 'sets' which detracted from the 'authenticity' of the production. There was also a lot of time devoted to the rather speculative homoerotic elements between Caravaggio & one of his male models, and the model's wife as the plot line skipped around to certain 'high-lights' of the artist's life. I found it somewhat annoying too that the director chose to picture 'in process' sequences of Caravaggio working on his paintings with some low quality replications of his work that bore little resemblence to the actual techniquess that an artist in Caravaggio's day would have employed. While credit may be given for an inventive attempt to make Caravaggio 'come alive' for a modern audience, in essence the whole exercise came off a bit like a cartoon overview of a remarkanle man's life, and I feel somethng was lost in the translation. Fortunately, I also purchased an alternative Italian TV mini-series version (also titled 'Caravaggio') that proved to be much more authentic in its' recounting of the artist's life history and works. To that version I gave a full 5 Stars, because it really caught the feeling of the period and the man - and I would have to recommend it over the Jarman version for that reason.