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DVD The Agony and the Ecstasy
Carol Reed (The Third Man) directed this 1965 portrait of the relationship between Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison), who commissioned the artist to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Based on a novel by Irving Stone, the script plods along, juggling the dynamics between the two men along with a somewhat perfunctory love story and distracting battle sequences. Reed seems more attuned to the nuances and great pains of the artistic process, as seen in sequences of Michelangelo working. But the overall focus of the film is unfortunately fuzzy. --Tom Keogh
Stupendous over-acting from both Rex Harrison and Our Man Charlton is the saving grace of this lavish movie, which threatens to bog itself sermonizing over religion and art, set in an epoch seemingly dominated by both, The Renaissance.
Adapted from a slice of Irving Stone's book of the same name, Heston is Michelangelo Buonarroti, all melodramatic neck-grabbing and body-hugging, whose quest to complete the Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco is tempered by his patron and inadvertent nemesis, Harrison, as Pope Julius II, who must balance the Chapel commission against his war efforts, constantly spurring Michelangelo into gratuitous melodrama.
The most dogged nullifidian would find inspiration in this tale, through the sheer pioneering brilliance and stamina invested in the completed vault, camera in final scene panning over the Sistine's magnificence, vainly trying to capture on 70mm that which is uncapturable. Goethe effuses: "Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving."
Midway to completion, Julius tries to convey the majesty of his craft to Michelangelo, who self-effaces, "It's only painted plaster, Your Holiness." Indeed. And Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is only music notes.
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A Good Shot at the Impossible
This is a film of rather universal appeal that should be seen more than once, even if it is not a perfect film. This telling of the painting of the Sistine Chapel has a unified, realistic aura handled expertly by Reed with a sound cast. The always professional Rex Harrison delivers bite and verve in his incredible incarnation of a Renaissance warrior-pope. Heston as Michelangelo is, of course, Heston -- he was bound to be plugged into any major bible epic or historical religious drama of his day, so why not do Michelangelo? The Hollywood star machine dictated nothing less, anyway. People of Heston's own era may thus well continue to have a problem with him in all these grand roles for awhile -- he is simply too recognizable at this point of his career to allow you to imagine Michelangelo. The trade off is how well he does it. And certain scenes, like the stone quarry scene, are magnicent and magical.
Reed's direction surmounts a lot of the usual glitches of the "epic" genre and moves along briskly. You of course have to write a certain amount of impossible dialogue for a venture of this sort, otherwise not do it at all. It has been done much more badly, ie., The Ten Commandments. Then you have the impossible task of dealing with one of the best known artists in history and not falling into cliche. You would call the "when will it be done?" mantra of the pope cliched, the hero-artist versus the mean worldly patron, except for the fact that it simply and elegantly works, as a plot engine if nothing else. The film finally avoids either preachiness or pretention; it wisely opts just to tell a story of the relationship of two men. It does certainly have something to say about how great classic art was created, and this is something most important for the modern viewer not only to know, but also to experience.
Overall, one cannot be sorry that the whole Renaissance is not here, or be troubled by some obvious invention. For the film is not a documentary. What it is is a brave, good shot at the impossible. And it at least cracks the door open for the imagination to wander into a major historical moment, which is no small feat.
This film changed my life. I will go on record to say that it is because of this movie that I am a Catholic Christian today. While not 100% historically accurate, it is still a much better film than Brother Sun, Sister Moon. You see all aspects of the saint here - his love for nature, his peacemaking, his desire for martyrdom, the betrayal of some of his Friars Minor, but most of all - we see the love for God and Jesus Christ that moved a man to change his world and continue to bring people to Christ today.
Dolores Hart, who played Saint Claire, eventually became a Franciscan Nun after making this film. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 22 February 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Among the most exciting of MGM swashbucklers, Richard Thorpe's 1952 Ivanhoe stars Robert Taylor as the medieval hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel. Returning to England from the Third Crusades, Ivanhoe is steadfast in his determination to raise the ransom for the captured King Richard (Norman Wooland), but the effort is full of peril. First is Ivanhoe's reunion with his estranged father (Finlay Currie), a Saxon who hates the Norman king and refuses to give his son the money. Then there's Ivanhoe's unpopular rescue of a wealthy Jew, Isaac (Felix Aylmer), from anti-Semites, and the subsequent decision by Isaac's beautiful daughter, Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor), to pay Ivanhoe's entry fee in a tournament. (The strapped knight seeks the tourney's cash prize.) Wait, it gets worse: two of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robert Taylor - Elizabeth Taylor - Joan Fontaine Director(s): Richard Thorpe DVD Release Date: Released the 11 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Robert Bolt's successful play was not considered a hot commercial property by Columbia Pictures--a period piece about a moral issue without a star, without even a love story. Perhaps that's why Columbia left director Fred Zinnemann alone to make A Man for All Seasons, as long as he stuck to a relatively small budget. The results took everyone by surprise, as the talky morality play became a box-office hit and collected the top Oscars for 1966. At the play's heart is the standoff between King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw, in young lion form) and Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield, in an Oscar-winning performance). Henry wants More's official approval of divorce, but More's strict ethical and religious code will not let him waffle. More's rectitude is a source of exasperation to Cardinal... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Fred Zinnemann DVD Release Date: Released the 26 January 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Nineteen thirty-nine is often proposed as the movies' halcyon year, and three reasons why were directed by John Ford: Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, and Drums Along the Mohawk. In that exalted company Drums... would have to be accounted "merely superb"--even if it's the best film ever made about the American Revolution and, oh, only about eighth-best picture of its year.
Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert play newlyweds in New York's Mohawk Valley at the time of the Revolutionary War. That war is more a distant rumor than a direct concern of people with cabins to raise, crops to harvest, and firstborn on the way. When it comes to their valley, in the form of hitherto-peaceable Indians whipped up by a gaunt Tory with an eyepatch (John Carradine), life changes... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Claudette Colbert - Henry Fonda - Edna May Oliver Director(s): John Ford DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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