Rex Harrison adds some interest with his well-rounded portrayal of "the Warrior Pope," but the rest of this novel adaptation is forgettable. Michaelangelo's fascinating relationship with the Medici family and the Pope calls for a script with some intellectual and emotional depth, but the dialogue and story here are mostly one-dimensional. A short documentary appended to the beginning of the movie highlights Michaelangelo's impressive sculpture work, and that might well have made a better subject matter for a film. I was surprised to see Adolfo Celi, James Bond's nemesis from "Thunderball," as the future pope Leo X, and even more surprised that he conveyed more personality in a few lines than the lead actors did in over two hours.

Director Carol Reed paints us, the audience, a portrait of the relationship between artist Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and the Warrior Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison) based on the novel by Irving Stone. Pope Julius II has just commissioned the artist to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling despite Michelangelo wanting no part of it. The two Renaissance's most colorful figures play a game of cat and mouse, as one is persistent and will not cease until he gets what he wants which is Michelangelo's painting his ceiling. The other figure, Michelangelo is an artist who did not want to paint, stubborn and resisted to all things "normal". He is not stubborn just to be stubborn. He can follow the suggestions of others unless it pertains to art, particularly his art. He knows what he wants and he has reasons for believing that his way will be best. His work on the Sistine Chapel would often bump heads with the strong mind Julius on issues of nudity, and how to portray God's work. The battle of wills fueled by artistic and temperamental differences gives us the audience, a great dramatic historical film. The combination of Michelangelo's varied background as sculptor, painter, poet, architect and engineer, his own personal weaknesses and vanity, and his unremitting drive which enabled him to conquer overwhelming disappointments and find satisfaction in difficult and backbreaking work makes gives the movie its title. Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison are very great in their role as I feel the acting is amazing. Still Charlton Heston feels a bit playing over the top wooden in the role and Rex Harrison is a bit too wordy. The cinematography in the film is breath taking and scenic. I love the scene in which Michelangelo emerged from the cave to find a beautiful sunset giving him his idea for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It reminds me of how man first came out of the caves dwellings life and into a life of innovative thinking. So Renaissance like. The soundtrack by Alex North is a brilliant score. Oscar nominated work right there. One of the faults of the film is the pace of the movie is very slow to the point, it's snail like. 138 min is the final run time. Historians were quick to point out that the film was even less historically accurate than the Irving Stone bestseller on which it was based. This movie is only a small part of the book and Michelangelo's life. There was a lot of interesting parts left out in order to make the entire movie about the painting of the Sistine Chapel. Yes, Charleton Heston nor Rex Harrison look nothing like Michelangelo or Pope Julius II, but it's true that Michelangelo and Julius were stiff-necked, driven men who use reverse-psychology on each other to get what they want. Another issue about the film is the issue of Michelangelo's sexuality. The movie has Medici's wife in love with him while history states that he might had be homosexual. I know in the 1960's, it would be shocking to see Charleston Heston play a homosexual character, but with all the Homoeroticism art Michelangelo did, it would more historical accurate. In my opinion, it's better to cross out the love story, and focus more on his struggle with the ceiling. The locations scenes in Italy do well in evoking the early 16th Century in Italy. Still, the streets a bit too clean for 16th century Italy. If you are not hooked on historical accuracy and are willing to see Charlton Heston be in pained for several hours, you may enjoy this film. Essential to watch for any art fan.

I like historical films. Recently I watched three historical films all made in the early 1960s. These are 'El Cid', 'The Spartacus' and 'The Agony and The Ecstasy'. Of the three, I rate The Agony and the Ecstasy as the best. This film is based on the eponymous novel written by Irving Stone. I had read the book nearly a decade back and it was nice to see the film finally. The film is about the circumstances under which Michelangelo came to compose his famous frescoes in the Sistine Chapel of Rome in the 16th century. The Sistine fresco, the 'creation of man' has become almost an emblem for the artist. But not many know that Michelangelo painted the Sistine frescoes reluctantly, only because he was forced to do so by his patron, Pope Julius II. The film is about the war of wits between these two great men Pope Julius II is a warrior pope, a worldly Pope. His concern is to protect the papal states from being over run by warring European powers. For this he is willing to take up arms. The pope knows that the posterity wont remember him for his spiritual prowess or leadership. Therefore he want to leave great works of art as his legacy. He therefore hires Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The artist is not very keen on painting and considers sculpture to be his true calling. He is also not willing to conform to the prevailing canons of artistic excellence. He feels constrained by the limits of time and money that is set. All the great moments of the film occur when the Pope and the Artist clash. It is a clash of ideas and world views: (1) Whether sculpture is a superior form of art as compared to painting; (2) Whether it is appropriate depict biblical figures in their raw humanity; (3) Whether it is moral for a man of god to take arms for his principles and so on. For me the finest scene in the film is where the Pope and the Cardinals come to see the frescoes and judge it as lacking in good taste. The Artist is forced to give a strong rebuttal and in the process he expounds the humanist philosophy of art. Shot in beautiful Technicolor, the film still looks spectacular. It is a visual and intellectual treat.

"The Agony and the Ecstasy" is a biography of the artist Michelangelo, concentrating particularly on his relationship with his patron Pope Julius II and the painting of the Sistine Chapel. It is essentially the story of the clash of two powerful, determined personalities. Like most Renaissance Popes, Julius was less a religious pastor than a secular ruler, a man whose position as head of state of the Papal States made him one of the most powerful in Italy, both politically and militarily. He was determined to maintain and, if possible, increase the power of his fiefdom, with a view to reducing French influence in Italy, and to this end pursued a vigorous and aggressive foreign policy. His willingness to wage war in pursuit of his political goals today seems incongruous in a man who was, ostensibly, a follower of the Prince of Peace, but his contemporaries may have seen less of a contradiction than we do. Although there had been a Pope Julius I more than a thousand years earlier, his choice of this particular papal name may have been influenced by the great conqueror, Julius Caesar.Julius's zeal for the power and glory of the Papal States also led him to conceive an ambitious building scheme to make Rome the greatest city in Europe, including the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica and the patronage of artists whom he used to decorate his new buildings. The Sistine Chapel was not one of his creations- it had been built by his uncle Sixtus IV- but he wanted to use it as a showpiece of the splendours of his papacy.Michelangelo, as played by Charlton Heston, is as stubborn and obstinate as Julius. He is initially reluctant to take on the Sistine Chapel commission because he sees himself primarily as a sculptor rather than a painter. Unlike the Pope he is a genuinely religious man, and has no problem with working to the greater glory of God, but fears that in painting the chapel he will be working to the greater glory of Pope Julius. He knows, however, that an outright refusal would be dangerous; at one point Julius shouts "He will paint it or he will hang!" When Michelangelo does start work he proves an obsessive perfectionist, working very slowly and answering Julius's insistent question "When will it be finished" with the equally insistent answer "When it is ready!" Yet, despite their differences, a certain respect and understanding does grow up between the two.I would agree with the reviewer who said that the film's main weakness is that it is essentially a two-man show that does not arouse too much in the way of dramatic tension. Yet those two men are both very good, with acting honours going, perhaps surprisingly, to Rex Harrison, an actor who has not always been my favourite. He could at times appear too casual and laid back, and must be counted very fortunate to have won his "Best Actor" Oscar for "My Fair Lady" (too old and can't sing) against the likes of Richard Burton, Anthony Quinn and Peter Sellars. Here, however, he is masterful as the cynical and worldly Pontiff. Heston's performance as Michelangelo works well in the context of the film, although he has been criticised for not giving a true picture of the artist's character; Michelangelo was far from the tall, handsome, virile man portrayed here, and is generally believed by historians to have been gay. Homosexuality, of course, was still taboo in the cinema of 1965, so a heterosexual love-interest is provided for the artist in the shape of the beautiful Contessina de'Medici, played by Diane Cilento aka Mrs Sean Connery.The film was directed by the great Carol Reed, who brings to it a certain look of a Renaissance painting with striking colours. Heston was perhaps best-known for his work in the epic style ("The Ten Commandments", "Ben-Hur", etc), and at times Reed seems to be striving to lend this film something of the feel of an epic, particularly in the battle scenes and those set in the stone quarries, where the cutting of marble is shown as a work of heroic labour, comparable to something like the building of the pyramids. I would not rate the film quite as highly as something like Minnelli's "Lust for Life" about Van Gogh, but despite its dramatic weaknesses "The Agony and the Ecstasy" is one of the cinema's more interesting attempts to explore the nature of artistic creativity. 7/10