![]() The downside of this grandiose historical costume drama is how much the "epic" aspects interrupt the human drama. Though the film is overlong in the fashion of over-long 1960s epics*, director Carol Reed does well with two main aspects of the tale conveying Michelangelo’s convoluted (to put it mildly) human relationships with everyone else (particularly with his semi-girlfriend/pseudo-sister-advisor Contessina de' Medici, played by Diane Cilento), and showing just how hard it is to get a client to pay you when you're a freelance artist (an ongoing sub-story is the effort by Michelangelo to get the Pope to pay up on money owed, which is hard to do when the Pope has the power to forbid any discussion of money). This act has put Michelangelo on the bad side of the lethal and tricky Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison), who is now dedicated to making Michelangelo finish the commission, saying to everyone "or he will hang!" Everyone else was quite happy with the work, but not Michelangelo, so he scrapes the face off the giant painted figure in the middle of the night and runs for his life. Shortly afterward, with only one figure partially done, he is miserable, knowing he has botched it and is working from a mediocre idea that isn't even his own (the subject was given to him by the Pope). ![]() Michelangelo gets to work, standing on a platform 60 feet in the air, working with a team he has hired, painting in the first of the twelve apostles. Freelance Michelangeloįorced into a commission from the Pope, Michelangelo has to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, protesting "I'm a sculptor, not a painter!" But that doesn't dissuade this Pontiff who can't be told "no." The Pope tells a very reluctant Michelangelo to paint some figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling accompanied with "appropriate designs." Or else. 20th Century Fox & Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica Studios, Italy
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