Red-125 Caravaggio (1986) was co-written and directed by Derek Jarman. As a biography of the great Baroque painter, this movie falls short. However, it's full of exciting events, color, and--yes--actual scenes where a painter is working at his art. Most films about artists show everything but the art. This movie brings us into the artist's studio. We see the models, we see him creating his paintings, and we see the finished results. Caravaggio was the most gifted of the Italian Baroque painters. His artistic style influenced artists in all of Europe for generations. However, his personal life was a disaster--duels, brawls, murder, and imprisonment. He died on a barren beach, although his talent was recognized and he could have been wealthy and famous. (Because he was so talented, his patrons managed to keep him out of prison most of the time, but, after the murder, he had to leave Rome. He wandered all over Italy, and died in Naples, far from his home near Milan.)Several caveats about the film. It's bloody, although not as gruesome as Longoni's film-- also called Caravaggio, and also reviewed by me for IMDb. There's a good deal of suggested sex, both homosexual and heterosexual. The director has chosen to add anachronisms, for reasons best know to himself. Not only are these jarring, but they are strange. If you're going to show a typewriter, why make it an old Royal manual? Bizarre.The acting is uniformly excellent. The celebrated actor Nigel Terry plays Caravaggio, and the equally celebrated Sean Bean is his lover Ranuccio. Tilda Swinton plays Caravaggio's muse, Lena. This was Swinton's first acting role, and she is superb. Even in 1986, her androgynous persona was in place. However, in one breathtaking scene, she has been given an elegant gown. She holds it up in front of her body, and then suddenly lets down her lovely long hair. The androgynous look vanishes instantly, and we see the extremely attractive woman emerge. That scene alone makes the film worth seeing.I saw the movie on DVD, where it worked well enough. However, this is a film I think would do better on the large screen. Caravaggio is a brilliant, but flawed, movie. It's worth seeing if you love Caravaggio's art, as I do. It's interesting and it has flashes of brilliance. However, if you want to get a better sense of Caravaggio's life and of the milieu in which he lived, I would opt for Longoni's film. Bloodier and more violent, but without typewriters, automobiles, and cigarettes.

Rodrigo Amaro Everything is divided in two concepts: rule and transgression. That it's not a bad thing but for most people it's difficult to accept them, to comprehend them and to make both things interesting. Most of the time we tend to only follow the rules and forget about transgression or even condemn it. Caravaggio was a transgressionist in terms of art with his painting evoking religious themes using as models simple people, peasants, prostitutes, fishers, creating powerful masterpieces; and a transgressionist with his dangerous lifestyle, sleeping with men and women, getting involved in fights, in one of these fights he killed a man, reason why he ran away to other countries, and then dying at the age of 38. Then we have a filmmaker, an true artist named Derek Jarman who knows how to portray art on film, breaking conventions, trying to do something new and succeeding at it. To name one of his most interesting films his last "Blue" was a blue screen with voice overs by actors and his own voice telling about his life, his struggle while dying of AIDS, and he manages to be poetic, real about his emotions, and throughout almost 2 hours of one simple blue screen he never makes us bored. Who could be a better director for a project about the life of Caravaggio than a transgressionist like Jarman himself?The movie "Caravaggio" is wonderful because it combines many forms of art into one film, capturing the nuances of Caravaggio's colors and paintings translated into the film art. It has poetry, paintings, music of the period of the story, sometimes jazz music. All that in the middle of the story of one of the greatest artists of all time.This is not a usual biopic telling about the artist's life and death in a chronological order, trying to do everything make sense. This is a very transgressional work very similar to "Marie Antoniette" by Sofia Coppola, so it might shock and disappoint those who seek for a conventional story truthful to its period. And just like Coppola's film "Caravaggio" takes an bold artistic license to create its moments. Jarman introduces to the narrative set in the 16th and 17th century, objects like a radio, a motorcycle, a calculator machine among others; sometimes this artistic license works (e.g. the scene where Jonathan Hyde playing a art critic types his review on his typewriter, a notion that we must have about how critics worked that time making a comparison with today's critics, but it would be strange see him writing with a feather, even though it would be a real portrayal).The movie begins with Caravaggio (played by Nigel Terry) in his deathbed, delusioning and remembering facts of his passionate and impetuous life; his involvement with Lena (Tilda Swinton) and Ranuccio (Sean Bean); memories of childhood (played by Dexter Fletcher); and of course the way he worked with his paintings, admired by everybody in his time.All of this might seem misguided, some things appear to don't have a meaning but they have. I was expecting a movie more difficult to follow but instead I saw a truly artistic film, not pretentious whatsoever, that knows how to bring Caravaggio's works into life, with an incredible and fascinating mise-èn-scene, in a bright red that jumps on the screen with beauty. Very impressive. It's an unique and interesting experience. For those who enjoy more conventional and structured biopics try to watch this film without being too much judgemental, you'll learn great things about the Baroque period because it is a great lesson about the period. For those who like new film experimentations or want to watch a Jarman's film here's the invitation. 10/10

Jackson Booth-Millard It was only after the first ten minutes I realised it was a biography, and then another thirty minutes to notice the significant style of the film, and I was pleased I watched it. Basically, in the 16th Century in Italy, there was Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio (Nigel Terry), and this is a fictionalised (for the latter amount) of hoe he created some of his greatest works. The film begins with Young Caravaggio (young Dexter Fletcher) creating his first works, including self-portrait styled Young Sick Bacchus, before moving to his adult days where he became a highly regarded Renaissance painter, including many erotic works of art. It sees his relationships with models Ranuccio Thomasoni (Sean Bean), who posed in his paintings of St. John, and Lena (Tilda Swinton), the three caught in a love triangle (experts aren't sure whether Caravaggio was gay or bisexual). Caravaggio also dabbles in prostitution, and uses these prostitutes, drunks and people on the street to create some of the most magnificent pieces, all oil paintings on canvas. All this goes on until the point where he is forced to murder Ranuccio with a knife in the neck, and he dies of severe illness in 1610, with his best friend Giustiniani (Nigel Davenport) by his side. Also starring Garry Cooper as Davide, Spencer Leigh as Jerusaleme, Robbie Coltrane as Scipione Borghese, Michael Gough as Cardinal Del Monte and Jonathan Hyde as Baglione. Firstly I'll start with mentioning the brilliant art pieces featured in the film, most being religion and mythology themed, they included: Medusa (I instantly recognised it), Amor Victorious (the naked angel) and Entombment (the final piece featured). Terry excels in the leading role of the artist, Bean and Swinton as the smitten couple who connect with him are really good, and there is a great supporting cast, but what I loved most about this biopic was that it didn't stick to the conventions of period like your supposed to. Even though it is meant to be the 16th Century, the film slips in some small background and foreground modern day things, i.e. deliberate anachronisms e.g. tuxedos, calculators, cars, Christmas lights, magazines, typewriters, motorbikes, swearing and much more besides, that manage to fit themselves in the scenes they feature. I believe this technique and style is called "Mise En Scène" (which I looked at a little in Film Studies), it is a (brush) stroke (LOL) of genius by accessible director Derek Jarman, and this absolutely deserves its place as one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it is a brilliant non-conventional biographical drama. Very, very good!

catwoman-9 It's been long since Caravaggio along with Wittgenstein created a new level in my personal movie picture register. I was fifteen and excited over any kind of ideas which has a lot to do with "another"; strange or at least different scope on reality. No surprise that I liked Caravaggio. Eventually Greenaway (Drowning by numbers and later Prospero's Books) has also found his place in that same box. And very slowly my love towards Jarman's movies receded.Is it a good movie? Scoopy has no answer to that question. Actually that question can't be answered. Caravaggio has stubbornly flat structure - it should not be a movie in the first place. And another question appears: can you be sure in Caravaggio - in Jarman's case, of any intention to make a good movie?As much as I can put aside artistic inclinations in all Jarman movies - i cannot forget the fact that regardless the time they were made, all look, talk, feel and smell the same. It is clear that articulating the scheme of the artist is of great importance. Esthetics comes first.That fact I see today as a big malfunction.