Artists and their works .... These have been much on our mind of late. In fact, how often have we heard the phrase "Artists are such temperamental creatures?" Perhaps you may have said it yourself - at one time or another - to a friend, to a colleague, or to no one in particular. To me, the natural follow-up question would be: How true is this statement? With the next logical query being: Do all artists suffer that much for their art?
There's only one way to find out, though, and that's by looking at various film depictions of artists and the artistic life - mostly painters in general, but a few other dedicated "craftsmen" set aside for this purpose.
Let's try to establish, once and for all, if their suffering has impacted their work to any noticeable degree - noticeable, that is, to us film buffs. Maybe then, and only then, can the above questions be answered.
So let's proceed chronologically, if that's all right with you?
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)Based on the 1961 novel by Irving Stone, who wrote the earlier Lust for Life, The Agony and the Ecstasy is the story of Michelangelo Buonarrotti, the high-minded High-Renaissance artist, poet, and sculptor par excellence; his lively battles with the obstinate Pope Julius II; and his long-term commission to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The novel was turned into a dryly verbose, dramatically inert but effective enough motion picture.
With a sonorous film score by Alex North and Jerry Goldsmith, and superb wide-screen photography by Leon Shamroy (it was shot simultaneously in Todd-AO and CinemaScope), the film version, released in 1965, starred the finely-chiseled American Charlton Heston (The Ten Commandments, El Cid) as Michelangelo and a veddy British Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady, Dr. Doolittle) as the so-called "Warrior" Pope Julius, with Diane Cilento as the Countess de' Medici, Harry Andrews as Bramante, Alberto Lupo as the Duke of Urbino, and Adolfo Celi as Giovanni de' Medici.
The movie's pace is somewhat static. And the main argument, based on the artistic principle that an artist - even one of Michelangelo's rarefied caliber - may not show Adam and Eve without clothes, may go over the heads of most of laypeople. Another, equally telling aspect was Michelangelo's unwillingness to dabble in paint. He insisted, quite rightly, that sculpture was his true calling, and struggled valiantly to come to terms with his desire to do justice to the assignment.
As the actor personifying the artist, Heston was known for his voracious reading habits and assiduous background research into the lives of the historical individuals he was portraying. Not only did he study the methods used by Michelangelo to achieve his main purpose (i.e. the art of wielding a chisel and hammer), but he practiced lying on his back for hours in order to master the art of fresco painting. All of which, it must be said, amounted to a believable if somewhat trite representation of the all-suffering artist.
However, one of the key scenes, if not THE key scene, in the picture is the moment when Heston's quest for a viable theme for the project manifests itself atop a mountain overlooking the marble quarry where Michelangelo is at work. According to author Jeff Rovin, in The Films of Charlton Heston, "It is sunset, and as day wanes the sky becomes the ceiling and the clouds form God, Adam, and the other focal points of the mural while Heston recites [the Creation of Adam portion from] Genesis." Corny, yes, but quite inspiring! The music provides the emotional counterpoint to this episode.
Produced and directed by Carol Reed ( The Third Man), the film does have its moments - especially when Heston and Harrison go at it tooth and nail (they feuded in real life on and off the movie set). Still, there's that excellent score by North and picturesque location scenery (it was filmed in and around Italy, but not in the actual Sistine Chapel, which was recreated at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome).
An ersatz feminine "love interest" (the Diane Cilento character) is pure fiction. As history has recorded for us, the unpredictable Michelangelo (much like his contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci, as well as several other artists around that time) was homosexually inclined.
Andrei Rublev (1966)Written and directed by the Russian-born Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Rublev (pronounced "Roo-blyov") concerns the ambiguous fifteenth-century icon painter and the mysterious workings of the Middle Ages and the Russian Orthodox Church, among other matters.
Filmed in glorious back and white - except for the epilogue, which was photographed in stunningly vivid color - and divided into seven parts, this is a ponderously labored, winding and winnowing, difficult to grasp feature. In general, Tarkovsky's films are a hard slog to wade through. Irrespective of standard movie lengths or plot lines, the writer-director's body of work relies more on mood and tone; sounds are employed and magnified not so much for aesthetic merit but for their narrative value.
Tarkovksy also eschews his compatriot Sergei Eisenstein's montage theory of cinema. Instead, he provides the viewer with a multiplicity of images, many of them painstakingly staged and lasting many minutes of screen time. The term "texture" has often been cited to describe his unique visual style.
A true original, Tarkovsky took great pains to avoid emulating any of his predecessors. If anything, he would modify his carefully constructed scenes so as not to call attention to the work of others. (Note: Tarkovsky DID learn the value of silence and extended takes from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) with the release of his sci-fi drama Solaris in 1972; incidentally, Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki used many of Tarkovsky's continuous-motion techniques in both Birdman and The Revenant).
With Andrei Rublev (only his second picture), Tarkovsky reached what might be termed his full maturity. This close to four-hour production, then, is an unmatched introduction to his cinematic universe. It is technically proficient, as are all his films, and visually compelling as well. The lead character (played by a morose Anatoly Solonitsyn) is moodiness personified. Rublev goes through as much inner turmoil as mental and physical deprivations. As a matter of fact, so do all of the individuals in the story.
The theme of the artist as both participant and observer in the drama of life is carried through from beginning to ending. It starts off with a seemingly unrelated prologue of a man flying in hot-air balloon fashion over a church and open field - symbolic, of course, of the artist trying to take flight but crash-landing moments later despite his efforts. Episodic and sadistic, gritty and grim, with scenes of mayhem, rape and animal torture, along with eye-gouging and similar wartime atrocities, the violence quotient in Rublev's world remains high, as one would expect from a tale that takes place in medieval times.
Curiously, for a film about a painter of religious icons, the artist Rublev is rarely caught in the act of painting. There's a point, too, in the drama where he ceases talking altogether (a vow of silence in penance for murdering a man), which only infuriates his friend Kirill (Ivan Lapikov). Another remarkable incident occurs near the end with the casting of a church bell by the novice bell-maker Boriska (Nikolai Burlyayev). Will the bell ring out or not? If it doesn't, then the Grand Prince (Yuriy Nazarov) who commissioned the casting will kill them all. Although he later admits that he knew nothing about casting bells, Boriska represents the artisan who lacks confidence in his own abilities, yet nevertheless manages to complete a given task - either by his mastery of the field or by sheer dumb luck!
End of Part One
(To be continued.....)
Copyright © 2018 by Josmar F. Lopes
