Derek Jarman's CARAVAGGIO is a biography of painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the enfant terrible of the Italian Renaissance. Told in flashback as the dying artist recalls his short life, the story follows Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) through his childhood, his initial artistic failures, his later successes as he attracts the attention of a sympathetic cardinal, and his destructive relationship with a handsome gambler.