NR | 2h 18min | Drama | 1965
As most historical films go, “The Agony and the Ecstasy” lacks a surprise ending. But what it lacks in entertainment flourish, it makes up for in meaning and depth, celebrating art as an expression of love.
The 16th-century pope, Julius II (Rex Harrison), commissions star sculptor Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) to paint the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo resists. He’s not a painter. He’d rather work with stone. He wants to work on Julius’s long-delayed tomb instead.
Like some of his papal predecessors, Julius is accustomed to protecting his sovereignty in far-off battlefields. But he isn’t about to lose a battle in his own backyard. Renaissance artists can’t survive without patrons; the Vatican was, then, patron-in-chief. So Julius keeps Michelangelo engaged, exploiting his ambition, and his dread of being replaced by rival painter Raphael, or checkmated by envious architect Donato Bramante, who’s desperate to distract Michelangelo from stone.
A chafing Michelangelo submits but opts for Old Testament themes, ignoring Julius’s New Testament theme: the Apostles. Braving disruption, fatigue, a furiously impatient pope, and a near-fatal fall from his scaffolding, Michelangelo also threatens quitting. But sympathizers Contessina Antonia de’ Medici (Diane Cilento) and her brother, Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici (Adolfo Celi), prod him. By giving up on his work, is he giving up on himself?
Director Carol Reed’s execution sags in parts, but the message of his documentary-style introduction, critiqued as redundant, is crucial. It describes Michelangelo principally as a sculptor, who loathed painting. It’s why Bramante’s scheming, to get the pope to force Michelangelo’s hand, seems sadistic. Commissioned to paint (not sculpt) on such scale, wouldn’t Michelangelo’s failure at something he’s relatively inept at be too spectacular to allow further work, consigning him to obscurity? Of course, Bramante’s idea of Michelangelo’s ineptitude backfires spectacularly.
Harrison’s voice is its own character, masterfully portraying outrage, insight, and whim. Sharing scenes with the imposing Heston, Harrison once confessed placing lifts in his shoes: “At least, he no longer towered above me. As the film went on, however, it seemed he was growing once more a couple of inches taller. I looked down at his feet—not a sign of lifts! Neither of us made a comment, nor did our wardrobe men. It was a funny, silent contest.”
Creation, an Act of Love
Michelangelo sees his finished statues, breaking free from within stone, before he sets chisel to them. Julius sees, if less starkly, his commissioned frescoes in all their beauty, well before Michelangelo sets a paintbrush to them.
To screenwriter Philip Dunne, sometimes God is the artist, Julius akin to a mere paintbrush, and Michelangelo to mere paint and canvas. At other times, it’s Julius who’s imitating the divine artist, lovingly carving out (or painting) Michelangelo more fully, making a great sculptor what he doesn’t want to be: also a great painter.
Both men mirror the duality of great artists. Their haunting dissatisfaction reflects pride. They know they can do better. Also, humility. They figure they’ve fallen short. Perfection still escapes them.
For all his prowess, Michelangelo wonders if God has crippled him for some divine purpose. Weak birds have their wings, and otherwise powerless deer, their speed. As Michelangelo says in the film: “He made Homer blind. And let him see the world more clearly than any other man. He gave me the power to create, to fashion my own kind” but, “only here.” He stares at his bruised hands—what he believes are the sole reservoirs of that power. Is he the poorer because of such selective outpouring?
The grudgingly respectful tussle of wills between Julius and Michelangelo embodies the aphorism “God writes straight with crooked lines.” It hints at a divine artist using an imperfect chisel and hammer (or paint and brush) to flood seeming chaos with perfect symmetry, balance, and harmony.
Isn’t that why, straining in life’s fading light to assess themselves, some great artists are sure that their work is a failure, while others gape, convinced that that very work is an astounding success? To those gazing crestfallen down at the floor, Michelangelo and Julius seem to beckon from their magnificent ceiling with hope: Look up!
