Wick's Review

Summary - Really Great 4.5

Charlton Heston makes Michelangelo as operatic as Moses in The Ten Commandments. Facing off with Rex Harrison’s Warrior Pope in 1500s Rome makes The Agony and the Ecstasy a spectacle extraordinaire.

The 2¼ hour runtime wisely starts with a 12 min. intro that covers Michelangelo’s highlights, including Michelangelo’s Pietà & Michelangelo’s David. Stakes established, Heston and Harrison come on screen.

A&E’s dramatic tension stems from the Pope forcing Michelangelo into a project he resented. Of course, his paintings on the Sistine Chapel ceiling became an epochal triumph, but not before an epic amount of conflict between the two men, and within Michelangelo himself. Art history is rarely so dramatic.

Bottom Line

Essential and extraordinary historical spectacle makes The Agony and the Ecstasy a bucket-list movie.
You gotta see it before you die.

Acting - Really Great 4.5

Charlton Heston never shied from playing the great men of history. His Michelangelo would be Exhibit A to prove that statement if not for the existence of his Moses in The Ten Commandments. Anyway, he gives the artistic polymath Michelangelo a virile intelligence that seems appropriate for such a monumental artist.

Rex Harrison was nearly Heston’s equal as a powerful leading-man, making him ideal as Pope Julius II.

Great Supporting Cast

• Diane Cilento fetchingly and intelligently plays the Contessina de’Medici. Cilento was married to Sean Connery at the time.
• Adolfo Celi plays her father-in-law Giovanni de’ Medici, later to become Pope Leo X. Celi is most famous for playing Largo, the supervillain from Thunderball.
• Harry Andrews plays Donato Bramante, the architect who introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and Rome.
• Tomas Milian plays the artist Raphael, who is depicted as properly respectful of the great Michelangelo.

Film - Really Great 4.5

Honored by the Academy mostly for Art Direction, Costume Design and Cinematography, A&E is a truly awesome film. Cultural history doesn’t come more bravura than Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.

Edge - Tame 1.5

Reality - Glib 1.2

Shot on location in Rome, The Agony and the Ecstasy is said to be remarkably accurate about the dress, weaponry and art of Renaissance Italy. Bravo!

It’s perhaps less accurate about the particulars of Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but nonetheless shines a fascinating light on that epochal artistic achievement.

A&E also shines a light on Pope Julius II, who named himself after Julius Caesar and led the Papal Army into battle. Turns out he hated the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which his Uncle had built. Issues?

Nepotism for one. Julius II also lot-scraped St. Peter’s Basilica, but died before a long line of his successors finally finished its rebuilding, with Michelangelo saving the day decades after Julius II left this mortal coil.

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