On the occasion of the release of the film “Caravaggio”, we offer you a quiz combining painting and cinema. Can you find the titles of these ten films in which these paintings appear?
Before the appearance of cinema at the end of the 19th century, there was photography. And before photography, there was painting. Three forms of representation that have often been brought into dialogue with each other, and which have for example given rise to the production of biopics centered on painters.
This Wednesday comes out Caravaggio, an Italian film directed by Michel Placido, focusing on the life of the famous 17th century painter, most of whose works were considered subversive at the time. The film returns to the accusation of murder made against the artist who had then had to flee Rome to take refuge in Naples.
We have seen the lives of many other painters brought to the screen in recent decades. One of the most famous, Vincent Van Gogh, for example, was entitled to many films devoted to him, including The Passionate Life of Vincent Van Gogh by Vincente Minelli released in 1956 with Kirk Douglas in the main role, the Van Gogh by Maurice Pialat in 1991 with Jacques Dutronc, and more recently, an even different approach for Julian Schnabel and his At Eternity’s Gate with a remarkable Willem Dafoe as headliner.
We could also add to this list Mr. Turner by Mike Leigh with Timothy Spall in the eponymous role, Pollock played by Ed Harris, or even Basquiat with Jeffrey Wright. Women painters, who have long remained in the shadows in the history of art, have also had several film adaptations, including Frida in which Salma Hayek played the young Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, or even Séraphine with the actress Yolande Moreau.
However, it is not with biopics that we are going to play today, but with paintings that have appeared in films that you will have to recognize. Will you have the eye of the expert?