Caravaggio: A Film Synopsis

In this article, I will be selecting a film the 1986 film Caravaggio from the global cinema, and I will be exploring the painter’s complex life, his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and flirtations with the underworld.

Who was Caravaggio?

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian painter, born in Milan, and he was active in Rome, Naples, Sicily and Malta from the early 1590s to 1610. His paintings mainly combine a realistic observation of life, but also an observation of human nature, both physical and emotional, by using a style of dramatic lighting which later had an influence on Baroque painting.

Derek Jarman’s film, Caravaggio, is a representation of the painter’s complex life; it was mainly about his brilliant paintings, his flirtations with the underworld and his complicity in the crime. Also, Jarman’s major concerns were Caravaggio’s history, violence, homosexuality, and the relationship between the painting and the film.

Caravaggio incorporates the painter’s accurate aesthetic into the movie’s visuals and he uses the style of his paintings to illustrate with solemnity his corrupted lifestyle and dissolute morals. Michelangelo da Caravaggio had an incredible popularity and was one of the greatest artists. Derek Jarman’s film measures the accuracy between reality and depiction. The film not only…