The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)

Rex Harrison: Pope Julius II

Photos 

Quotes 

• [repeated exchange] 

  Pope Julius II : When will you make an end?

  Michelangelo : When I am finished!

• Pope Julius II : And this is how you see man? Noble, beautiful, unafraid?

  Michelangelo : How else should I see him?

  Pope Julius II : As he is - corrupt and evil, his hands dripping with blood, destined for damnation. Your painting's beautiful, but false.

  Michelangelo : I cannot change my conception.

  Pope Julius II : You've taught me not to waste my time trying to change your conception. How did you arrive at this?

  Michelangelo : Well, I thought my idea for the panel was that man's evil he learned for himself, not from God.

  Pope Julius II : Yes.

  Michelangelo : I wanted to paint man as he was first created - innocent, still free of sin, grateful for the... the gift of life.

• Pope Julius II : What you have painted here, my son, is not a portrait of God. It's a proof of faith.

  Michelangelo : I hadn't thought that faith needed proof.

  Pope Julius II : Not if you're a saint, or an artist. I am merely a pope.

• Pope Julius II : You see, my son... how well we understand each other... when you don't shout?

• Pope Julius II : You dare to dicker with your pontiff?

• Pope Julius II : What runs in Michelangelo's veins is not blood. It's paint.

• Pope Julius II : You make a better priest than I do, Michelangelo. Yet I have tried to serve Him in the only way I know how.

• [last lines] 

  Michelangelo : It's only painted plaster, Holy Father.

  Pope Julius II : No, my son - it is more than that... much more. What has it taught you, Michelangelo?

  Michelangelo : That I am... not alone.

  Pope Julius II : And it has taught me that the world is not alone. When I stand before the throne, I shall throw your ceiling into the balance against my sins. Perhaps it will shorten my time in purgatory.

  Pope Julius II : [Michelangelo kneels and kisses the pope's ring]  ... To work, my son.

• Pope Julius II : What do you think we should do here? Bramante wants to pull it down. He likes pulling things down! No, I want to do something less destructive.

• Pope Julius II : It's a terrible thing to strive for a lifetime and come to the final realization that you have failed.

• Pope Julius II : I take no credit. I was moved by another hand - as easily and skillfully as you move your brush. Strange, how He works His will. Let us share pride in having been made His instruments.