Great stuff, mate” said someone sticking his head through the window of the cab about to take me to St Pancras. “Caravaggio; what a bleeder!”
Too right. Music to my ears. Vox populi, vox dei. And a whole lot better than Carpo Marx in the Sundays giving us all a hard time about the first episode of The Power of Art. We did know we were taking a risk beginning with the most in-your-face of the eight films, lots of sweaty aggression and heavy pathos, but then that was what Caravaggio specialised in. One reviewer complained about the “script” which the actors had to work with but that script (“smell the artichokes”) was drawn entirely from the court records of Caravaggio’s trials and punishments.
more from SImon Schama at The Guardian here.