The Agony and the Ecstasy

During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.

Cast

Charlton Heston

as Michelangelo

Rex Harrison

as Papa Giulio II

Diane Cilento

as Contessina de'Medici

Harry Andrews

as Bramante

Alberto Lupo

as Duca di Urbino

Adolfo Celi

as Giovanni de' Medici

Venantino Venantini

as Paride de Grassis

Tomas Milian

as Raffaello Sanzio

John Stacy

as Giuliano da Sangallo

Fausto Tozzi

as uomo

Reviews

John Chard

When will you make an end? When I am finished! And so it be that that is the often repeated exchange between Rex Harrison's Pope Julius II & Charlton Heston's Michelangelo, and thus we have the basis for the film version of Irving Stone's novel The Agony & The Ectasy. This is a fictionalised a...

CinemaSerf

Depending on the version you see, this film starts with a gorgeously scored trip around some of the museums of Italy and of the Vatican allowing us to put the sheer magnificence of the talent of Michelangelo Buonarroti into context - and the volume and quality of that body of work, condensed into te...

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