Writers and Directors: David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky
Reviled (or revered) as the Bad Boy of Italian Art, Caravaggio’s reputation seems unassailable. The bravura artist that applied chiaroscuro to religious iconography, the director Martin Scorsese praised his ability to craft a scene from light and dark.
Caravaggio’s biography is, famously, patchy and problematic. He spent the last years of his life on the run after murdering an acquaintance, Ranuccio Tomassoni. To illuminate the artist, the documentary makers Exhibition on Screen have re-imagined the life of Caravaggio.
Played by Jack Bannell, we travel with Caravaggio as he sails to Rome, a Papal pardon for his crimes as the sweetener. Bannell’s Caravaggio is charming, but paranoid. He recounts significant events in his life, glazing over troubling memories. Surviving his turbulent childhood in Milan, after a brief apprenticeship with a former pupil of Titian, Caravaggio secures work with the Pope’s favourite artist, Giuseppe Cesari.
The documentary discusses the innovations Caravaggio made, but never got enough credit for. His choice of models, personal friends from Rome’s demi-monde, give Caravaggio’s mythical and religious subjects a breath of life. His bohemian existence, an endless round of fighting, partying and boozing, flavours Caravaggio’s art. He undeniably had a hot temper (the few documents we have are police reports). But this was an artist working with the Catholic Church and the Italian aristocracy. To get commissions, he had to be on his best behaviour. The film constantly re-evaluates.
Instead of concentrating on a particular exhibition, Caravaggio features the breadth of the artist’s achievements, giving the documentary an expansive feel. We explore Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro (using a strong contrast of light and dark to build drama). It suggests a filmic sensibility, with Caravaggio immersed in horror and gore. In The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, Peter is already nailed to the cross. The workmen are struggling to bring the cross to a standing position, we see their backs and grubby feet as they sweat and strain. Peter is realising the extent of his ordeal. The terror on his face is a light of revelation, rendered in its bleakest tone.
While the balance of commentary and VIP access to Caravaggio’s paintings is what we expect from Exhibition on Screen, their biggest gamble was re-creating Caravaggio. Jack Bannell’s Caravaggio is playful and charismatic, showing off the best of the artist, but he’s also evasive. He wants to impress us, and his moments of weakness don’t fit into that narrative. The inability to take responsibility for his actions is at the core of Caravaggio’s character. This hard-lean into the artist’s psychology works perfectly for Caravaggio because the artist left so much of himself on the canvas.
The story-telling techniques of Caravaggio are a departure for Exhibition on Screen, but it builds an intimacy between the viewer and the artist that can’t be created from first-hand sources. What doesn’t exist, consequently, has to be imagined. The documentary succeeds on all fronts: creativity blended with insight that progresses our understanding of the artist. Exhibition on Screen has another hit on its hands.
Caravaggio is released in cinemas nationwide on 11 November 2025.
