Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
September. 16,1998In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.
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Too much of everything
best movie i've ever seen.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
This is very much a downer of a movie. This is not an LGBT-themed movie for anyone expecting a good time. Both Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig give good performances, and the film has good production values. But ... this is a dreary, dull and plodding film. Daniel Craig took quite a risk portraying the self-destructive and amoral lover. From seeing him in this, one would never guess that he would be the next actor to portray James Bond in "Casino Royale" in 2006. An art house type of movie that is definitely not for everyone's taste.
This film is a bit of a mixed bag really. It divided people in half-one praising it unreservedly whilst the other deriding it and complaining. Personally, I can understand both aspects but I side with the former group.The whole film is like a surrealist painting but for me, the most unique scene from an artistic sense was the one in the pub, where Francis Bacon's circle of friends is introduced for the first time to the naive George Dyer. We see people's half-faces amidst a cloud of smoke and groggy reflections of featureless silhouettes on the grubby mirrored bar-front which, to me, was the perfect visual way in which to present the assortment of eccentric libertarians whom Francis Bacon counted among his nearest and dearest.I've also read so many complaints about the alleged disjointed nature of the scenes, with the second half of the film being peppered with montages of nightmarish surrealist scenarios that George Dyer finds himself in. Well, weren't these scenes part of the character that was Dyer? His insecurities and fears were imbued into the very fabric of his relationship with Bacon and ultimately led to his demise. No disjointedness there. Someone mentioned that Tilda Swinton is almost unrecognisable in this film--unrecognisable yes but brilliant none-the- less.The film on the whole is less about the two protagonists' lives and more about the nature of a relationship from the perspectives of the two people involved in it. Many found it shameful that Bacon's influence was not shown more or just that one small episode in his life merited a biographical film. But that's just it. This is not a biography. The title states: Love is the Devil: Study for a portrait of Francis Bacon. A portrait, not The portrait. This is an episode which speaks simply about a relationship and the universality of the two perspectives that defined it. The only point of objection I had at the end was the fact that very few people had even heard of the film which is easily one of Daniel Craig's best, not to mention Derek Jacobi.
This film makes "Bent" seem cheerful.It's hard to believe Francis Bacon could have been as hateful and negative as this. Worst was leaving his lover (for want of a better word) George Dyer out in the rain while a sadistic renter had his way with Bacon. Sorry, worst was his flippant remark when Andy Warhol (?) sympathised over Dyer's recent suicide.The story, and apparently the life, lacked the redeeming wit of Joe Orton's, as told in "Prick Up Your Ears". Unlike his close counterpart Kenneth Halliwell, there was no suggestion that Dyer was Bacon's muse or had given him more than visual inspiration. I got to wish - at least in the film - that Dyer had taken to Bacon with a hammer before killing himself, as Halliwell did to Orton.Yes, the film is fragmented and wild, like Bacon's paintings. But is that kind of imitation helpful to understand the painter? We got to see remarkably few actual Bacon paintings, and none of those for which he is famous.Best line: "Champagne for my real friends. Real pain for my sham friends."
This movie is a portrait of British painter Francis Bacon (played by Derek Jacobi) in the 1960s. In the beginning of the movie, a young man named Dyer (Daniel Craig), intent on burglarizing Bacon's flat, has a misstep and falls into his art studio. Bacon approaches him and...asks him to come to bed with him! Dyer agrees and this is the beginning of their tumultuous romantic and complex sexual relationship.This movie is really a focus on a relationship between people that are polar opposites. Bacon is a slightly mad artistic genius in his 50s, with snobby pretentious friends. Dyer is a naive 20 something working-class man who drinks too much. The only thing they have in common seems to be that Dyer's horrifying and bloody nightmares are very similar to Bacon's twisted paintings. As Bacon becomes more involved with his work and their differences become more pronounced, Dyer finds himself in a dark downward spiral. The scenes in this work like little vignettes. They are simultaneously visually stunning and repulsive--it is often like watching a painting that moves. The story is rather boring, but this movie is definitely worth seeing for its fantastic cinematography and frightening visuals. It looks like a nightmare come to life.My Rating: 6/10.