El Greco

I was as much excited about watching this movie as i was disappointed when i finally watched it. There is talk about the film getting an Oscar, i don't see how, it had no depth, the characters seemed out of place, there was no built up in their relationships with each other. This is true in many parts of the film like in the case of Titiano El Greco's mentor. The part of Titiano was played by an extraordinary Greek actor whose lines weren't more than 3. There should have been more fire between the student and the mentor, more dialogue more give and take, unfortunately Moustakas wasn't let to demonstrate his enormous talent and to add to the film as much as he could have. This is very much the case with el Greco and Guevara who kept calling each other "old friend" with irony of course. Almost nothing was shown about their relationship and about their opposite philosophies. The movie kept jumping decades forward without even scratching the surface of the two characters psyche which is a shame because the interaction of the two could have been extremely interesting and stimulating. All in all it was a movie with nothing but beautiful bright colours,great music but no heart.

The screenplay is at times good, the sets and costumes passable, the story is good and nearer to the truth than most biopics -it even attempts to wove social and philosophical themes into the life of a gifted artist and his relationship with the man who admired him but could not become him.

But, the photography is standard fare -as if it were made for television. The cinematographer fails miserably to grasp the opportunity afforded by telling the life of a painter in authoring with light and shadow and colors. It seems they did nothing but use textbook light and print what was in the camera without any of the care that makes Spielberg's cinematographers worth applauding.

The direction is honest but it falls into the trap of directing actors in what to do and how to do it, instead of allowing them to breathe their own life into the film, for themselves. The actors, most of the time are the slaves of the cinematographer as puppets in ever-changing dramatic photographs.

Nick Ashdon portrayed the main character as well as he was allowed by a limp and insecure director -unfortunately watching Nick Ashdon as El Greco was an exercise in trying to remember that I was not watching Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love.

Juan Diego Botto as Niño de Guevara must have, in rehearsals, given director Smaragdis an expression from a certain camera angle that the director liked a lot, so he must have asked Botto to keep repeating it throughout the movie.

There are some really bizarre moments of editing that make you wonder whether the director was interfering in the editor's work without the skill to do so, or whether the editor sneaked-in a few cuts that the director missed before the release. Then again they might have both been trying to make a dramatic statement but the efforts bore no fruit.

This film is a genuinely honest effort by a genuine Greek director and crew to make a labor of love in telling the story and the soul of a great man. I urge you to watch it with this in mind. Because otherwise you will watch a film where the director, despite his passion, just didn't have what it takes.

First of all, I don't think it is at all a DVD movie but an enjoyable film to watch at the cinema. The aesthetic of the film captures the audience's attention throughout the film. I personally think that the photography is excellent in the film as well as the direction. It tends to be a bit slow and without a lot of action but the audience understands that the film is not about action as it is an artistic and cultural film that tries (successfully) to bring out the souls of the characters to touch the audience. I agree that Dimitra Matsouka's performance was not strong enough but the performance's of Nick Ashdon, Laia Marull and especially Juan Diego Botto are well appreciated. The scenery and costumes are an accurate capture of the time period and beautiful to watch on screen. The plot is original as there are certain twists that one would not expect (for example El Greco's relationship with women)and the music is exceptional. The film is generally a great attempt on showing the potential quality of the Greek film industry throughout Europe. I think that there must be a good reason for 'El Greco' already winning 8 awards including best director in the Thessaloniki film festival!!

This film is the biggest production of Greek movie history.It cost 10,5 mil$ and was directed by a Cretan director, who wanted to tell the story of the biggest Cretan painter, and one of the greatest painters of all time, El Greco. The passion ,the film was made off, is profound and you can spot it all over the screen.The music by Vangelis is superb,cinematography makes the film to look like a live painting, performances are great and extremely vivid, sets and costumes are glorious.The movie was filmed at three countries, Greece, Italy, and Spain, which where the countries El Greco lived and created his masterpieces.If you know the work of Greco, this film is a grate opportunity to learn a lot about his life and where his passion came from.

The tag line of this movie is "Can darkness overcome light?"

An interesting story about the notorious painter , architect , sculptor and architect Domenicos Theotokopoulos, known to the world as "El Greco". El Greco was born in Crete , which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the center of Post-Byzantine art . He trained and became a master within that tradition before traveling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. His works painted in Italy were influenced by the Venetian Renaissance style of the period, with agile, elongated figures reminiscent of Tintoretto and a chromatic framework that connects him to Titian . In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings. El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century . El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers .

This is a costumer partially based on facts but predominates the slow-moving melodrama . Historic film about an uncompromising artist , El Greco/Nick Clark and his relationship to lovers and powerful people from Renaissance . The picture relies heavily on the loving relationships between El Greco and his women as Francesa/Dimitra Matsouka and Jerónima De Las Cuevas/Laia Marull as well as the patronage and subsequent confrontation to Niño De Guevara , the General Inquisitor/Juan Diego Botto , that was painted on a famous painting. This is a moving biography of the prestigious painter and fighter for freedom , including some fictitious elements . Glamorously as well as sumptuously photographed by Stavrou , and being lavishly produced by Greece and Spain . The motion picture was professionally directed Yannis Smaragdis and filmed with a pervasive melancholy that does for slow drama .

The picture based on actual events , these are the followings : In 1577, El Greco migrated to Madrid, then to Toledo, where he produced his mature Works . At the time, Toledo was the religious capital of Spain and a populous city . In Rome, El Greco had earned the respect of some intellectuals, but was also facing the hostility of certain art critics . During the 1570s the huge monastery-palace of El Escorial was still under construction and Philip II of Spain was experiencing difficulties in finding good artists for the many large paintings required to decorate it. El Greco met Benito Arias Montano, a Spanish humanist and agent of Philip; Pedro Chacón, a clergyman; and Luis de Castilla, son of Diego de Castilla, the dean of the Cathedral of Toledo. El Greco's friendship with Castilla would secure his first large commissions in Toledo. He arrived in Toledo by July 1577, and signed contracts for a group of paintings that was to adorn the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo and for the renowned El Espolio. By September 1579 he had completed nine paintings for Santo Domingo, including The Trinity and The Assumption of the Virgin. These works would establish the painter's reputation in Toledo. El Greco did not plan to settle permanently in Toledo, since his final aim was to win the favor of Philip and make his mark in his court. Indeed, he did manage to secure two important commissions from the monarch: Allegory of the Holy League and Martyrdom of St. Maurice. However, the king did not like these works and placed the St Maurice altarpiece in the chapter-house rather than the intended chapel. He gave no further commissions to El Greco. The exact reasons for the king's dissatisfaction remain unclear. Some scholars have suggested that Philip did not like the inclusion of living persons in a religious scene; some others that El Greco's works violated a basic rule of the Counter-Reformation, namely that in the image the content was paramount rather than the style. Philip took a close interest in his artistic commissions, and had very decided tastes; a long sought-after sculpted Crucifixion by Benvenuto Cellini also failed to please when it arrived, and was likewise exiled to a less prominent place. In any case, Philip's dissatisfaction ended any hopes of royal patronage El Greco may have had . Lacking the favor of the king, El Greco was obliged to remain in Toledo, where he had been received in 1577 as a great painter. While "Crete gave him life and the painter's craft, Toledo a better homeland, where through Death he began to achieve eternal life" . On 12 March 1586 he obtained the commission for The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, now his best-known work. During these years he received several major commissions, and his workshop created pictorial and sculptural ensembles for a variety of religious institutions, as the commission of The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and for the Hospital of Saint John the Baptist , creating notorious paintings as The Disrobing of Christ , The Assumption of the Virgin , THe Holy Trinity , The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception .. In his mature works El Greco demonstrated a characteristic tendency to dramatize rather than to describe and the strong spiritual emotion transfers from painting directly to the audience . El Greco's preference for exceptionally tall and slender figures and elongated compositions, which served both his expressive purposes and aesthetic principles, led him to disregard the laws of nature and elongate his compositions to ever greater extents, particularly when they were destined for altarpieces .