Caravaggio Review – A clear and intelligent portrait of the life and work of the art giant | film

TThe latest offering from the venerable show takes to the screen one of its most important events—and with a title like this, it might as well tread another hallowed ground: that of Derek Jarman, whose 1986 autobiography is arguably the most fascinating account of the great painter’s life and death. By contrast, Caravaggio is a more traditional art-documentary treatment of its subject, exploiting the strengths that the EoS films have accumulated over the years: clear, beautifully detailed close-ups of the action, informed and articulate talking heads, and a well-rounded overall approach that is intelligent but not difficult to digest.

To be fair, this particular artist is crafty territory, so to spruce things up, co-directors, David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabski, cut a sequence with the monologue actor, Jacques Pannell, in character as Caravaggio. The goal is to fill a void in the painter’s personality, about which very little is known outside of police and court reports. Pannell certainly gives it his all, and by tricking out a full beard and a make-up effect over the facial wound, he certainly looks the part – alarmingly so when the film cuts to a shot of David with the head of Goliath, which shockingly contains Caravaggio’s own features on the severed head. It’s not an entirely successful device: there’s occasionally something of a fringe one-man play about it, but to its credit it overcomes the trigger points of Caravaggio’s life, particularly the last few years when legal troubles forced him to move regularly, from Rome to Naples to Malta, and back again.

Of course, the main issue is how well the film captures the life and work of its subject, and this Caravaggio is up to scratch; It is difficult, of course, to explore every corner of the production of such a colossus, but there is interesting material here about the step-by-step progression of Caravaggio’s early career, as well as his apparently committed Christian faith. Like Ken Burns’ three-hour treatise on Leonardo (currently showing on BBC iPlayer), Caravaggio makes room for overt religious commentary, something that has not always been taken for granted in the world of secular art criticism, even when the work is deeply Christian. This may be a reflection of the times we live in, but it is undoubtedly useful for understanding art itself.