1

THE INTERMEDIALITY OF JARMAN’S TABLEAUX VIVANTS IN

CARAVAGGIO (1986)

Ana M. Moctezuma Cruz

Baroque Art

Prof. Monika Schmitter

December 3, 2020
 2

I. Introduction

Perhaps there’s no better example to explore the intermedial relationship between

painting and film than ​Caravaggio​ (1986). This film, made by British avant-garde filmmaker

Derek Jarman about the life of the celebrated 17th-century Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo

Merisi da Caravaggio makes use of tableaux vivants in order to create both a biopic and a thinly

veiled semi-autobiographical movie.1 Jarman appropriates the events of the life of Caravaggio

and presents them in a way that straddles the line between historical accuracy and artistic leeway.

This prompts the question of why did Jarman choose to depict the tableaux in the way that he

did? And more importantly, how does intermediality affect the transformation of the paintings

into tableaux vivants? The aim of this paper is to argue that Jarman’s choices were driven by his

idiosyncratic ideas and to explore the web of connections between the tableaux vivants and the

paintings.

II. Caravaggio’​ s story

The film opens with Caravaggio dying at Porto Ercole. This episode is shown time and

time again in small fragmented scenes throughout the story. The life of Caravaggio unfolds

almost superimposed onto the scene of his death as if silently acknowledging that his death was

both the peak of his life and a consequence of the actions we witness with intense foreboding.

1
Holly Rogers. “Audio-Visual Biography: The Collaboration of Music and Image in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio”,
Journal of Musicological Research​ 27 (2008): 142, ​https://.doi.org/10.1080/01411890801989570​.
 3

Almost every scene could be classified as a stand-alone flashback due to their episodic nature

and they tell the story of Caravaggio’s life and of his infatuation with Ranuccio, a street fighter,

and with Lena, Ranuccio’s girlfriend.

In real life, Ranuccio was the man Caravaggio killed before embarking on a journey to

flee that led him to his death, and Lena was the prostitute he used as a model for his​ ​artwork

Death of the Virgin (1604–1606).​ (Figures 1 & 2) In Jarman’s interpretation of the story, they are

shown to be stuck in a menage-à-trois, in which Caravaggio courts the couple until eventually

Ranuccio and Lena, very much aware of each other’s role as Caravaggio’s lover, come to resent

each other. This prompts Ranuccio to kill Lena in order to be with Caravaggio, and Caravaggio,

grief-stricken, kills Ranuccio.

III. Jarman’s background

The article titled “Doing Queer Theology in ​The Garden​: Derek Jarman and Christianity”

by Stephen Carr makes a case for the desire of Jarman to be “inside Christianity” and it

documents how Jarman contended with the hypocrisy of the church and its treatment of

homosexual people. Therefore, we could say that to Jarman, faith, and religion were complex

issues.2 Further, the film was in so-called development hell for 7 years, yet Jarman continued

pursuing his vision which leads us to assume that it was a highly personal project for him.3 In

2
​Stephen Carr. “Doing Queer Theology in The Garden: Derek Jarman and Christianity.” Theology & Sexuality 4,
no. 8 (March 1998): 10, ​https://doi.org/10.1177/135583589800400802​.
3
​David Robinson. ​"Cinema: A director's triumph as scholar and visionary; Review of recent films." ​Times​ [London,
England], April 25, 1986. ​Gale Academic OneFile​ (accessed November 30, 2020),
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A117884715/AONE?u=mlin_w_umassamh&sid=AONE&xid=bf01b64d​.
 4

addition, Jarman had worked with other similarly transgressive themes which he related to the

Catholic Church, most notably in his experimental film ​Sebastiane (​ 1976), based on Saint

Sebastian, a well-known saint turned gay symbol.

It is also worth noting that during the time that Jarman, an openly homosexual man,

worked on ​Caravaggio​, the AIDS crisis that regrettably affected his life was in its apogee.

Within two years of ​Caravaggio’​ s release, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had

doubled on her anti-homosexuality policies, placing an emphasis on the traditional family and its

values. As Bill Grantham writing for the Cinema Journal tells us:

The Thatcher government passed the notorious Section 28, a statutory amendment
directing that a local authority ‘shall not intentionally promote homosexuality’ or
promote in schools ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family
relationship.’ Although the BFI was not directly subject to Section 28, Britain had
nonetheless spoken: for whatever reason, Jarman's remaining films were not supported by
the British Film Institute.4

It would be conducive to say that Jarman’s reading of Caravaggio’s life and paintings is

highly personal and idiosyncratic, no doubt a product of his circumstances. Grantham further

states that in ​Caravaggio:​ “Jarman takes his favorite subjects, art and gay love, and makes an

urgent case for both.”5 On the other hand, we also know that historians have debated on

Caravaggio’s sexuality and the homoerotic content of his oeuvre for centuries and even his

contemporaries were prone to giving his paintings a homosexual reading.

4
Bill Grantham. “In For A Downer? Notes on Some British Film Institute Feature Film Productions of the 1980s”,
Cinema Journal 47, no. 4 (2008): 161.
5
​Ibid.
 5

IV. Of ​Caravaggio​’s (1986) anachronism

As Rogers tells us, Jarman exhibits “an almost auteristic approach” in his project.6 This

reveals that the director left nothing to chance, starting with the heavy-handed symbolism that

seeps through every frame. The film contains sparse dialogue, high-sounding quotes, and it relies

greatly on narration to carry the story. One feature that stands out prominently from the film is its

use of anachronistic references. There are motorcycles, modern bars, street noises recorded in

Rome, modern suits, calculators, Christmas lights, and even Spanish flamenco music played at

one point. In addition, it includes a visual reference in the form of a tableau vivant of ​The Death

of Marat​ (1793) by French Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David. (Figures 3 & 4) This

appears to be a deliberately jarring choice, in itself out of place with the rest of the tableaux

vivants represented in the film. As Walter Goodman explains in his review of the film for ​The

New York Times​, there is a disjoint between past and present contained inside a meager story.7

There has been significant ponderance upon the anachronistic elements of the film. James

Tweedie is one to argue for their use as a type of signature.8 Other reviewers, like Andrew L.

Urban, consider instead that the anachronisms are used as a way to create an atmosphere.9

Jarman himself was quoted as saying that “it is impossible to recreate the past on film, but it can

be the spur for psychological insights. That is how I have tried to use the backdrop of Caravaggio

6
​Rogers, 135.
7
​ he New York Times, ​Aug. 29, 1986​,
Walter Goodman. “​Screen: 'Caravaggio,' A Portrait of the Artist”,​ T
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/29/movies/screen-caravaggio-a-portrait-of-the-artist.html
8
​James Tweedie. “The Suspended Spectacle of History: the Tableau Vivant in Derek Jarman's Caravaggio.” ​Screen
44 (2003): 398.
9
Andrew L. Urban. “Caravaggio: DVD”, Urban Cinephile, Aug. 14, 2008,
www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=14630&s=DVD
 6

and seventeenth-century Italy.”10 From the director’s words, we can take away that he was both

aware of the limitations of his chosen medium and eager to use history as a canvas to

superimpose the details handpicked by him in order to bring out their psychological component.

Moreover, by blurring the lines of history and turning Caravaggio into a contemporary,

Jarman is effectively highlighting the painter’s status as an avant-garde visionary, one who was

so far ahead of his time that we can imagine him living and working among us. To this effect,

Rogers tells us that: “the director’s low-budget art-house style, with its homoerotic images,

generated a cultural hostility that resembles the two-fold reception of the earlier painter. Yet

Jarman’s film is not only derived from a similar desire to shock the audience through

subject matter, it also pays homage to the painter by emphasizing his most revolutionary

stylistic traits.”11

Rogers posits that Jarman used many techniques similar to Caravaggio’s in what could be

considered “a historically informed contemporization, as the works are brought into the present

through techniques latent in the paintings themselves.”12 Another possibility along those lines is

that using anachronisms was Jarman’s way of breaking the fourth wall and winking at the

audience, suddenly tearing them away from the period setting to have them acknowledge that

this story could have happened at any time, and therefore, it is universal. As it happens, the

inclusion of ​The Death of Marat​ (1793) by Jacques-Louis David fits this pattern. (Figures 3 & 4)

10
“Low-Life Caravaggio.” ​History Today​ 36, no. 5 (May 1986): 3,
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=4900314&site=eds-live&scope=site​.
11
​Rogers, 140.
12
​Ibid. 142.
 7

Keeley Saunders, on the other hand, comments that ​Jarman’s anachronism is a deliberate

move to remove the paintings from their historical context and that he is “purposely disregarding

their original chronology and misplacing characters and events to serve his own narrative agenda

and construct his part-Jarman/part-Caravaggio profile. In effect, Jarman fictionalises both art and

biography.”13 This act could be interpreted as Jarman’s implicit desire to speak of the

universality and timelessness of both Caravaggio’s art, its subject matter, and the life events of

the painter’s life. In a similar stance, Goodman posits that “the characters manage to exist at once

both in Renaissance [sic] Italy and in the present”.14 We could add that by decontextualizing

Caravaggio, Jarman can approach him in a more straightforward manner.

On the other hand, it is curious to note that Jarman claims his film is based on the

paintings alone. He argues that if he is “creating fiction, then it is one that springs from the

paintings.”15 Ken Hanke adds in his review of the film that “​it’s a biopic in strictly Jarman

terms​”.16 This leads us to conclude that the mixture of truth and fiction was not only deliberate

but that Jarman himself did not consider it fictional, as much as an alternative reality. Tweedie,

for example, is one to raise the question of whether or not we can count Caravaggio’s paintings

as historical documents.17 Further, he contends that the tableaux vivants are not depicted in

Caravaggio​ with the intention of clarifying their subject matter, but instead, they serve as a way

13
​Keeley Saunders. “Caravaggio’s cinematic painting: Fictionalising art and biography in the artist biopic.”
Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network​ 5 (2012): 2.
14
​Goodman
15
​Derek Jarman. Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio: the Complete Film Script and Commentaries (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1986), 75.
16
​Ken Hanke. "Caravaggio", ​Mountain Xpress​, 2011. ​https://mountainx.com/movies/reviews/caravaggio/​.
17
​Tweedie, 380.
 8

to initiate a speculative recreation of their immediate conditions of production.18 They are

important insofar as they can aid the audience in picturing their creation and therefore, the story

that Jarman is trying to tell.

By doing so, Jarman is foregoing other “formal, biographical, iconographic modes of

reading pictures”.19 Each of these paintings is thus a “microcosm of Rome’s sexual, economic,

and power relations”.20 According to this interpretation, the tableaux’s purpose lies in

contributing to a plausible story of Caravaggio’s life and how the tableaux came into existence,

not in presenting a faithful recreation of events, some of which are unknown. It should be noted

that there have been detractors of the anachronistic elements. One of them was the reviewer Paul

Attanasio writing for the ​Washington Post​ who alleges that “​Caravaggio​ is less a movie than an

act of vandalism as it narrates the life of the influential late-Renaissance [sic] painter through the

lens of an imagined sexual obsession and an assortment of modernistic effects.” 21

V. The intermediality of ​Caravaggio

According to Klaus Bruhn Jensen’s writings for ​The International Encyclopedia of

Communication Theory and Philosophy,​ “the intermedia terminology has been employed to

stress the innovative or transgressive potential of artworks that articulate their message in the

18
​Ibid. 381.
19
​Tweedie, 381.
20
​Ibid.
21
Paul Attanasio.​ "Caravaggio". ​Washington Post​, Oct. 23, 1986,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/caravaggiorattanasio_a0ad65.htm​.
 9

interstices between two or more media forms.” 22 This desire to step away from what is

comfortable and safe while exploring religious themes is a central part of Jarman’s oeuvre, as we

can see in some of his other highly experimental titles such as​ The Angelic Conversation (​ 1985),

Sebastiane ​(1976), and ​The Garden ​(1990)​.​ In addition, we could argue that intermediality is

closely related to the concept of ​gesamtkunstwerk,​ first spoken of by Richard Wagner.23 This is

because the gesamtkunstwerk seeks the creation of a total work of art that could be very well

achieved through intermedial means.

In the case of ​Caravaggio,​ there is a significant erotic component in the poses of the

models, and in the relationship between the three leads (Caravaggio, Lena, and Ranuccio), as

well as in Caravaggio’s other homosexual liaisons. This erotic charge is evident through several

artistic mediums like poetry, painting, and music which are very much present in the film.

However, since we are dealing mainly with the mediums of painting and film, we would be

inclined to assert along with Tweedie that “the studio is transformed into a performance space,

with the canvas akin to a reflective surface, or more accurately, a device for recording those

patterns of light.”24 ​But the tableaux vivants are not only linked to the mediums of film and

painting, arguably, they are more strongly linked to the medium of theatre. Joachim Paech

explains that:

In a tableau vivant, we only have the memory of a painting present and not the
painting itself before the camera. The confrontation between cinema and painting unfolds

22
​Klaus Bruhn Jensen. “Intermediality.” in ​The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and
Philosophy,​ eds. K.B. Jensen, E.W. Rothenbuhler, J.D. Pooley and R.T. Craig, (2016), 1,
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect170​.
23
Jensen, 1.
24
​Tweedie, 385.
 10

on a third level: the level of the theatre. Such tableaux vivants are actually theatrical
scenes, in which the penetration of the camera into the picture means an entrance into a
stage-like setting. The space of the picture becomes theatrical space, the bodies that are
represented in a picture become actual bodies... 25

To further augment the theatricality of ​Caravaggio​ we have the film’s realism, lighting,

and use of spatial perspective. Unsurprisingly, Jarman had a parallel treatment of light and

shadows and spatiality. ​Caravaggio’​ s lighting was done by Christopher Hobbs, and according to

Rogers it was based heavily on the chiaroscuro technique that Caravaggio popularized.26 The

aforementioned technique resembles, in Jarman’s opinion, “cinematic light, almost as if

Caravaggio were working in a medium that had not been invented, had Caravaggio been

reincarnated in this century it would have been as a film-maker.”27

In addition, we cannot overlook the fact that Caravaggio projected objects into the

viewer’s space, effectively piercing the pictorial plane, and that Jarman’s treatment of

perspective was akin to that of Caravaggio.28 However, we can maintain that it was done for

different reasons altogether. One possibility is that Jarman captured the forward-reaching

perspective of Caravaggio because of his scarce budget which led him to work with reduced

props in a minimalist environment.29 Another possibility is that Jarman, by invoking the past

through the tableaux vivants is also using them as a way to highlight their own faults.30

25
Joachim Paech. ​Passion oder die EinBILDdungen des Jean-Luc Godard,​ (Frankfurt: Deutsches Filmmuseum,
1989), 45.
26
Rogers, 141.
27
​Derek Jarman. ​Dancing Ledge​, ed. Shaun Allen (London: Quartet, 1991), 23.
28
​Tweedie, 385.
29
Tweedie, 386.
30
​Ibid. 387-388.
 11

Rogers contends that Caravaggio’s paintings are recreated so convincingly in the

tableaux that the viewer is often shocked when what appeared to be a painted image

suddenly springs to life.31 On the other hand, Tweedie says that a tableau vivant is used as a

means of revenge on the ideal of the “original” and as a celebration of the “copy”.32 This happens

because it marks the limits or perceived failures of the medium and therefore, a collapse of that

ideal is bound to happen.

There is a certain sort of artificiality to the tableaux vivants supplemented by the use of

anachronistic props. By recreating the paintings in an extremely careful way, the viewer is

presented with an artificial and highly controlled environment that exposes its nature as a

recreation, a facsimile of the original.33 Questions of originality and the nature of derivatives

have plagued art history in the form of quandaries about Revivalism, art restoration,

appropriation art, and now in the realm of intermediality as well.

Saunders, for example, speaks of André Bazin, a French film theorist, who posits that

film and painting are two different mediums that cannot properly adapt to the other “because of

the intrinsically different aesthetic qualities of the media.”34 Therefore, film cannot do justice to

artworks because it changes their very nature in the mere act of attempting to translate them.35

All of this serves to underscore the double-sided nature of intermediality, and the way that artists

and directors choose to apply their own subjectivity. In Jarman’s case, he is the filter through

31
Rogers, 149.
32
​Tweedie, 387-388.
33
​Tweedie, 387-388.
34
​Saunders, 4.
35
​Ibid.
 12

which everything percolates and he is more concerned with his own version of events than with

fidelity. If we remember Rogers’ words about Jarman’s auteristic approach, we realize that his

subjectivity is even present in the way that the camera frames the tableaux vivants. Saunders

elucidates:

The art-image is presented as part of the fictional artist’s process, inspired by the
artist’s life, and created by the artist in preparation for his painting. In addition to this,
this close-up detailing effect disturbs the traditional viewing experience of the audience.
The viewer is no longer allowed to read the image at his own leisure, uncovering
meaning within the painting, but is instead explicitly guided through the image and
shown what to look at, literally ‘pulling the work apart [and] breaking up its component
parts’ to reveal ‘hidden powers’ (Bazin, 2004: 169), or rather hidden interpretations.36

VI. Case studies

In the tableau for ​The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew r​ ecreated by Ranuccio’s character, we

can observe him standing half-naked as the actual executioner was. (Figures 5 & 6) There are no

additional characters to share the spotlight with him and this, combined with the sobriety of the

darkened background makes him stand out vividly. The position of his sword has changed

slightly and so has the color of his cloth but the reference to the painting is clearly established.

However, the fact that Saint Matthew is missing from his own execution distracts from the

truthfulness of the tableau vivant.

There is no self-portrait of the artist either. Instead, we are left to gaze upon Ranuccio’s

body. Most notably, the omission of the floating angel removes the heavenly dimension and

brings down the artwork to the earthly realm, something we can speculate would have pleased

Caravaggio himself, given his propensity to re-interpret Biblical stories in a highly life-like way.

36
Ibid, 13-14.
 13

This notwithstanding, the painting is only half-recreated so its status as a copy is immediately

obvious.

The opposite happens with ​The Entombment of Christ​ (1602–1603) where each character

is accounted for. (Figures 7 & 8) However, the theatricality is still evident. The change in

orientation in the framing of the painting is the first hint as to its status as a recreation. But the

decisive element comes in the exaggerated way that the characters stand and in their attire, both

of which turn the frame into a scene that could have well been taken from a theater play. This

reminds us of Paech's previous words about how in a tableau vivant “we only have the memory

of a painting present a​nd not the painting itself” ​and how the camera’s intrusion gives way to a

stage-like setting.37

Likewise, in the case of ​Death of the Virgin (​ 1604–1606) the recreation, even though it is

analogous, still holds a discernible air of artificiality to it. (Figures 1 & 2) The amount of people

has been reduced and Caravaggio’s treatment of space, particularly where it concerns the

position of the Virgin’s body, is not at all similar. The foreshortening of her figure has not been

perfectly achieved and the men personifying the apostles look strangely out of place. The way

the red curtain hangs in the background differs from the oversized crumpled-up curtain that tops

the original painting. The shifting in the layout of the scene also makes apparent the imitation.

37
​Paech, 45.
 14

In ​Boy with a Basket of Fruit​, even though the model has different facial features, and the

basket changes position slightly, the similarity between the tableau vivant and the painting is

strong. (Figures 9 & 10) If not for recreations such as ​Amor Vincit Omnia ​(1601-1602), which

took several apparent liberties such as the ambiguous gender of the model, the variation in items

assembled at Cupid’s feet, and the clothing which was absent from the painting, one would be

inclined to assert that Jarman’s tableaux vivants are more faithful when they recreate

smaller-scale paintings and fewer subjects. (Figures 11 & 12)

A connection to Caravaggio’s treatment of spaces would also be tempting to make, given

that he was notoriously criticized for his compositions and his alleged lack of perspective. To

this end, we can quote Tweedie when he posits that: “with its depthless dimensions the film also

recalls Caravaggiesque space, as the artist infamous for his refusal or inability to master

Albertian perspectival paradigms also evokes a strictly limited, forward-reaching rather than

infinitely receding space.”38

Similar to ​Boy with a Basket of Fruit,​ in ​Penitent Magdalene’s​ (1594–1595) case, the

recreation is astonishingly faithful. (Figures 13 & 14) Lena poses as Magdalene, tilting her head

in the same delicate and sorrowful way. Her clothes’ print and color match the original, as does

the brown piece of cloth strewn across her lap. Lena is depicted sitting in a low chair with a jar

of perfume and a string of pearls, much like the Magdalene figure in Caravaggio’s painting. The

background and lighting of both painting and tableau vivant are equivalent. As Rogers

38
​Tweedie, 386.
 15

previously mentioned, it would be hard to ascertain if the tableau is a copy or the original

artwork if we did not see her move.

VII. Conclusion

In summary, the recreations are not excessively faithful. They occupy a middle ground

between visual references and tableaux vivants, leaning toward one end or the other depending

on Jarman’s intentions. The director’s choices for this film were influenced by many factors

including his sexual orientation and his filmmaking interests that were heavily marked by a

continued thread of religiosity which he explored in a transgressive manner. On top of this, the

historic moment he was living in, the political situation of his country, as well as the budget he

managed to secure, were all decisive factors at the time of producing ​Caravaggio​.

Jarman made use of intermediality to expose Caravaggio’s revolutionary traits, such as

his propensity to adapt religious themes in a naturalistic way, his forward-reaching perspective,

and his trademark treatment of light and shadow. Furthermore, Jarman profited from

intermediality in order to recreate a tenable version of what could have been the painter’s life,

intermixing truth and fiction in an idiosyncratic way that served him both as a

semi-autobiographical film and a biography of the celebrated Baroque artist.

Appendix
 16

Figure 1, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, “Death of the Virgin”, oil on canvas, 1604–1606, ​Louvre
Museum

Figure 2, tableau vivant of “Death of the Virgin” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio ​(1986; London:
Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 17

Figure 3, David, Jacques-Louis, “The Death of Marat”, oil on canvas, 1793, ​Oldmasters Museum

Figure 4, tableau vivant of “The Death of Marat” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio (​ 1986; London:
Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 18

Figure 5, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, “The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew”, oil on canvas,

1599-1600, ​Church of St. Louis of the French​, Rome

Figure 6, tableau vivant of “The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio
(1986; London: Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 19

Figure 7, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, “The Entombment of Christ”, oil on canvas, 1602–1603,

Pinacoteca Vaticana​, ​Vatican City

Figure 8, tableau vivant of “The Entombment of Christ” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio ​(1986;
London: Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 20

Figure 9, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, “Boy with a Basket of Fruit”, oil on canvas, 1593, ​Galleria
Borghese​, ​Rome

Figure 10, tableau vivant of “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio ​(1986;
London: Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 21

Figure 11, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, “Amor Vincit Omnia”, oil on canvas, ​1601–1602,
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Figure 12, tableau vivant of “Amor Vincit Omnia” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio (​ 1986; London:
Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 22

Figure 13, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, “Penitent Magdalene”, oil on canvas, 1594–1595, ​Doria
Pamphilj Gallery​, ​Rome

Figure 14, tableau vivant of “Penitent Magdalene” in Derek Jarman, ​Caravaggio ​(1986; London:
Cinevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​), film.
 23

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Carr, Stephen. “Doing Queer Theology in The Garden: Derek Jarman and Christianity.”
Theology & Sexuality 4, no. 8 (March 1998): 9–26.
https://doi.org/10.1177/135583589800400802​.

Goodman, Walter. “Screen: 'Caravaggio,' A Portrait of the Artist”, The New York Times, Aug.
29, 1986,
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/29/movies/screen-caravaggio-a-portrait-of-the-artist.h
tml

Grantham, Bill. “In For A downer? Notes on Some British Film Institute Feature Film
Productions of the 1980s”, Cinema Journal 47, no. 4 (2008): 155-163.

Jarman, Derek. ​Caravaggio, (​ 1986; London: Ci​nevista & Umbrella Entertainment, ​July 2008​),
film

Jarman, Derek. ​Dancing Ledge,​ ed. Shaun Allen (London: Quartet, 1991), 23.

Jarman, Derek. ​Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio: the Complete Film Script and Commentaries
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1986), 75.

Jensen, ​Klaus Bruhn​. “Intermediality.” in ​The International Encyclopedia of Communication

Theory and Philosophy,​ edited by K.B. Jensen, E.W. Rothenbuhler, J.D. Pooley and R.T.
Craig, 1-12. 2016. ​https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect170

“Low-Life Caravaggio.” ​History Today​ 36, no. 5 (May 1986): 3-4.

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=4900314&site=eds-li
ve&scope=site​.

Paech, Joachim. ​Passion oder die EinBILDdungen des Jean-Luc Godard.​ Frankfurt: Deutsches
Filmmuseum, 1989.

Robinson, David. ​"Cinema: A director's triumph as scholar and visionary; Review of recent
films." ​Times​ [London, England], April 25, 1986. ​Gale Academic OneFile​ (accessed
November 30, 2020).
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A117884715/AONE?u=mlin_w_umassamh&sid=AONE&
xid=bf01b64d​.

Rogers, Holly. “Audio-Visual Biography: The Collaboration of Music and Image in Derek
Jarman's Caravaggio”,​ Journal of Musicological Research​ 27 (2008): 134-168.
https://.doi.org/10.1080/01411890801989570​.
 24

Saunders, Keeley. “Caravaggio’s cinematic painting: Fictionalising art and biography in the
artist
biopic.” ​Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network​ 5
(2012): 1-15.

Tweedie, James. “The Suspended Spectacle of History: the Tableau Vivant in Derek Jarman's
Caravaggio.” ​Screen​ 44 (2003): 379-403.

Urban, Andrew L. “Caravaggio: DVD”, Urban Cinephile, Aug. 14, 2008,

www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=14630&s=DVD​.