Won 1 di Donatello: Best Foreign Production - Won 1 National Board of Review Award: Best Supporting Actor - 5 Nominations Academy Awards (Oscar): Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Color,  Best Cinematography Color, Best Costume Design Color,Best Music Score,Best Sound - 2 Nominations Golden Globe: Best Motion Picture Actor Drama, Best Screenplay - 1 Nomination Laurel Awards: Golden Laurel Dramatic Performance Male

IL TORMENTO E L'ESTASI

(The Agony and the Ecstasy)

1965, regia di Carol Reed

Scheda: Nazione: USA - Produzione: 20th Century Fox, International Classics - Distribuzione: Dear, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation - Soggetto: dall'omonimo romanzo di Irving Stone - Sceneggiatura: Philip Dunne - Fotografia: Leon Shamroy - Montaggio: Samuel E. Beetley - Art Direction: John DeCuir, Jack Martin Smith - Costumi: Vittorio Nino Novarese - Musiche: Jerry Goldsmith, Alex North, Franco Potenza - Effetti speciali: L.B. Abbott, Emil Kosa jr. - Formato: Todd-Ao, Color DeLuxe - Durata: 138'.

Cast: Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, Diane Cilento, Harry Andrews, Alberto Lupo, Adolfo Celi, Venantino Venantini, John Stacy, Fausto Tozzi, Maxine Audley, Tomas Milian.

Trama e commenti: cinematografo.it - mymovies.it - film.spettacolo.virgilio.it - bol.it -  it.movies.yahoo.com - foxvideo.it - kataweb.it -1 - kataweb.it -2: «La storia di un quadriennio (1509-12) di litigi tra Michelangelo Buonarroti (C. Heston) e papa Giulio II (R. Harrison), quando "lo scultore che non voleva dipingere" si "seppellì" in Vaticano, come egli stesso disse, a decorare la volta della Cappella Sistina. Vacuo ma decoroso, agiografico ma non offensivo, schematico ma non ridicolo, statico ma gradevole, insomma nobilmente noioso. Tuffatosi nell'interminabile biografia romanzata di Irving Stone, lo sceneggiatore Philip Dunne ne è riemerso con l'idea di concentrare l'azione nell'incontro-scontro dei due personaggi. Da non perdere il prologo, il documentario di 14 minuti di Vincenzo Labella (foto di Piero Portalupi) sull'opera scultorea di Michelangelo. T. Milian fa Raffaello. Costato alla Fox 12 milioni di dollari (del 1965), ne incassò 4 sul mercato internazionale».

Plot Summary, Synopsis, Review: IMDb - entertainment.msn.com - tvguide - rottentomatoes.com - technofile.com - enotes.com - allmovie.com - charltonhestonworld2.homestead.com - en.wikipedia.org - britmovie.co.uk: «Every ingredient in The Agony and the Ecstasy seems on an epic scale except its level of imagination and intelligence. Synthetic as it is, Irving Stone's book has historical and biographical sweep covering Michelangelo's life from the age of thirteen to his death at eighty-eight and conjuring up the tangled, faraway universe of sixteenth-century Italian life with precision and density. The movie turns Stone's wide-angle lens into a zoom and concentrates exclusively on the four-and-a-half year period in which Michelangelo brought his immortal frescoes into being. Perversely, the film refuses to take the giant steps that seem natural to the epic, selecting instead an essentially static subject - the creative process - as its core. One has the sense of a mincing Cyclops, as the movie attempts to brood over and exult in Michelangelo's artistic struggle. To offset the lack of dynamism in the story, the filmmaker’s pack as much pomp and spectacle around the edges as they can. Pope Julius 11 (Rex Harrison), a warrior pontiff trying to unite Italy under the aegis of the Vatican and drive out the French. Julius is seen leading his troops off to battle and returning at night, the hypnotic white expanse of the renowned quarry is the background for a scene in which workers who are trying to divert the Pope's soldiers so that Michelangelo can escape. The Pope conducts...».

Approfondimenti: Movie Review

Conosciuto anche con il titolo: Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy.

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