The Agony and the Ecstasy Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

The Agony and the Ecstasy Blu-ray Movie Review

Hopefully it won't need a second coat.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 28, 2014

By any reasonable measure of past history, The Agony and the Ecstasy should have been one of the blockbuster hits of 1965. Irving Stone’s source novel had been one of the biggest bestsellers of its time, and star Rex Harrison was just coming off a highly publicized Academy Award win for Best Actor for My Fair Lady. In other ways, though, the handwriting was already on the wall, including some scripted there by Irving Stone himself. Stone’s biography of Vincent Van Gogh, Lust for Life, had been turned into a well regarded (and Academy Award winning) film in 1956, a film which had nonetheless tanked at the box office. And while 1965 saw the last full flowering of the huge American screen musical with the gargantuan success of The Sound of Music, the bloom already seemed to be off the flower in terms of mammoth historical epics, especially those with a religious bent. 1965 saw one of the bigger flops of Biblical fare in the history of film with George Stevens’ The Greatest Story Ever Told (which premiered several months before The Agony and the Ecstasy), but even more “mundane” historical epics weren’t generating the ticket sales they once had, with certain notable exceptions like David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago. But there might actually be a more pedestrian reason or two that The Agony and the Ecstasy didn’t catch on with audiences, and I would posit that one of them is the peculiar way the film starts: with a 12 minute or so “mini-documentary” about Michelangelo, his life and work. While on one level this is an understandable conceit, one which gives a bit of context and certainly allows for an appreciation of the master’s work as a sculptor, on another level it simply stops this film dead in its tracks for the opening several minutes, something that perhaps fatally wounds any drama before it can even get started. Scenarist Philip Dunne and director Carol Reed attempt to overcome this incredibly static opening with the first moments of the actual narrative section of the film which depict a battle through tall grasses in the beautiful Italian countryside, ultimately shown to be commanded by none other than Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison) himself. But it’s a bit like throwing ice cold water on a comatose patient—the damage has already been done, and even though you might be able to bring him out of his stupor, there’s bound to be a residual lethargy one way or the other.

Something else that may have hindered the success of The Agony and the Ecstasy might be traced to that old adage “it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry”. For as much as scenarist Philip Dunne and director Carol Reed attempt to invest this story with conflict and drama, a lot of the film is about exactly that: watching paint dry. There is a lot of time trying to establish the imperious but ultimately vulnerable Julius as a “warrior Pope”, casting him as a kind of martinet insisting on a great piece of art for the Sistine Chapel, with Michelangelo posited as the equally stubborn but ultimately subservient subject who risks life and limb to fulfill his pontiff’s wishes.

Part of the problem here is that there is ultimately no suspense—after all, unless you’ve been entirely sequestered from world events all your life, you’re going to know that there is indeed a Michelangelo fresco adorning the Sistine Chapel. That means that the film’s repeated dramatic interludes—battles, sickness, and, ultimately, imminent death—just seem like window dressing drawing attention away from a focal matter that is already a done deal (at least in hindsight).

What helps The Agony and the Ecstasy to alleviate some of the tedium is the towering presence of Harrison and Heston at the peak of their star power. Heston is surprisingly physical in this role, and he seems to actually be sculpting (in some early sequences) and painting (for the bulk of the film). There are also some decent historical tidbits scattered throughout the film, like the actual procedure for transferring the images to the façade of the Sistine Chapel. Other historical elements, like Michelangelo’s somewhat notorious private life, are completely skimmed over, as was the tradition in this era of film. As with the best sixties epics, the cinematography (Leon Shamroy), production design, costumes and score (by Jerry Goldsmith and Alex North) all lend a patina of class and stature that make the film entertaining, if never very emotionally affecting.

The Agony and the Ecstasy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Agony and the Ecstasy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.20:1. This is by and large a fantastic looking high definition presentation, with largely accurate looking color, and often exceptional levels of fine detail. There are some slight but quite noticeable registration issues which tend to affect the lighter ends of the spectrum—watch, for example, in the opening documentary sequence and you can clearly see off-whites slightly changing incrementally to a minimally more beige tone and then back again. This tendency tends to alleviate after that sequence, but is still occasionally in attendance. There may have been some slight fade here as well, as once again flesh tones tend to look just a bit on the brown side, and there's just an edge of a rust tint in otherwise rich reds. (There's simply no comparison in color levels, saturation and general accuracy to the simultaneously released The 300 Spartans, however—The Agony and the Ecstasy is clearly superior in all categories.) Blues are especially impressive here—take a look at the sky behind Heston in the first screenshot, or the yet to be painted ceiling of The Sistine Chapel in the third screenshot. Contrast and black levels are both solid and consistent. There is some very minimal damage to the elements noticeable at times, in the form of tiny white specks and similar transitory distractions. This offers a very organic presentation that does not have signs of overt digital manipulation.

The Agony and the Ecstasy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Agony and the Ecstasy features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix which is surprisingly immersive and which offers one of the splendors of mid-century historical epic scoring with mostly commendable results. Though Alex North is often credited as the sole composer on the film (and indeed received the only credit and Academy Award nomination), in actuality Jerry Goldsmith scored the opening documentary. The two men's work melds together absolutely seamlessly and my hunch is if you didn't know there were two composers working on the film, you wouldn't notice anything overly untoward. The score sounds fantastic in the 5.1 rendering, though oddly one of this track's major flaws is the almost ridiculously boxy sound of the (separately recorded) choral music. You'll notice it for the first time when the Pope is making his entrance in the deserted Vatican City, and the difference between the massed voices and the rest of the instrumental score is marked. Otherwise, though, this is a splendid offering, with some surprising directionality in the dialogue and excellent effects in the battle sequences that Reed and Dunne seemed to want to insert in the film to keep it from being too ponderous. Fidelity is excellent, save for the choral music, and dynamic range is quite wide.

The Agony and the Ecstasy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Teaser (480i; 1:15)


• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 3:28)

The Agony and the Ecstasy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Agony and the Extasy never quite achieves the magnificence of other large scale historical epics, though for the properly warned, the film has a surfeit of pleasures to enjoy. Harrison and Heston make for great antagonists, and Diane Cilento is at least a beautiful addition, even if her role is historically inaccurate and ultimately needless for the film itself. The physical production of this film is truly awesome, with an amazing recreation of The Sistine Chapel and the rigors that went into applying the fresco to the various interior spaces. Shamroy's elegant cinematography (much of it in quite low light environments) and North's impeccable score also add immeasurably to the film's luster. This may never actually devolve enough to reach the agony level, nor rise high enough to reach the ecstasy level, but it's a good middle of the road effort that provides small scale pleasures in a very large scale way. Recommended.