Coming to a Theater Near You: The Vatican Museums in Glorious 3D

You never forget your first visit to the Sistine Chapel.  Every trip to Rome is a great privilege, even for seasoned travelers–what with the cobblestones and the trattorias, the glorious architecture and columns and saints buried in little chapels on every street.  Even a seasoned tourist can’t help but marvel at the magnificence of Renaissance art and the immensity of St. Peter’s Basilica.

But back to the Museum:  You buy a ticket and then you stand in line, waiting an hour or longer in the hot sun to gain admission to the Vatican Museums.  The art is familiar, inspirational… it’s the greatest museum you’ve ever visited, the world’s greatest collection of art.  It’s so big, in fact, that in a two-hour tour you’ll be forced to bypass many of the priceless works preserved within its walls.  Only if you lived in Rome–and could go back to the Museum day after day–could you hope to eventually see everything.

You’re hot, tired–but then your tour group enters the Sistine Chapel, and you’re left breathless at its beauty and its complexity and its holiness.  Here, Michelangelo spent months lying on his back on the scaffolding, bringing his characters to life.  Here papal masses have been celebrated, cardinals have debated and voted in conclaves, slips of paper and chemicals have been burned in the stove to signal the election of a new pontiff.  Even the trompe-l’oeil draperies which line the walls are impressive….

…and the ceiling!  Oh! The ceiling!

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 If you’ve never been to the Vatican Museums–or if you love to remember your visit–you’ll really enjoy “The Vatican Museums 3D”, a breathtaking documentary which will come to more than 500 American theaters for one day only on December 10, at 7:00 p.m. (local time).

Presented in RealD 3D*, The Vatican Museums 3D takes audiences on an extraordinary journey through the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel to discover some of the world’s most striking works of art collected by the Popes for over 500 years.  Theatergoers will admire the paintings of Caravaggio, touch Laocoön and the Belvedere Torso, and feel swathed by the figures in the Sistine Chapel all under the artful guidance of the Director of the Vatican Museums, Professor Antonio Paolucci.

This fully-immersive experience also includes a behind-the scenes look at never-before-seen art as well as exclusive interviews with Professor Paolucci; the film’s director, Marco Pianigiani; and the director of photography as they recall both the challenges and the triumphs involved in the making of this stunning event.

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It was my pleasure recently to interview Cosetta Lagani, producer of “The Vatican Museums 3D”.  Lagani, who supervised the editing of the movie, is also the director of Sky 3D Italian channel, which launched in September 11 and now has more than 400,000 channel subscribers.

I also had the opportunity to preview “The Vatican Museums 3D”–although I had to settle for a 2D version on my computer.  The 3D version which will be shown in theaters on Wednesday must, indeed, be marvelous–showcasing the interplay of light and shadows, the rich colors, the angles (such as filming upward toward galloping marble horses in the Museum’s Chariot Room).

In our conversation, Dr. Lagani shared the challenges of filming this epic while the Museum was open to the public.  After a three-month preparation, Lagani reported, the 40-person crew worked around the clock for eight days in March.  With 600,000 visitors to the Museum each month, the film crew had to find a way to shoot around the visitors, without disrupting the Museum’s busy schedule.  Then they went into post-production, skillfully interweaving Michelangelo’s final judgment and other noted works in the Museum’s halls.

Lagani explained that they had wanted to feature some of the Museum’s most famous works–by Caravaggio and Giotto and Michelangelo–but that they also wanted to introduce some little known works.

What does the future hold for Dr. Lagani and SpectiCast?  This 3D production teaches about only a few of the majestic works on exhibit in the Vatican Museums.  Would Dr. Lagani like to produce additional 3D films which continue the tour which this film begins–perhaps next time featuring also the Tower of the Winds or the Vatican Archives?  Yes, she told me.  She is about to release a new film on the canonization of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.  Next year, Lagani’s company will release a documentary on Florence and Assisi.  But yes, she would like very much to return to the Vatican Museums and continue to film there.

I asked Dr. Lagani about one aspect of the film:  There was a young, shirtless man who appeared between the segments of the film, and who puzzled me.  At first I thought he represented the young Michelangelo.  Who was he?  Lagani explained that he is, in fact, “the idea of the artist.”  When the documentary speaks about all the Popes and the creation, the torments of the artists, this man represents the creative process, which sometimes required artists to try again and again to produce the desired effect.

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“The Vatican Museums 3D” is a great film experience to share with family and friends during Advent.

TO FIND A THEATER NEAR YOU which will air “The Vatican Museums 3D” on December 10, and to purchase tickets, click here.

And here below, you can watch a preview of the documentary.