The Agony And The Ecstasy

Heston delivers a powerful, understated interpretation of one of the world's greatest artists, Michelangelo, in a film which features a complete replica of the Sistine Chapel, the largest indoor set in the world up to that time. The opening has Heston as the artistic rage of the Renaissance, the Medicis, the most powerful family in Europe, showering him with fat commissions for his sculpting in Florence. He is summoned by Harrison, the shrewd and demanding Pope Julius II, then head of church and state, and ordered to "decorate" the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a return to fresco painting at which Heston bridles. He undertakes the Herculean task, encouraged by an ...