Italy in the early 1600s: Waiting for his friend and lover Ranuccio to be released from jail, the Italian early Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is leaning against an old truck. Shortly before, two of the artist's most important patrons and advocates meet to discuss Caravaggio's latest works. Over an extravagant feast, they also talk about his expenses using a golden mechanical calculator to help add up the different sums. Elsewhere in town, an art critic is typing away on a Royal typewriter and flipping through a magazine featuring an article on Caravaggio and some of this works.
In his 1986 movie Caravaggio British director Derek Jarman depicts the (in)famous painter's life, love and artistic practice thereby completely throwing the timeline out of sync. I am arguing that by means of the infiltration of 20th century technology into a 16th/17th century setting, Jarman attempts to depict the contemporariness of Caravaggio as a painter. Admittedly, the myth surrounding Caravaggio itself is rather sensationalist and one might therefore very well say that by virtue of a very different and challenging visual language Jarman is trying to capitalize on this already existing narrative: Caravaggio, the rebel. But in my opinion, there is more to Jarman's portrayal than this; his style should not be dismissed as merely trying to spark attention.
Being derived from structuralism, “semiotics is the study of the 'language' of signs and symbols” (Gray 2010:55). One of the basic ideas of semiotics – “different elements in a film mean things – they signify something” (Gray 2010:56) – is particularly useful when talking about Jarman's filmic practice. Injecting for example the setting with coloured electric light bulbs that light up the interior of a local bar, Jarman challenges the audience's viewing habits. Since these kinds of items are totally out of place, they are signs that need to be analyzed. With C. S. Pierce we might argue that these modern-day objects are indices – signs that either point to something else, something distant in space or time, or call attention to themselves (Walker and Chaplin 1997:138-139). They point to themselves qua the mere fact that they are striking in the way they distinguish themselves from the rest of the setting, i.e. by means of opposition. Once having drawn attention to themselves, then, they direct our attention to another place in time, a future reality that is the 20th century. We might also see them as symbols of our own contemporary Western world, for it is only in the particular context of the film that they do not solely stand for themselves but for a certain kind of society (Walker and Chaplin 1997:139). In any other movie we would not even pay attention to them, let alone bother looking for some kind of hidden meaning.
When talking about the different units and elemental building blocks that make up the movie and trying to interpret the use of modern-day technology, one should also look at the way Jarman integrates Caravaggio's works with the filmic reality: By virtue of split screens, the pairing of shots of paintings and Caravaggio himself, or fast cutting to create a rapid-fire stream of images, Jarman blurs the boundaries between the filmic reality, film as a medium and painting. Thus he is capable of creating a continuum that suggests a close connection between Caravaggio's painterly practice and the reality depicted in the movie, that is a world in which 1980s-style clothing and cigarettes exist.
That is exactly where the potential of the movie and Jarman's argument resides. Combining film and painting – two highly iconic mediums – Jarman creates a distinct point of view that intrigues the spectator and draws them into the movie itself. Once being drawn into the cinematic reality, the viewer is confronted with all kinds of anachronisms that disrupt their expectations. Still, the master antinomy of Caravaggio – i.e. 20th century design and traditional Italian ambience – only appears to exist as well as function on a formal or compositional level. Semantically, however, these modern items seem to fit perfectly into the world portrayed by the director.
Having said that, we can very well infer that Jarman would position Caravaggio among the painters of the 20th century. This resonates with most scholarly accounts on Caravaggio – especially those written on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his death in 2010. In addition to that, just looking at Caravaggio's oeuvre proves his very modern style. From an art historical perspective, one might identify another layer of meaning in Jarman's film: The use of 20th century imagery also hints at anachronisms in Caravaggio's own pieces and at the fact that he himself often depicted Biblical scenes in contemporary settings, for example transposing the action from an ancient locale into an early 17th century taverna – as is the case in his famous The Calling of St. Matthew.
“Why did you paint the flesh so green?” – “I've been ill all summer, Excellency. It is true to life.” – “And art?” – “It isn't art!”
It is not art. Just like Caravaggio who pushed the boundaries between art and life, between different versions of reality, Jarman plays with the idea of reality itself by making use of signs that conjure up disbelief, and suspicion as to what is real, what is not, and eventually as to the very nature of these categories that we impose on all sorts of things in an attempt to make sense out of the world we live in.
References Cited
Gray, Gordon
2010 Cinema: A Visual Anthropology. Oxford, UK; New York: Berg Publishers.
Walker, John A. and Sarah Chaplin
1997 Visual Culture: An Introduction. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press; New York: St. Martin's Press.
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