Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a drunkard, a gambler and a brawler. He was sexually promiscuous and may have been bisexual. (His paintings often contain erotic depictions of male nudes but not of female ones). He killed a young man named Ranuccio Tomassoni during a brawl, although it is uncertain whether this killing was deliberate murder or accidental manslaughter. He was also one of the greatest artists who ever lived and was noted for intensely emotional religious paintings which humanised Christ, his Apostles and other Biblical figures rather than idealising them. For all his tumultuous lifestyle, his biographers seem to agree that he was a sincere Christian believer and that these paintings reflect his own beliefs.
Derek Jarman has obviously studied Caravaggio's paintings in detail, and tries to give his film a visual look which in its striking contrasts of light and dark imitates Caravaggio's own artistic style. A feature of the film is Jarman's use of anachronisms- electric lighting, a motor-bike, the sound of a passing train- which he defended on the basis that Caravaggio's art was also anachronistic, dressing figures from the Bible or Classical antiquity in the fashions of sixteenth century Italy.
We do not, however, see much of those paintings themselves, at least not of the great religious works upon which the painter's reputation largely rests. We do see something of his paintings of pretty naked boys, doubtless because these fit in better with Jarman's agenda, which is more concerned with Caravaggio's complicated sex life than with his art. In this version the killing of Ranuccio occurs because he and Caravaggio are involved in a complicated bisexual love-triangle with a woman.
One reviewer tried to analyse this film in terms of "rules" and "transgression". Jarman clearly cast himself as one of life's transgressors, in revolt against both conventional bourgeois aesthetics and conventional bourgeois ethics, and saw Caravaggio as a kindred spirit. An analysis in these terms, however, is bound to be over-simplistic because it ignores one of the great paradoxes of art. Ever since the rise of Romanticism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries we have expected great artists to be free spirits, in revolt against both conventional bourgeois aesthetics and conventional bourgeois ethics. We have, moreover, anachronistically transferred our post-Romantic expectations onto pre-Romantic artists like Caravaggio.
A great artist, therefore, who rebels against the accepted rules of the society in which he lives is thereby, consciously or unconsciously, conforming to the conventional idea of the artist as rebel. A great artist who does not so rebel is seen as a transgressor against our idea of what an artist should be, and there will be plenty of critics queuing up to deny his greatness. (Attempts to dismiss, say, John Constable as a minor talent have less to do with the quality of his work than with a feeling that there was something not quite artistic about his solidly bourgeois lifestyle; his great rival Turner strikes us as much more satisfyingly bohemian). Or, as James Thurber summarised this paradox, "Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?"
Moreover, the Caravaggio we see in this film is not really transgressing against the rules of Renaissance Italian society, at least not against the rules of Renaissance Italian society as interpreted by Derek Jarman. Caravaggio's aristocratic and ecclesiastical patrons all live a debauched lifestyle, not even bothering to hide their debauchery beneath a veneer of hypocrisy; if they don't have a mistress it is because they prefer boys to women. It Caravaggio and Ranuccio sleep around with partners of both sexes, therefore, they are not so much rebelling against social norms as following the example of their social betters.
The story is told in a disjointed fashion, in a series of flashbacks from Caravaggio's deathbed, and is not always easy to follow. The film's main strength is that it is visually attractive; its main weakness is that it tells us a lot about Caravaggio's sex life and little about his art. There have been many men who have had private lives at least as colourful as his, few indeed who have been gifted with his level of genius. His life would be a natural subject for a great film. This is not it. 4/10
Derek Jarman has obviously studied Caravaggio's paintings in detail, and tries to give his film a visual look which in its striking contrasts of light and dark imitates Caravaggio's own artistic style. A feature of the film is Jarman's use of anachronisms- electric lighting, a motor-bike, the sound of a passing train- which he defended on the basis that Caravaggio's art was also anachronistic, dressing figures from the Bible or Classical antiquity in the fashions of sixteenth century Italy.
We do not, however, see much of those paintings themselves, at least not of the great religious works upon which the painter's reputation largely rests. We do see something of his paintings of pretty naked boys, doubtless because these fit in better with Jarman's agenda, which is more concerned with Caravaggio's complicated sex life than with his art. In this version the killing of Ranuccio occurs because he and Caravaggio are involved in a complicated bisexual love-triangle with a woman.
One reviewer tried to analyse this film in terms of "rules" and "transgression". Jarman clearly cast himself as one of life's transgressors, in revolt against both conventional bourgeois aesthetics and conventional bourgeois ethics, and saw Caravaggio as a kindred spirit. An analysis in these terms, however, is bound to be over-simplistic because it ignores one of the great paradoxes of art. Ever since the rise of Romanticism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries we have expected great artists to be free spirits, in revolt against both conventional bourgeois aesthetics and conventional bourgeois ethics. We have, moreover, anachronistically transferred our post-Romantic expectations onto pre-Romantic artists like Caravaggio.
A great artist, therefore, who rebels against the accepted rules of the society in which he lives is thereby, consciously or unconsciously, conforming to the conventional idea of the artist as rebel. A great artist who does not so rebel is seen as a transgressor against our idea of what an artist should be, and there will be plenty of critics queuing up to deny his greatness. (Attempts to dismiss, say, John Constable as a minor talent have less to do with the quality of his work than with a feeling that there was something not quite artistic about his solidly bourgeois lifestyle; his great rival Turner strikes us as much more satisfyingly bohemian). Or, as James Thurber summarised this paradox, "Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?"
Moreover, the Caravaggio we see in this film is not really transgressing against the rules of Renaissance Italian society, at least not against the rules of Renaissance Italian society as interpreted by Derek Jarman. Caravaggio's aristocratic and ecclesiastical patrons all live a debauched lifestyle, not even bothering to hide their debauchery beneath a veneer of hypocrisy; if they don't have a mistress it is because they prefer boys to women. It Caravaggio and Ranuccio sleep around with partners of both sexes, therefore, they are not so much rebelling against social norms as following the example of their social betters.
The story is told in a disjointed fashion, in a series of flashbacks from Caravaggio's deathbed, and is not always easy to follow. The film's main strength is that it is visually attractive; its main weakness is that it tells us a lot about Caravaggio's sex life and little about his art. There have been many men who have had private lives at least as colourful as his, few indeed who have been gifted with his level of genius. His life would be a natural subject for a great film. This is not it. 4/10