LOVE IS THE DEVIL
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Strand Releasing Director: John Maybury Writer: John Maybury Cast: Derek Jacobi, Tilda Swinton, Anne Lambton, Annabel Brooks, Karl Johnson, Adrian Scarborough
Watching this movie about Francis Bacon, perhaps the greatest painter of the latter half of this century, I couldn't help thinking about Neil Simon. Like Bacon, Simon is tops in his field--not the greatest playwright, artistically speaking, but the most successful, one of the most prolific, in fact the most highly remunerated writer of plays in history. Despite the sniffing of some theater snobs, Neil Simon is nonpareil in his ability to shape a well-constructed work. So when are we to get a movie about him? Never. Why not? Because he wears a suit and tie, speaks normally, and has had a prosaically stable married life. What artists get movies made about them? Those whose lives are filled with great drama, preferably of the debauched kind. Thus we get Vincente Minelli's "Lust for Life," not because Vincent Van Gogh was a great painter, but because he was a great painter AND cut off his ear. Scott Hicks's "Shine" would never have been made if its accomplished pianist had not spent a good deal of his time babbling incoherently. Agnes Merlet's title character in her "Artemisia" was a splendid painter whose name would be unrecognized today if she did not insist on painting naked men in Renaissance Italy. Brian Gilbert made hay with "Wilde" because that late 19th century British writer was hounded by the Marquess of Queensbury until he wound up in jail for the "crime" of private, homosexual unions.
Along comes this picture about a painter about as unorthodox as the aforementioned who, despite his being a household name in England and France, is largely uncelebrated in the U.S. Ah but wait: he should be better known and he will be after the release of this movie. Americans may or may not go for what he did on canvas but they can relate to the sensationalism that surrounded him. Bacon was a homosexual who encircled himself with a demimonde of weird aesthetes, but what makes him a fascinating study is his novel relationship with a working-class stiff, a low-life petty burglar named George Dyer whom Bacon caught in the act of robbing his home. Rather than turn him in or scare him away, he seduces him into a seven-year relationship, paying him handsomely to be the model, the icon, of a great many of his paintings. He saves the man from his insignificance but ultimately steers him toward suicide. Therein lies the potential audience, thematically at least, for "Love is the Devil."
Yet this fascinating, disturbing, challenging, and poignant film is likely to be seen only by a select audience, an elite not of devotees of the brush but of fans of highly stylized, avant- garde filmmaking. John Maybury, its writer-director, has taken great pains to avoid the format of a static biopic. Instead, he has drenched the screen from time to time with a succession of fast-moving images to capture the ambiance, much more than the details, of the ill-fated affiliation. He has the good fortune to organize the skills of one of the world's great performers, Sir Derek Jacobi in the artist's role, and the talents of Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose atonal notes augment the eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere of the 90-minute work.
The story begins in 1964 as Bacon (Derek Jacobi) surprises burglar George Dyer (Daniel Craig), who has chuted himself into the painter's home and rummages about for something of value. "And who might you be?" the artist bellows, "You're not much of a burglar. Take your clothes off and come to bed and you can have whatever you want." With these words the lives of the two are forever altered, as Bacon uses Dyer to model a good deal of his paintings from 1964 to 1971 while Dyer struggles--with Bacon's financing--to shuck off his working-class culture and to fit into the artist's cloistered world.
Throughout their relationship, though Dyer has been custom-fitted with expensive suits, given money and trips to Paris and New York, he is no match for his Pygmalion. Gaining solace only when hanging out with rent boys in Parisian bars, he cannot match his benefactor's perpetual wit. The clever Bacon is in his element when mixing with women like models for nude photography with whom he shares drinks, toasting "Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends" and introducing his unconventional confederates with words like "Welcome to the concentration of camp." When Dyer complains of nightmares, Bacon quickly replies, "George, nightmares cannot be as horrific as life."
It comes as no surprise to learn that director John Maybury, himself an artist, has had experience making MTV videos. He amusingly hones in on his painter in the act of making up his face even more carefully than Bacon applies himself to his paintings. In fact while Francis is seen actually attacking his canvasses with the color, he deftly applies cosmetics to his eyelashes, powder his face and forehead, and whitens his teeth.
While Bacon often treats Dyer with contempt, lashing out at him for rustling newspapers and "babbling" and advising him to "get out," he has sublimated his rage most effectively in his work, as so many artists are able to do to tame their inner demons. Maybury intermittently interrupts the unorthodox narrative with images from the paintings, particularly one of a naked man, covered with blood from head to toe while sitting in a position similar to that found in the logo of the epic play, "Angels in America." The image keels over at the point in which Dyer swallows a bottle of pills with a bottle of liquor.
Maybury coaches a splendid performance from Derek Jacobi (as though it were possible to do otherwise), and while Daniel Craig cannot match one of the grand masters of British theater (though he could easily portray the nicotine addict from "The X-Files"), he does fine as the master's disturbed foil.
Toward the end of the movie, Bacon remarks "I want a picture to annihilate the rest." The entire movie may fall short of annihilating the other movies about painters, photographers and writers, but when you consider, especially, that this is Maybury's first feature film, "Love is the Devil" is an astonishing piece of work.
Not Rated. Running time: 90 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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