Derek Jarman struggled for seven years to bring his portrait of the 17th century Italian artist Michelangelo da Caravaggio to the screen. The result was well worth the wait. It’s a freely dramatised portrait which conjures several of the controversial artist’s most famous paintings through elaborate and beautifully photographed tableaux vivants, and boasts wonderful performances from Nigel Terry, Sean Bean, and, in her first role, Tilda Swinton.
Up Next in British Classics
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The Angelic Conversation
The Angelic Conversation sees Derek Jarman conjure an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems.
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Henry VIII and His Six Wives
With his reign coming to an end, a dying Henry VIII looks back on his life and the six marriages that would go on to define him. The film looks back with the King, following his life from his marriage to a Spanish princess to the foundation of Protestantism, to the beheadings and divorces that wo...
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The Servant
Despite Harold Pinter's fear that Joseph Losey would turn his play into 'a completely homosexual picture', The Servant stands as one of the great critiques of British social and sexual mores. Power relationships between the classes fuel a sexual subtext about dominance and submission which goes b...
