Caravaggio: The Soul and the Blood

An amazing concept in documentary film making, presenting the life the words the art of this tormented and ingenious artist. I do not want to write too much nor give anything away as the film pays tribute to a Renaissance artist in a most unusual and stunning manner. The film is as creative a story narrative and use of imagery as was the artist. This is not a slide show of paintings but a living moving dynamic homage to a great painter. Well worth it for film makers to see how creative a documentary film can be constructed.

Caravaggio is really a great artist. There would be no needs to create fancy storyline, invented voiceovers, forced dramatic images. The documentary is there. The artist is there. Why do we need all this mess? Worst direction ever. Caravaggio, version Jersey Shore.

Caravaggio: The Soul and the Blood (2018) is an Italian documentary directed by Jesus Garces Lambert.

In my opinion, Caravaggio was the greatest painter of the Italian Baroque. He was also a fascinating--if not likable--person. A documentary, rather than a feature film, should have been an important movie.

After all, many of his works survive, and can be seen in Italian churches and in museums around the world. We have contemporary and modern biographies. We even have some material written by Caravaggio himself.

However, the movie doesn't really work well. Director Lambert wanted to avoid a film that simply alternated between talking heads and works of art. He added extra footage of an actor who represents Caravaggio. (He doesn't look like Caravaggio. It's symbolic.)

The movie opens with the actor wrapping tape around and around his face and mouth. Not a great start. Then there are underwater scenes, and repeated images of blood. OK--not just talking heads, but opportunities wasted.

The more important problem is that there really isn't much art. (A previous reviewer has commented about this as well.) We don't get that many chances to view the paintings themselves. We get details and we get brief images. I've seen many of these paintings, and they are glorious. However, you'd barely know that if your only source were this movie.

Another problem is that much is made of Caravaggio's using his mistress and prostitutes as models for saints and The Virgin Marry. The filmmakers failed to make note of the fact that the painter was bisexual. This attraction is not subtle when you view his paintings of young men. If you're going to do a biography, and if you're going to mention sexuality, I think you should tell the whole story.

We saw this film at Rochester's excellent Little Theatre. I'm grateful to The Little for giving us a chance to see the movie. I think it will work well enough on the small screen. I just wish the movie were better and worth seeking out.

P.S. There's an exceptionally good book about Caravaggio entitled "Caravaggio: The Complete Works" by Rossella Vodret. It was published in 2010 by SilvanaEditoriale.

What a huge disappointment this film is. The score is a collision of digital thunderclaps, the cinematography absurd close-ups which give very little sense of the paintings, the narration often relying on an over- use of 'probably' or 'may have' about the painter's life, and the very silly blue-eyed modern day actor representing the anguished artist by wrapping his own head in cellophane or blowing underwater bubbles or smearing himself with tar. It was pretentious a lot of the time, with no movement of the passing minutes away from loud digital horror noises and the hapless experts being overwhelmed and trivialised.

"Caravaggio: The Soul & The Blood is the latest film about one of the greatest painters who ever lived. In his short and often violent life, Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio, or Caravaggio as he was commonly known, produced some of the most powerful religious images ever put on canvas. To be brutally honest, this film was a major disappointment. For a start, the photography in no way did Caravaggio's paintings justice; the film, after all, is about his art and life, not about the outside of churches, as beautiful as many of the churches no doubt are. The musical score is overwhelmingly loud, and pompous. Why the views and opinions of 'Caravaggio experts' were not sub-titled, is beyond me; having the dialogue in Italian, then to be overdubbed in English, makes for confusion. To cap it all, we are treated to an actor trying to portray (I assume), what a tormented soul Caravaggio was, by wrapping his face in cellophane, submerging himself in water, or smearing himself with tar. If that was the director's intention, then it didn't work: in fact, it was totally unnecessary. Having said that, the film is worth a look, if only to see Caravaggio's paintings up there on the big screen.