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Gay
New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut

CGiii Rating

CGiii365 | Drugs | Male Prostitution | Nudity

Public Rating

Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon

Country: UK, Language: English, 90 mins

Gay | Bio-pic | New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut | BFI Mediatheque | 1998
  • Director: John Maybury
  • Writer: John Maybury
  • Producer: Takashi Asai; Ben Gibson

CGiii Comment

A little too clever for its own good?

Perhaps...but, a compelling sliver of Bacon's life - expertly portrayed by Jacobi and Craig.

It does help if you possess prior knowledge of Bacon's work.

Sophisticated...although it will alienate potential audiences.

Maybury, to those who appreciate him, is a director of considerable talent and vision. Sometimes.

Trailer...

The(ir) Blurb...

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992) surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, 30 years Bacon's junior, accepts. Bacon finds Dyer's amorality and innocence attractive, introducing him to his Soho pals. In their sex life, Dyer dominates, Bacon is the masochist. Dyer's bouts with depression, his drinking and pill popping, and his satanic nightmares strain the relationship, as does his pain with Bacon's casual infidelities. Bacon paints, talks with wit, and, as Dyer spins out of control, begins to find him tiresome. Could Bacon care less?

Cast & Characters

Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon;
Daniel Craig as George Dyer;
Tilda Swinton as Muriel Belcher;
Anne Lambton as Isabel Rawsthorne;
Adrian Scarborough as Daniel Farson;
Karl Johnson as John Deakin;
Annabel Brooks as Henrietta Moraes;
Richard Newbould as Blond Billy;
Ariel de Ravenel as French Official;
Tallulah as Ian Board;
Andy Linden as Ken Bidwell;
David Kennedy as Joe Furneval;
Gary Hume as Volker Dix;
Damian Dibben as Brighton Rent Boy;
Antony Cotton as Brighton Rent Boy

IMDb

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119577