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The Filmmaker's Guide: Derek Jarman's 'Caravaggio' (1986)

A Study into the Avant-Garde

By Annie KapurPublished 4 years ago 8 min read
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(Note: in order to get the most out of this article, it is heavily suggested that you watch the film 'Caravaggio' (1986) by Derek Jarman at least once all the way through. Making notes may also help).

Welcome back to "The Filmmaker's Guide"—I know I've not been on it for a long time, but I'm back and I promise to stick around if only for a while. Then I'll disappear again. Let's have a look at what's on our agenda for learning about filmmaking today...

In the latter part of his incredible career, left-wing director Derek Jarman created one of the most artistic Avant-Garde and one of the most incredible 'indie' films ever made—Caravaggio (1986). Personally, I stumbled across this movie purely by accident. I had become engrossed with the life of the painter and someone sent me a link to some of the clips from this movie and then, I bought the film to watch over and over again. Is it accurate? Probably not so much. Does it claim to be? Not at all. Is it a good film? Yes, by all means, yes it is.

It is a good film without claiming to be a 'biopic' or 'historical'—it is a good film known for its filmmaking. The filmmaking that was essential in opening the doors to wider, better, more independent and less mainstream methods of filmmaking. Do you know why? Well, because not everyone wants to be Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher or David Lynch. There are other avant-garde directors out there that are actually avant-garde and not just using it as a rouse to sell their films (I can smell Tarantino from over here...)

What we're going to look at in this essay is how successfully and effectively Derek Jarman's "Caravaggio" (1986) showcases the 'artistic' sense of film both through the avant-garde cinematography and through the way in which the film itself is about an artist. The film isn't trying to show the life of the artist, the film is trying to be the life of the artist.

In this article, we're going to have a look at some of the techniques used to depict the life of Caravaggio through various mediums:

- Cinematography

In this we will look at the way in which the director's camera angles, cuts and various parts of the 'cinema' of the piece depict the life of Caravaggio and the way in which the artist lived.

- Lighting, Darkness, and Shadow

Caravaggio himself was known as the Master of Light and Dark, and so, you can only imagine that Derek Jarman would try to imitate that in his film by using shadowing, light, dark, day and night to depict different ideas, symbols and images throughout the painter's life.

- Characterisation

The way in which the different characters behave, the avant-garde and artistic acting and how they are styled to depict different ideas and symbols in Caravaggio paintings and theories. There are so many things we can discuss regarding characterisation but I'll try to reel myself in.

The various pieces of this film go together to make the entirety of the movie. As you can see that the cinematography is experimental to the point of being striking, like Caravaggio was. The light and dark, you can tell by the movie poster above, is just like Caravaggio's painting was - the dark background that was almost pitch black and the figure in the light, almost as if coming to the front. Finally, the characterisation of the figure on the poster is a model that is sombre, almost angelic looking - as in many of Caravaggio's paintings. So, let us begin to go through the various things that make this such a successful avant-garde picture with a connection to its maker, Michelangelo de Merisi da Caravaggio.

Section 1: Cinematography, Cuts and Scene Analysis

Basically most scenes in the film have some sort of iconic close-up. The film itself centres around what is artistic and what the art of Caravaggio was and so, close-ups and extreme close-ups are almost expected. Derek Jarman's avant-garde cinematography makes a great argument for using still life images of real people. For example, we could take the penultimate scene of Caravaggio's death (which is cut to throughout the entire movie and finalises with the still-life of his own painting of Christ taken to his tomb) Here's the painting:

"The Entombment of Christ" by Caravaggio

This painting as shown in the penultimate scene of the film is a powerful way of using avant-garde methods to portray the death of the person the biopic is about. It is symbolic of Caravaggio's career as it is one of his most well-known paintings and, ending with Caravaggio as a 'christ-like' figure is probably as controversial now as it was in Caravaggio's own time. This still-life scene also has a close up of every single figure in the picture, showing the amount of detail that went into the art of Caravaggio.

The other scenes also imitate this as when Caravaggio is painting, there is silence, there are figures standing as models for the painting and there are various close ups to show details of Caravaggio's works. As the film goes on, the paintings become more and more famous and obviously, ending with the "Entombment of Christ" painting, which is considered to be his most well-known work of art.

In order for this to work successfully as avant-garde, Derek Jarman required to put something in that made the still-life stand out more than the other scenes. For example: we have almost no sound when this is going on, heightening the image and making the audience watch the scene closer. The way in which there are close-ups and extreme close-ups gives the audience something to look at when they get a glimpse of what Caravaggio is doing and they can compare the two—seeing how great of an artist he really was. The biography aspect through these scenes are incredible and to imitate them in your own works would be amazing.

Section 2: Light, Dark, Shadowing and Imitating Caravaggio Through Perspective

Caravaggio, as I have stated before, has been called the "Master of Darkness" by more than one analyst. Taschen Art Books have a book on Caravaggio that I used to own and also called him by this name. In the book The Caravaggio Enigma, there are numerous repeated lines about how Caravaggio put his own life into his work, shading in different ways, creating perspective but most importantly, adding an element of damning darkness that is also reflected throughout Jarman's film and is very easy to notice.

In the avant-garde, we are to consider this a very successful method of storytelling, using the darkness of certain scenes, especially the scene with the still life images that reflect Caravaggio's paintings, and the penultimate scene with his death - make very good arguments for being aspects of the storytelling of his life. The detail of close-ups also adds to this flavour.

Another aspect of using light and dark is the colour scheme and shadowing. Caravaggio was part of the Baroque period and so, the littering of colours such as: gold, yellow, browns and shadows of darkness and shades of rich greens and reds not only are seen in Caravaggio's paintings but are seen throughout the film. The best example of this is through the scenes which include the "Bacchus" paintings. Here are the paintings:

Looking at the colour schemes of these paintings and the colour schemes of the "Bacchus" scenes in the film (in which Caravaggio is young and looks like the paintings of "Bacchus" [above]), they are not only similar, but various images in the film are the same as the paintings. For example: the man eating upon fruit, the symbols of fruit is so much at large in the Bacchus scenes that you cannot possibly miss it. It is not only giving the impression that this was the ear in which the paintings were done (1590s) but it is also giving the idea that the fact that fruit was so prominent, it may have been where the idea of the fruit came from - especially the grapes. Grapes being the food of wine and Bacchus being the God of Wine. But, in my opinion to say that Bacchus as a figure in the painting was based on Caravaggio himself is a tiny bit of a stretch and is not well received by Caravaggio scholars today.

Section 3: Characterisation, Narration and Caravaggio as Man and Symbol

As you will know from watching the film, the death scenes that are constantly cut back to are narrated by Caravaggio himself whilst he is dying. The entire film therefore, is him flashing back on important aspects of his life and art. This is not just for the purpose of good storytelling ang successfully pulling off the avant-garde and post-modern aspect of the "reading" of the film. It is also for the purpose of presenting Caravaggio as a symbol of his own mysterious death. As we all know, Caravaggio's death is probably the most mysterious thing about him because we don't actually fully know to this day, how, when and where he died. The bones of Caravaggio were lost for a long time and there was little known about where he went and what he did in the days leading up to his early demise. What we do know though is that he was fairly young and living on the wrong side of the law. A man who was violent, temperamental and hedonistic, Caravaggio's flashbacks present the man who grew into his death as an image of all these three things and thus, that's how we learn about them—as he is dying. It goes a little like this:

Narration > Cut to Flashback > Character Analysis in Flashback Scene > Cut to Death Scene Again > What Have We Learnt About Him Now? > Narration

And it continues like that throughout the film. A successful method of the avant-garde in order to teach us about the character bit by bit. Of course, those watching a film about Caravaggio may already know who he is and so, we don't need to say things like 'he was a painter'—the best way is for Caravaggio to explore himself through his death and reflect that back on to the audience.

Conclusion:

I hope you've enjoyed our short but sweet analysis on this film and I promise I will be back to write more on my filmmaker's guide as soon as possible. Thank you for reading this work and good luck on your next project.

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About the Creator

Annie Kapur

190K+ Reads on Vocal.

English Lecturer

🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)

🎓Film & Writing (M.A)

🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)

📍Birmingham, UK

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