L'ombra di Caravaggio

A lot is not known about Caravaggio's life, but a lot is. It is understandable and legitimate that a film like this fills in the unknown gaps. The fact that it twists, falsifies and rewrites the known things is unworthy of a biography.

I am anything but a friend of the Catholic Church and even less of the church leaders. But the way he was portrayed here in a one-sided way as a victim of the church, whose representatives were Caravaggio's most zealous supporters, is infamous. "The Death of Mary" has nothing to do with being rejected by a pope; the monks who commissioned it did that themselves. Because Caravaggio did not paint in accordance with the commission. And the painting was not saved by Rubens, who is said to have bought it in Rome according to the film, but by Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, the year after it was completed. Or the questioning of Artemisia Gentileschi. Caravaggio probably didn't even know her, even if her father did.

And these inaccuracies, distortions and falsifications run through the entire film, which has only one goal: to save the artist's honor. But he doesn't need to be saved. His art speaks for itself, as does his raw, unbridled character, which borders on brutality. Presenting the church as his murderer is an affront to all the church's real victims.

So an honorable attempt becomes a historically useless piece of work that doesn't bring you any closer to the artist's work. His apotheotic classification as a three-eyed man among the blind is tiring early on in the film.

I just thought that this movie about such big artist would have more art in it. The process and the hard work. Instead, all I got was already finished paintings and an italian telenovela with more dialogue than Nolan's Oppenheimer, with no time to absorb the beauty of the cinematography and the poetic essence of Caravaggio's life and his work.

But I thought using Schatten's perspective of interviewing Caravaggio's models and other people he met and capturing their narratives and stories so the viewer can learn more about the artist was smart and the story came nicely full circle at the end. But that still doesn't compensate the rest for me.

Riccardo Scamarcio has a nice butt tho.

I have watched the movie at the cinema, in Timisoara. The movie looks to carefully illustrate the life of the painter. The actors and the actresses are very nice interpretating their roles. The scenes, the costumes, the colours and the decorations are very loyal to the XVII secol, when Caravaggio lived. The main actor, playing as Caravaggio, is a great actor, full of passion.

It is interesting, and still present on our days) the conflict in understanding what is the good and what is bad, because the bad can be find in good and viceversa. And of course, this is an unique truth for each of us.

Even the movie is 2 hours long, I have not figured out when the time passed.

Congratulations to all actors and for the entire team of the movie!

Carravaggio

For fully appreciate this movie, it help to be a fan of the work of the painter ...as one understand more what was the motivation behind his choices , and why his works were so controversial yet so good...the Catholic Church at the time was the Church, the only one yet the rise of what would become the Protestant churches were making the Vatican nervous.

The conflict between the reality of life of the average people and the grandiose representation of the saints ...had no much income ...

Knowledge of some of the work of Caravaggio help understanding lots of scenes in this movie ...and what makes his work so good is what was no conceivable at the time...that you could use the face of common daily people to personified a saint , an angel ..which of my God of the time had no gender, no sex...

I saw it as a fair work. For beautiful cinematography, reminding, scene bty scene, the art of Michelangelo Merisi, for Riccardo Scamarcio and his work in skin of Caravaggio, for Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garel, more than inspired crafters of their characters , for music and for good kick to viewer to (re)discover a great artist masterpieces.

Obvious, the film reflects the perspective of Michele Placcido and, I admitt, far to be easy say about the best manner to reflect a life defined by torments, force and shadows like this.

A beautiful film, not perfect, not correct in many details, not exactly for admirers of Caravaggio, simplistic for few reasons but enough for define it more than decent movie , not comparing with Derek Jarman 1986 film or with documentaries across last decades.