November 2, 2014, 1:00 p.m. — Caravaggio (1986)
Caravaggio
1986. Derek Jarman. Tilda Swinton makes her feature debut, the start of a long and cherished collaboration with Jarman. “The idea that [Caravaggio] was an early martyr to the drives of an unconventional sexuality is an anachronistic fiction,” observes biographer Andrew-Graham Dixon—an anachronism that Jarman exalts in his series of sublime, and sublimely vulgar, postmodern tableaux. Jarman’s Caravaggio is a feverish, chiaroscuro portrait of the Baroque artist who hustled painting commissions out of the Church while consorting with male lovers, prostitutes, and the criminal underclass of early 17th-century Rome. Screenplay by Jarman, Suso Cecchi d’Amico. 93 min.
