Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 9/6/2017)

Over footage of sculptor Marco Ambrosini working in his studio, the documentary opens with Michelangelo (James Faulkner) declaring, `From a thing of graceful and exotic beauty, from a fountain of mercy my suffering is born.' Cutting to the Caprese Michelangelo near Arezzo in Tuscany, the camera roves around the place where Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475, while Vasari (Laurence Kennedy) quotes from Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects to establish that father Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni claimed descent from the counts of Canossa.

Rather gushingly critic Jonathan Jones proclaims Michelangelo to be one of the all-time greats, alongside Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and Picasso, before averring that his works inspire greater awe with each viewing, as they invariably dealt with dark topics that he sums up as `the deep theory of stuff'. But he rightly points out that Michelangelo was fhe first celebrity artist, who collaborated on the two biographies written during his lifetime and excelled at painting, sculpting, designing buildings and military fortifications and composing verses. Art historian Jennifer Sliwka concurs, as she notes how Vasari almost hero-worshipped a polymath whose creations he considered `divine'.

As the focus shifts to the Villa Michelengelo in Settignano, critic Martin Gayford explains how the family had once rivalled the Medici for status. But its influence had waned by the time Michelangelo's mother died in 1481 and he left Florence to live with a nanny who was married to a stonecutter at the local quarry. As he later told Vasari, he breathed in stone dust with his milk and always knew where his destiny would lie. He also made sure that Condivi (David Rintoul) recorded that he regarded Lorenzo the Magnificent, the head of the ruling Medici clan, as his role model, as he was very much a Renaissance man, while also being a hard-nosed pragmatist. As Gayford reveals, Michelangelo was a similarly uncompromising operator and, in accepting commissions from various members of the Medici family, he amassed a considerable fortune, which he invested in property in Florence.

At the age of 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, who chose him along with Francesco Granacci to benefit from studying under Bertoldo di Giovanni (the last sculptor-disciple of Donatello) in the humanist academy that Lorenzo had founded in the 1480s. As Alessandro Cecchi (Director of the Casa Buonarotti in Florence) explains, the teenage Michelangelo produced two reliefs, `The Madonna of the Stairs' (c1492) and `The Battle of the Centaurs' (1491-92), which won him the favour of Lorenzo, who offered him a room in his villa. Demonstrating a mastery of technique at such an early age, these are the earliest known works to survive and the camera lingers over the intricacy of the figures hewn from a block of marble. Jones notes that this second piece of juvenilia is noteworthy because few artists depicted adolescents at this time and because it provided clues to Michelangelo's emerging sexual preferences.

Heartbroken by Lorenzo's death in April 1492, the 17 year-old Michelangelo produced a wooden crucifix for Santa Maria del Santo Spirito in Florence and Sliwka and Peter Abrahams (Professor Emeritus of Clinical Anatomy, Warwick Medical School) reveal how he made detailed studies of corpses some 50 years before the leading scientists of the period in order to understand the body shape. But he was soon invited to Rome by Jacopo Galli to carve `Bacchus' (1496-97) and Vasari enthuses about the way in which the smooth marble combined the slenderness of the youthful male with the fleshiness of the female form, as this was considered daringly different. Jones highlights the disconcerting expression in the eyes of the god of wine that suggests the all-encompassing sensation of surrendering to debauchery.

But Sliwka concentrates on the influence of such antiquarian works as `Laocoön and His Sons', which had been excavated in 1506 and placed on display in the Vatican. Their influence is evident in `Pietà' (1498-99), which he produced when he was just 24 for French cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas. As this was the only work he signed, Gayford insists that Michelangelo intended it as a calling card and its simply majesty is readily evident, as the camera roves around its current resting place in St Peter's Basilica. Artist Tania Kovats points out the landscape of drapery that helps Mary form a pyramid in which to cradle the limp figure of her son by providing strength in His moment of weakness. Sliwka also reflects on the tactile nature of the polished stone and mentions that Michelangel broke with the German Vesperbild tradition by making the Virgin seem serene rather than crestfallen.

Gayford describes how Michelangelo created this masterpiece from a single block of Carrara marble that had been excavated under his supervision in the famous quarries where Francesca Nicoli currently runs Laboratori Artistici Nicoli. As Ambrosini works, she explains why the composition of the local stone is so suitable for sculpture and goes through the various stages of creation from `roughing out' the block to `modelling', `finishing' and `polishing'. Kovats finds it magical that Michelangelo was able to produce items of rare beauty from inert rock.

Gayford and Jones discuss Michelangelo's poetry and the influence on his concepts of beauty of his Neo-Platonist education. Over a shot of `David Apollo' (1530), Jones also delves into his sexuality and how his celibate homosexuality enabled him to idealise the male form while also avoiding being burnt at the stake. We hear the madrigal `Come harò donque ardire' (with music by Bartolomeo Trombocino) being performed by soprano Kate Macoboy and lutist Robert Meunier, as the lens alights upon a number of infuriatingly unlabelled statues before the camera comes to rest in Sant'Agostino, where Arnold Nesselrath (Deputy Director, Vatican Museums), introduces `The Entombment' (1500-01). This unfinished side chapel altarpiece was one of Michelangelo's first paintings and is now in the National Gallery in London. Sliwka explains how it departed from traditional burial representations by showing Christ being lifted up by those taking him to the tomb, so that the emphasis falls on the allegorical idea of the Resurrection.

At this point, however, Michelangelo was summoned to Florence to create a statue of David (1501-04) from a block of Carrara marble that had been guarded by the Office of Works at the Cathedral of Santa Maria di Fiore since it had been blocked out by Agostino di Duccio in 1463. Gayford and a highly animated Nicoli recall how he worked in secret at fever pitch to produce a naked figure of exceptional virility and vivacity that Nicoli claims it as the greatest marble sculpture ever made, if only for the tension in the hands and the steely gaze of the eyes. Kovats says sculpture is about problem solving and it is easy to forget when looking at this towering figure that David was dwarfed by Goliath.

Realising they had something remarkable on their hands, the Florentine authorities assembled a committee that included Leonardo and Sandro Botticelli to decide where it should be housed, as it was too magnificent for the cathedral roof. Eventually, it was decided to place it outside the Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of the state. As Holly Trusted (Senior Curator of Sculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum) discloses, 19th-century cast-maker Clemente Papi made a replica that now occupies this spot, while the original resides in the Galleria dell'Accademia. Another of Papi's copies was presented to Queen Victoria by the Florentine government and Trusted delights in the fact that Michelangelo often left unfinished areas to remind the viewer that the work had been retrieved from living stone.

Condivi now takes up the tale, as Pope Julius II called Michelangelo back to Rome. At first, he was uncertain how best to employ him, but decided to commission his tomb and the next eight months were spent quarrying in Carrara with just two assistants and a horse. In a letter dated 2 May 1517, he complained to his father about the stone he was unearthing and Gayford reveals that it took four decades (1505-45) to complete a simplified version of his initial design. Famous works like `The Rebellious Slave' in the Louvre and the four unfinished slaves in the Accademia (1513-16) were started for this project. But a combination of distractions, Julius diverting funds for wars and St Peter's and Michelangelo's control-freakish refusal to delegate meant that he could never focus on the tomb, which he regarded as one of his disappointments.

The chief digression, of course, was the Sistine Chapel (1508-12), although architect Donato Bramante had tried to secure the commission for his kinsman, Raphael. Renovated by Sixtus IV, the chapel had an Old Testament theme and Michelangelo was asked to tell the story of Genesis in nine scenes. Jones says it's impossible not to look upwards without remembering the danger and pain the artist endured to realise his masterwork. He wrote a poem about being covered in colours while contorting in unnatural positions and, as this is read to the accompaniment of Asa Bennett's swelling score, the upwardly pointing camera moves slowly through the chapel to show the scale, complexity and magnificence of the fresco.

Nesselrath explains how Michelangelo divided three sections into three panels and started work on the story of Noah before moving on to the Ancestors of Christ. Julius proved a regular and impatient visitor and once threatened to have Michelangelo thrown off his scaffolding. But he completed the ceiling in time for All Saints' Day and Kovats remarks on the sculptural design of the figures and how the moment of touch between God and Adam keeps you returning to feel its power. Alessandro Cecchi also dwells on the artist's fascination with anatomy and he shows a sketch held at Casa Buonarotti from the unfinished `The Battle of Cascina' (c1504) that was destined for a wall in the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Following on from this rather poorly contextualised interlude, artist and conservator Philippa Abrahams talk us through the kind of materials that Michelangelo would have used. We see some of the clay maquettes he made while working on large statues and some preparatory sketches. She shows how to mix black ink before we hear a 1507 letter from Bologna to his brother complaining about the mistakes made by Master Bernardino in the casting of a bronze of Julius II.

However, the image we see is that of the panther riders that have been attributed to Michelangelo by Victoria Avery, the Keeper of Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. She explains the painstaking research that has gone into confirming the authenticity of works she suggests were created around the same time as the lost Julius II bronze. Peter Abrahams is astonished by the anatomical accuracy of the torsos at a time before any textbooks on the subject had been written. The presence of the triangle of auscaltation convinces him that the artist had dissected a cadaver and concludes that Michelangelo must be the creator as only he and Leonardo had investigated the body with such thoroughness.

Condivi moves the narrative on to 1520, as Pope Leo X decided to ornament the front of San Lorenzo in Florence with sculptures. This had been built by Cosimo de Medici and Gayford explains how Michelangelo trained himself to be an architect in order to reshape the façade (which only exists as a wooden model). But he did work on the new sacristy and the library, which Vasari wrote about with a sense of wonder. He particularly admires the figures of Night and Day and Dawn and Dusk on the sacristy tombs of Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. However, he was called away by the city fathers to design fortifications during the Siege of Florence (1529-30) during the War of the League of Cognac. Yet, while he completed his commission, a truce was declared and Michelangelo was only spared arrest by the intervention of Pope Clement VII.

Once again, a little more background information might have been provided here (although the reliance on primary sources does make this difficult). But Sergey Androsov (Head of Western European Fine Art at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg) reveals how Michelangelo had been protected by the monks of San Lorenzo. While hiding in the cellars, he had found a block of marble and had produced `Crouching Boy' (1530) and, while it is not finished, it reflected his refusal to buckle under pressure.

Eventually, he returned to work with Clement's blessing and Cecchi shows us sketches for the staircase in the vestibule of the Laurentian Library. He cites Vasari's contention that Michelangelo was head and shoulders above his contemporaries, who accepted the gulf between them. Cecchi and Gayford eulogise about this sweeping lava-like structure, while Nesselrath notes the playful use of a decorative column in the library itself. He also admires the dome of St Peter's and the Porta Pia in Rome before pointing us in the direction of Michelangelo's drawings. Martin Clayton (Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Collection Trust) shows us `The Fall of Phaeton' (c1533), which seems to have been presented to Tommaso de' Cavalieri (for whom he also wrote a sonnet) to warn him against the dangers of hubris. Clayton also presents `The Punishment of Tityus' (1533) and marvels at the physique of the giant having his liver gauged out by a vulture.

Around this same time, Pope Paul III brought the ageing Michelangelo back to Rome to paint `The Last Judgement' (1535-41) on the Sistine Chapel wall. As Gayford points out, salvation would have been on his mind and he includes the only known self-portrait within the flayed skin of St Bartholomew. Indeed, such was his awareness of his own mortality that the 72 year-old started work on `The Deposition' (1547-55) for his own tomb. As art historian Cristina Acidini states, Frustrated by working with a flawed piece of marble, Michelangelo took a hammer to the work, which was repaired with intricate care by Francesco Bandini and apprentice sculptor Tiberius Calcagni and it now rests in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence.

Some scholars believe that the figure of Nicodemus is a self-portrait reflecting Michelangelo's own doubts about his faith and his fate. Nesselrath admires his tenacity in continuing to work into old age, but Kovats notes that he destroyed a number of pieces in this period. She admits she has a problem with the notion of `genius', but thinks it has to apply in the case of Michelangelo, who has the last word, with the poetic lines: `To one whose taste is healthy and unspoiled, the work of the first art brings great delight: in wax or clay or stone it makes a likeness for us of the face, the gestures, the whole human body, and indeed gives greater life to the body's members. If destructive, harsh and boorish time then breaks, distorts or dismembers such a work, the beauty which first existed is remembered, and keeps for a better place.'

Michelangelo died in Rome on 10 February 1564 at the age of 88. His body was returned to Florence, where he was buried in the Basilica di Santa Croce. It might have been nice to see his tomb, but it's not always possible to gain access to such sites. But David Bickerstaff and producer Phil Grabsky have managed to get visit most of the places that matter in this ambitious and thoroughly accomplished profile. Working in tandem with fellow cinematographers Conall Freeley and Hugh Hood, Bickerstaff (who also served as his own editor) does particularly well in capturing the texture of the sculptures, with the lighting often recalling Carl Theodor Dreyer's gallery short, Thorvaldsen (1949). The views of the Sistine Chapel are also admirable, but Bickerstaff wisely avoids retelling a story still familiar to many from Carol Reed's The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965).

It seems a little odd that James Faulkner's Michelangelo speaks in an Italian accent when Laurence Kennedy's Vasari and David Rintoul's Condivi don't. But, while this is a minor quibble, the lack of in-depth analysis of Michelangelo's techniques across the disciplines is more frustrating. The assembled experts frequently assert that he left even his most gifted contemporaries trailing in his wake, but they make few considered comparisons of their methodology or approaches to their subject matter. In particular, it seems odd to ignore Raphael altogether, when Luca Viotto revealed how often their paths crossed, especially inside the Vatican. There's also a much greater emphasis on `death' than `love' in the overview, with the reluctance to explore Michelangelo's family ties, friendships and sexual preferences limiting the discussion of his personality.

Without a specific exhibition to anchor the film, this often feels more like one of Seventh Art's enjoyably informative lives of the great composers, This is no bad thing, as Bickerstaff ably captures the atmosphere of the galleries, chapels and public buildings in which Michelangelo's finest works are housed. But the greatest service this engaging and typically thoughtful treatise can perform is to send viewers out in search of the printed sources on which it draws, particularly Michelangelo's wonderful notebooks and poems.