20/10/2022 - Michele Placido directs a mega production about the life and work of the great 17th century painter, seeking out the truth and foregrounding the disgraced souls who inspired him

For more than fifty years, Michele Placido has wanted to transpose the life and work of Caravaggio to screen, ever since he arrived in Rome at the end of the 1960s and, in the shadow of the statue of Giordano Bruno in Campo de’ Fiori, he imagined a theatrical script in which the rebel painter of the 17^th century would meet the heretic philosopher burnt at the stake in that very piazza. We’re treated to such a meeting, alongside many others, in Caravaggio’s Shadow [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a film which has screened in a world premiere at the 17th Rome Film Fest (within the Grand Public section) and which the 76-year-old Apulian director, actor and screenwriter has at long last made about the person of Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, who was one of the most revolutionary and influential artists in art history and of all time. A genius, his models were the prostitutes and outcasts you’d usually meet in the bowels of the Roman underworld, whom he transfigured into saints and Madonnas in his paintings, to the great disapproval of the Academy and, above all, the Church.

And it was the Church’s decision, with all its Counter-Reformation values, to investigate the life and work of Caravaggio in order to decide upon his fate, which gave Placido and his co-screenwriters (Sandro Petraglia and Fidel Signorile) the impetus they needed to depict the artist’s final years, spent between Rome and Naples, up until his unexplained death in Porto Ercole, in Tuscany. It’s the early 17^th century and a death sentence for murder hangs over Caravaggio (played by Riccardo Scamarcio). Having sought refuge in Naples, under the protection of the powerful Marquise Costanza Colonna (Isabelle Huppert), the painter awaits the Pope’s grace. The latter charges one of his emissaries (Louis Garrel, the only invented character in the film) with investigating the “accursed” artist, to find out what’s hiding behind his transgressive works and, ultimately, to persuade him to renounce his art in order to safeguard his life.

Subsequently, The Shadow (as Garrel’s character is known) tracks down those who have known and frequented the painter in various capacities. Those questioned by the inquisitor include Costanza Colonna herself, who has protected Caravaggio since he was small; art patron and collector Cardinal Dal Monte (Michele Placido); academic painter and rival Giovanni Baglione (Vinicio Marchioni); the beautiful prostitute who Merisi fell in love with and who lends her features to the Virgin Mary in many of his paintings, Lena (Micaela Ramazzotti); his model and assistant Cecco (rapper Tedua), with whom the artist enjoyed an ambiguous relationship, and the restless red-haired prostitute Anna Bianchini (Lolita Chammah), whose body, which was pulled out of the river with a swollen stomach, is said to have been depicted by Caravaggio in his masterpiece “Death of the Virgin”. 

“I look for the truth”, the painter insisted, and it seems Placido wants to do the same with his film. Highly attentive in terms of set design and costumes (thanks to Tonino Zera and Carlo Poggioli, respectively), the movie depicts the filthy streets, the dusty clothes, and the period furnishings and objects which have lost their veneer. There’s blood and sweat, and the carnal, human side of Caravaggio’s paintings comes across on screen. One of the film’s strengths is its demonstration of how aspects of reality entered into the painter’s works, how thieves, vagabonds and harlots appeared on the artist’s canvasses, as if on stage, transformed into eternal works of art. Unfortunately, the excessive emphasis on and hollow-sounding nature of several excerpts of dialogue and certain acting performances ultimately undermines this authenticity. But it’s a film devised for wider audiences, and hopefully wider audiences will respond accordingly.

Caravaggio’s Shadow is produced by Goldenart Production together with RAI Cinema, in co-production with French firms MACT Productions and Le Pacte. International sales are in the hands of Wild Bunch.

(Translated from Italian)