Caravaggio 1986 film biography

Vernon Dobtcheff Art Lover. Terry Downes Bodyguard. Derek Jarman. More like this. Storyline Edit. Did you know Edit. Trivia Tilda Swinton 's debut. Goofs A typewriter is used, a saxophone is played, a train and steamship hooter are heard. In addition one of the characters plays with a very advanced for the time of the movie credit card-sized calculator with beeping buttons.

These items are included deliberately as a stylistic decision of the filmmakers, not "goofs" of people unaware of the absence of these items in the s and s. Quotes Caravaggio : [after being stabbed by Ranuccio Caravaggio touches the wound and blood] Blood brothers! Crazy credits The end credits scroll down the screen top-to-bottom. User reviews 42 Review.

Featured review. Wonderful use of limited resources. What we know of the life of Caravaggio is unfortunately incredibly limited. The narrative of this film does not really reflect that limited knowledge. From the disjunctive remains of one of the most important figures of all western art A narrative has been formed. Caravaggio was Jarman's first project with Tilda Swintonand it was her first film role.

The cook Jennifer Paterson was an extra. The film was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear for an outstanding single achievement. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as the trailer, a gallery of production designs and storyboards, feature commentary by Gabriel Berestain, an interview with Christopher Hobbs titled Italy of the Memoryand interviews with Tilda Swinton, Derek Jarman, Nigel Terry.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. Release date. Running time. Plot [ edit ]. Cast [ edit ]. Production [ edit ]. Set design [ edit ]. Production design [ edit ]. Release Details. Cast and crew. Sign up for our newsletter to get your city's hidden gems and cultural spots away from the crowds.

You may also like. Discover Time Out original video. Back to Top. Get us in your inbox. In summary, this data leads us to the conclusion that Mancini and Baglione alone had direct contact with the artist: Mancini often visited the palace of Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, Caravaggio's first major Maecenas, and Baglione, despite the malicious purposes perceivable in his work for personal reasons, was in the end the one who best knew the social environment.

Bellori and Susino, however, were chronologically much later and both Van Mander and Sandrart wrote from outside Italy.

Caravaggio 1986 film biography

Giulio Mancini, Considerazioni sulla pittura, ca. The first was Caravaggio, il pittore maledetto directed by the Italian Goffredo Alessandrini. The next feature film, Caravaggiomuch more extreme due to a more personal interpretation of his life, was directed by the British Derek Jarman. Likewise there are two television series made in Italy.

The first by Silverio Blasi and the second by Angelo Longoni Finally there are also two shorts: Vernissage! Caravaggio, il pittore maledetto by Goffredo Alessandrini In the Italian magazine Cinema8, in reference to the creation of the film company Elica Film Edizioni e Lavorazioni Industriali di Cinematografia Artisticaannounced that its first production would be directed by Goffredo Alessandrini.

Apart from being the artistic advisor of the corporation Alessandrini had become one of the most promising directors of the official Italian cinema and could boast the full support of the Mussolini's Regime. Born in Egypt from Italian parents, he started to work as an assistant director for Augusto Genina, another big name of epic fascist cinema.

After his work in movies like Luciano serra pilota or Abuna MessiasAlessandrini changed his interests with this film, but without completely abandoning his duties with a Regime which, with the use of the historical and biographical features, was trying to increase the value and pride of the nation on the basis of those Italian figures who had been significant at a global level9.

Therefore Caravaggio, il pittore maledettois the caravaggio 1986 film biography film to adapt the painter's life for the screen. Concerning the characters, the actor who was considered appropriate to represent the painter was Amedeo Nazzari, a very popular and well-known actor of the time in Italy. Despite some journalists expressing their skepticism on his abilities to play such a tormented role13, the reviews were eventually almost unanimous in emphasizing his great performance14, even considering it "possibly the best of his dramatic performances" Indeed at the 9th Venice International Film Festival Amedeo Nazzari won the best actor award for his role in Caravaggio, the damned painter.

Initially the female character was to be played by Vivi Gioi16 but in the end the diva Clara Calamai was given the role of Madonna Giaconella. Biographically the film echoed the mythology created around the painter's life, clearly described in the title of the piece as "damned". From the beginning the expectations pointed to the representation of a difficult Caravaggio, to the image of a "violent and magnificent artist with a tragic and tempestuous life" A copy of the film is preserved in Italy in the archives of the Cineteca Lucana Potenza.

Based on an idea by Ivo Perilli and Andrea Barbato, it was once again directed by Blasi, as he was the most suitable for a piece of this kind At the caravaggio 1986 film biography his career was in full development as some years before he had been in his first successful film: A Fistful of Dollarsa revolutionary spaghetti western by Sergio Leone.

The opening credits of all of them present the dying painter on the beach of Monte Argentario. The first episode begins directly in the roman period of the artist, apart 19 Piesse, Op. The project could be seen on the small screen from Decemberon the occasion of the fourth centenial of the artist's death. Consequently it reconstructs this adult stage until the rejection of the first version Saint Matthew and the Angel in the Contarelli Chapel in the church of Saint Louis of the French.

The narration starts with Caravaggio working on the construction of the new and magnificent Saint Peter's Basilica. Hungry25 and sick of malaria, he falls as he can no longer resist and has to be taken by his friend the painter Prospero Orsi Renzo Palmer to the Ospedale della Consolazione During his convalescence he meets Tullia Carla Gravinaa prostitute with whom he falls in love.

Caravaggio's fame grows and, as indicated by Giovanni Baglione in his biography, thanks to his relations with the art dealer Maitre Valentin, the painter comes into contact with the aristocratic circle of the Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte Carlo Hintermann. The second part of the series is centered on the golden age of the painter, from tofrom his success after the opening of the paintings of Saint Matthew until his escape from Rome because of the murder of Ranuccio Tomassoni Several of his conflicts with the law also appear, taken from the texts of the trials preserved in the Rome State Archives Blasi dramatizes one of the most well know ones: the interrogation at the trial against Caravaggio, Orazio Gentileschi, Onorio Longhi and Filippo Trisegni, after being accused of composing libelous lines against Giovanni Baglione.

The screenplay is inspired by those sentences transcribed in the registers of the Tribunal of the Governor of Rome, reproducing some of them accurately. Another appropriation that comes from one of the biographies can be seen in one of the most interesting sequences - in this sense - of the entire film. Giulio Mancini wrote in his text about the painter something that is not mentioned by any other biographer and that is not 25 Caravaggio's situation of poverty when he first came to Rome is mentioned in most of the sources Mancini, Baglione, Bellori and is comes out in all the films that include this first Roman period.

It is far, however, from the reason given by Mancini, which refers to a kick from a horse. Materiali per un processo, Alma Roma, Roma, The author from Siena tells of an event that took place at the residence of Cardinal Del Monte. Though it is just an anecdote, it is obvious that Mancini considered it important as a way of depicting the temperament of the figure.

When the brother of Caravaggio, a priest, came to Rome to see him, the artist refused to talk to him, adding that he had no siblings. The third and final episode covers the last years of Caravaggio's life, this time showing him as a fugitive, with periods in Naples, Malta and Sicily, in an attempt to escape the capital punishment imposed by the Pope after the homicide of Tomassoni.

The Maltese period is the most explained one and embraces not just his appointment as a Knight of the Order of Malta29, under the regency of Alof de Wignacourt Roldano Lupibut also his fall from grace and consecutive expulsion from the Order, resulting from a dispute with another Knight: in the film Hyeronimo de Varayz Franco Graziosi The painter finds himself in jail, but mysteriously escapes and goes to another Mediterranean island not far from where he was: Sicily After the Sicilian period - with stops in Syracuse, Messina and Palermo, treated concisely by Blasi - Caravaggio returns for the second and last time to Naples.

In this case, the most notable and well-known biographical fact is the brutal attack he suffered at the Osteria del Cerriglio tavern. This was so terrible that even in Rome word spread of his death. The film here is based on the information given by both Pietro Bellori and especially Giovanni Baglione, who consider the assailants envoys of the "enemy" from Malta.

Baglione also added that as a result of the beatings "it was difficult to recognize him". Badly injured and sick, he decides to return to Rome. He boards a ship headed for Porto Ercole, in the hope that a pardon from the Pontiff would come in the meantime. Lamentably, on the roman coast and before arriving at his destination, some soldiers take him for another criminal and he is put in prison for a few days.

Once the situation is cleared up he is freed, however he discovers that his boat has already departed without him but with his belongings, including his last paintings. Desperately, he tries to reach it, but it is useless because, as narrated in the literary sources, death takes him alone and in the middle of the beach. The identification of the nobleman with that figure has been called into question by several scholars.

For more information cfr. Bestetti e Bozzi, Roma,pp. The sets designed by Misha Scandella and the brilliant clothing by Veniero Colasanti32 give the film a strong character connected more with theatre than with cinema, but this is partly offset by the dynamic camera movements and the numerous close-ups and mid shots used by the director.