It seems apparent that in adapting The Agony and the Ecstasy to film (1965), scriptwriter Philip Dunne had artistic license in mind. He and the creative forces at Twentieth Century Fox Studios chose to concentrate only on the four years through which Michelangelo suffered pangs of creation as he painted the first book of the Bible on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Reviewers credit Dunne as having succeeded in conveying the tormenting struggles of a genius, as well as portraying two strong men whose opposition to each other often erupted in rage, but whose high regard for each other softened this anger. Tall, rugged Charlton Heston portrays Michelangelo as a willful man who argues with his pope, Pope Julius II, and insists his work should be in sculpture, not paint. Rex Harrison as Pope Julius.....
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