Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon | |
---|---|
Directed by | John Maybury |
Written by | John Maybury |
Produced by | Takashi Asai and the BBC |
Starring | |
Music by | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Artificial Eye [1] |
Release date |
|
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon is a 1998 film produced by The British Film Institute and BBC Film. It was written and directed by John Maybury and stars Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig and Tilda Swinton. A fictional biography of painter Francis Bacon (Jacobi), it concentrates on his strained relationship with George Dyer (Craig), a small-time thief. The film draws heavily on the authorised biography of Bacon, The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon by Daniel Farson, and is dedicated to him.
It won three awards at the Edinburgh International Film Festival: Best New British Feature (director John Maybury) and two Best British Performance awards, one for Jacobi and the other for future James Bond actor Craig. The film was also screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. [2] Craig's performance was well received by critics, acknowledging it as his breakthrough role. [3]
When George Dyer, who is still a stranger to Francis Bacon, is caught by Bacon breaking and entering into Bacon's apartment studio, he seems to be in a bad position if Bacon decides to call for the police. Instead, Bacon looks him over and baldly propositions him after looking over his physique and his good looks. Bacon states that if the would-be criminal would be willing to spend the night with him in bed then he can take anything he wants from the apartment in the morning. Dyer considers his situation and decides to take Bacon up on his proposition and the two sleep together. The evening starts an enduring relationship between the two men as Bacon starts to introduce Dyer to his friends and to his art world in which he is already an established artist.
Bacon introduces Dyer to the pub scene which he is comfortable being seen in and comfortable being himself. Dyer starts to take an interest in Bacon's art and the talk about the primitive and brutal aspects of Bacon's art. While the two of them start to live together, Bacon sees himself as a free agent in an open relationship and occasionally meets other LGBT companions in local clubs or while gambling, whom he also beds with. When Dyer learns of these flings he takes it badly, and at one point even stashes some drugs in Bacon's apartment while calling the police to report it. Bacon is arrested, at first as a formality. Dyer apparently has taken out his anger and jealousy out on Bacon.
Later, Bacon decides to take Dyer with him on a trip to New York during which time Dyer stages a suicide attempt by threatening to jump off the hotel's rooftop where they are staying. Bacon talks him down, and after giving him another 'gift' check for 20,000 dollars decides that he will also offer to take Dyer to Paris on another one of Bacon's international trips. Dyer's drinking problems become more pronounced. He complains about Bacon to Bacon's friends and seems to have repeated incidents with the police. Meanwhile, Bacon tries to keep his creative art projects moving forward while he struggles with issues of his self-identity and growing fame by also indulging in a drug habit and taking pleasure in alcohol with his friends. Dyer begins to become something of a nuisance, possibly beyond Bacon's ability to tolerate him much longer.
After some debate, they decide they will go to Paris together. Dyer's problems with drink and drugs reach the level of his suffering from delirium tremens and he attempts suicide by overdosing on drugs. Bacon's success in Paris does not particularly help them in their relationship. Dyer succumbs to the drugs and Bacon is shown alone in his Paris apartment contemplating what it was like when Dyer was still alive and with him.
Love Is the Devil was released theatrically by Artificial Eye on 18 September 1998 in the UK and grossed £259,421 ($0.4 million). [4] It was released in the United States on 7 October 1998 and grossed $354,004, [5] for a worldwide total in excess of $0.8 million.
The film was first broadcast on BBC Two on 26 March 2000. [6]
Francis Bacon was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures.
Katherine Matilda Swinton is a British actress. She is known for playing eccentric and enigmatic characters, often working with auteur directors. She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a British Academy Film Award as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Young Adam is a 2003 British erotic drama film written and directed by David Mackenzie and starring Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton, Peter Mullan, Ewan Stewart and Emily Mortimer. The film is based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Alexander Trocchi.
Daniel James Negley Farson was a British writer and broadcaster, strongly identified with the early days of commercial television in the UK, when his sharp, investigative style contrasted with the BBC's more deferential culture.
Muriel Belcher (1908–1979) was an English nightclub owner and artist's model who founded and managed the private drinking club The Colony Room. The club opened in 1948 at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London and became known as "Muriel's". Its long term popularity amongst London's bohemians lasted for 60 years and is widely credited to the exclusivity resulting from Belcher's charisma, strong personality and daunting door policy as "a tough, sharp-tongued veteran of the Soho drinking club scene".
The Colony Room Club was a private members' drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London. It was founded and presided over by Muriel Belcher from its inception in 1948 until her death in 1979.
John Deakin was an English photographer, best known for his work centred on members of Francis Bacon's Soho inner circle. Bacon based a number of famous paintings on photographs he commissioned from Deakin, including Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, Henrietta Moraes on a Bed and Three Studies of Lucian Freud.
John Maybury is an English filmmaker and artist. He first came to prominence as the director of the music video for the Pet Shop Boys 1984 single "West End Girls". In 2005 he was named as one of the 100 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain.
John Mathieson is an English cinematographer and commercial director. He is one of a group of filmmakers who emerged from the music video industry of the late 1980s and 1990s. He is a frequent collaborator with director Ridley Scott, acting as director of photography on most of his films beginning with Gladiator (2000), for which he won a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. He has worked with directors like Joel Schumacher, Rowan Joffé, Matthew Vaughn, Guy Ritchie, James Mangold, and Rob Letterman.
Triptych, May–June 1973 is a triptych completed in 1973 by the Irish-born artist Francis Bacon (1909–1992). The oil-on-canvas was painted in memory of Bacon's lover George Dyer, who committed suicide on the eve of the artist's retrospective at Paris's Grand Palais on 24 October 1971. The triptych is a portrait of the moments before Dyer's death from an overdose of pills in their hotel room. Bacon was haunted and preoccupied by Dyer's loss for the remaining years of his life and painted many works based on both the actual suicide and the events of its aftermath. He admitted to friends that he never fully recovered, describing the 1973 triptych as an exorcism of his feelings of loss and guilt.
Annabel Brooks is a British actress who has appeared in films and on television since the 1980s. She was educated at Badminton School and Columbia University, before leaving to pursue acting.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is a 2011 psychological thriller drama film directed by Lynne Ramsay from a screenplay she co-wrote with Rory Stewart Kinnear, based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver. A long process of development and financing began in 2005, with filming commencing in April 2010.
The 19th London Film Critics Circle Awards, honouring the best in film for 1998, were announced by the London Film Critics Circle on 4 March 1999.
The Black Triptychs are a series of three triptychs painted by the British artist Francis Bacon between 1972 and 1974. Bacon admitted that they were created as an exorcism of his sense of loss following the suicide of his former lover and principal model, George Dyer. On the evening of 24 October 1971, two days before the opening of Bacon's career-making retrospective at the Grand Palais, Dyer, then 37, alcoholic, deeply insecure and suffering severe and long-term depression, committed suicide through an overdose of drink and barbiturates in a room at the Paris hotel Bacon had allowed him to share during a brief period of reconciliation following years of bitter recrimination.
Jack English is a photographer, known for his work in the film and music industry. He has taken stills for films such as The Fifth Element, Joan of Arc, Tyrannosaur, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 gothic fantasy comedy-drama film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright, Slimane Dazi and John Hurt. An international co-production between the United Kingdom and Germany, the film focuses on the romance between two vampires and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
The Dead Don't Die is a 2019 American absurdist zombie comedy film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It features an ensemble cast including Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits, Danny Glover, Caleb Landry Jones, Rosie Perez, Iggy Pop, Carol Kane, RZA, Austin Butler, and Selena Gomez and follows a small town's police force as they combat a sudden zombie invasion.
The Souvenir Part II is a 2021 drama film, written and directed by Joanna Hogg. It is a sequel to The Souvenir (2019). It stars Honor Swinton Byrne, Jaygann Ayeh, Richard Ayoade, James Spencer Ashworth, Harris Dickinson, Charlie Heaton, Joe Alwyn, and Tilda Swinton.
Memoria is a 2021 fantasy drama mystery film written, directed and co-produced by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, starring Tilda Swinton, Elkin Díaz, Jeanne Balibar, Juan Pablo Urrego and Daniel Giménez Cacho.
Michael Wojas was an English nightclub owner who ran The Colony Room Club in Dean Street in London's Soho district, from 1994 until he closed it in 2007, having inherited it from Ian Board who took it over from Muriel Belcher, who founded the private drinking club in 1948.