Prologue of Storaro's Rome: before the fifty-one images of La Civiltà Romana, the painting where three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro learned to see light.
Three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro has lit some of the most famous images in cinema. The lesson that shaped all of them came from a painting in a small church in the centre of Rome, a three-minute walk from the Pantheon.
It was the very beginning of his career. Storaro had just begun working as a cinematographer; his first film, made in 1968 with the director Franco Rossi, was shot in black and white. Behind him were nine years of study in photography and cinematography. He knew lenses, film stock and exposure, everything a camera could do. One day he was walking near Piazza Navona with his wife, Antonia, and they stepped into the church of San Luigi dei Francesi.
A ray of light across the dark
In the Contarelli Chapel, at the back of the church on the left, hang three canvases Caravaggio painted on the life of Saint Matthew. The first is The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600).
The scene is ordinary: a dim room, a table, a few men counting coins. Matthew is a tax collector. On the right, half in shadow, Christ raises his hand and points. And from somewhere high on the right, outside the picture, a single beam of sunlight crosses the darkness above the table and lands on the men.
Storaro understood that the light was not decoration. It was the story. As he has explained it, that one ray separates the dark of the room from the light, the past from the future, the human from the divine. Caravaggio did not paint it to show the room; he used it to tell us where to look and what was about to change.
"It took my breath away."
Vittorio Storaro on The Calling of Saint Matthew, MovieMaker, 2008
Technology, but not art
The painting also showed him what he was missing. He has said that in all his years of study, no one had ever mentioned Caravaggio to him. Standing in front of that beam of light, he saw himself clearly:
"I was very knowledgeable in technology but I was very ignorant about art."
Vittorio Storaro on discovering Caravaggio, Film and Digital Times, 2015
So he set out to learn what the camera could not teach him. He began to read, to listen to music, to look at painting, to study the past, convinced that the light of a film must start from an idea, not from a technique. He came to call Caravaggio the first author of cinematography (AFC), and he gave his own work a name that would become the title of his books: Writing with Light. Not painting with light. Writing, because light tells a story.
From one beam of light to three Oscars
That idea runs through everything that followed. In The Conformist (1970) he staged Plato's myth of the cave with light and shadow; he has said the idea came to him while looking at Caravaggio. His life's work grew from that conflict of light and darkness into a study of colour and then of the elements, and it brought him three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography: Apocalypse Now (1980), Reds (1982) and The Last Emperor (1988).
Four decades later, the circle closed. Storaro was the cinematographer of Caravaggio, the Rai 1 miniseries directed by Angelo Longoni, with Alessio Boni as the painter, broadcast in 2008. He lit most scenes to look natural, so that the moments seen through Caravaggio's own eyes would stand apart, and he left blue out, because Caravaggio almost never used it.
Three minutes from the Pantheon
Walk out of San Luigi dei Francesi, turn toward Piazza della Rotonda, and in about three minutes you are standing under another beam of light: the sun falling through the oculus of the Pantheon.
Storaro photographed that light too, during the five-year journey through the Roman world that became La Civiltà Romana. His image of the Pantheon was created with a film camera. A double exposure made directly on the same negative, in a single frame. No Photoshop. First the sunlight through the oculus, then the goddess Diana. It is the same lesson he learned in front of Caravaggio: light decides what we see. Read the story of the Pantheon image.
When you visit San Luigi dei Francesi
- Where: Piazza di San Luigi de' Francesi, between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.
- Entry: free. It is a working church, so opening hours vary and visits pause during services; check before you go.
- What to look for: the Contarelli Chapel, at the back on the left, with The Calling, The Inspiration and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.
- Look the way Storaro did: before you look at the faces, find where the light comes from. Then follow it.
- Two more Caravaggios close by: the Madonna of Loreto in the church of Sant'Agostino, a two-minute walk away, and the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo.
- Then walk on to the Pantheon and look up.
LISTEN
Hear the story of the Pantheon image in Vittorio Storaro's words. About two minutes.
The artwork
The Pantheon by Vittorio Storaro, from La Civiltà Romana, is available as a photo print on fine art paper, an acrylic print and a canvas print.
Questions
Which painting changed Vittorio Storaro's way of seeing?
Caravaggio's The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600), in the Contarelli Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. He saw it with his wife Antonia at the start of his career and has said it completely changed his vision.
What does "Writing with Light" mean?
It is Storaro's name for his work, and the title of his books: light is used like a language, to tell a story, not only to make an image visible.
Did Storaro ever film Caravaggio's life?
Yes. He was the cinematographer of Caravaggio, the 2008 Rai 1 miniseries directed by Angelo Longoni, with Alessio Boni as the painter.
How far is San Luigi dei Francesi from the Pantheon?
About a three-minute walk.
Sources. Storaro on Caravaggio: Film and Digital Times, "The Calling of Vittorio Storaro" (2015); MovieMaker, "Vittorio Storaro Paints With His Camera" (2008); AFC interview. Painting: Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599–1600, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Storaro's Rome follows the images of La Civiltà Romana one by one, each with its place in Rome and its story. See all the stories or listen to every story told so far.