Caravaggio

In his feverish, chiaroscuro portrait, Jarman depicts the life of baroque artist Caravaggio, who associated with male lovers, prostitutes and the criminal underclasses of early 17th-century Rome. The lush, gorgeous film brings Jarman’s principal themes together: the awkward position artists find themselves in, homosexual love and the hypocrisy of the church’s leadership.

In 1610, from his deathbed the artist Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) who has fallen on hard times, looks back at his turbulent love triangle with two of the models for his religious paintings: the street fighter Ranuccio (Sean Bean) and the latter's girlfriend Lena (brilliantly played by Tilda Swinton). In flashbacks the film recreates Caravaggio's original paintings in a series of sublime, stylised tableaux vivants, while Jarman simultaneously examines his work’s homo-erotic subtext, speculating about the relationship between the artist and his favourite model Ranuccio.

Frontal attack

Caravaggio was a frontal attack on classic reconstructions Hollywood seems want to turn biopics into. Jarman’s idiosyncratic, homo-erotic film is purposely interrupted by anachronisms including a pocket calculator and Ranuccio’s motorbike. The imaginative, experimental film was also Jarman’s most beautiful as well as accessible work and proved a modest commercial success. Tilda Swinton’s first film role was in Caravaggio and it marked the beginning of a long, cherished cooperation between Jarman and the actress who he would cast in his next six films including Edward II (1991).