John Maybury's LOVE IS THE DEVIL delivers an
unsettling depiction of the great painter Francis Bacon in phosphorescent-like intoxicants
of horror, anger, self-destruction, and love tormented. Derek Jacobi's absorbing
performance illustrates that there are many actors, and then there's Jacobi. His portrayal
of the volatile artist splatters the screen with violent hues and anguished visions.
Blended into this already terrifying palette is the master's tumultuous and tragic affair
with George Dyer (Daniel Craig), a man he wanted no part of, and yet a lover he could not
get enough of.
Mismatched and totally incompatible, the two meet when Dyer, a two-bit robber, randomly
crashes into Bacon's disheveled London atelier looking for valuables. Instead, he finds
only artwork that doesn't exactly look like the paint by number canvases. You can see him
wondering - Who lives here? The owner, who has been studying the rumpled stranger, notes
his strong, masculine body and cannot take his eyes off him. "Take your clothes
off!" he orders. And just like that, they become lovers.
But Bacon needs more than a pretty face. Snobbish, witty and successful, he cruelly
outshines the uneducated, unsophisticated Dyer. When he shows him off to his bitchy,
inebriated coterie at The Colony, someone calls out, "Who's Martha and who's
Arthur?" Everyone laughs except George who doesn't get any of the asides. His defense
is to say little and to smoke up a storm. At one point, your Show Biz Maven thought she
would die from all the noxious clouds, but since this took place in the late 60s and early
70s, you won't exactly hear anyone uttering the phrase, "Mind if I smoke?"
Bacon is comfortable in The Colony, his favorite haunt, where there are more social
outcasts than in a John Waters movie. Here a skillful writer and director like Maybury
transfers Bacon's distorted view of life to the screen. People's mouths become misshapen
through a bottle or a swill of the glass; their faces are twisted, looking as though
they've been shot in a Funhouse mirror. Only George's thick cigarette haze attempts to
neutralize the crowd, but even then the voices sound muted and brittle. Since everything
borders on the grotesque, why not the banquet scene where among the platefuls of food,
live lobsters flick their tentacles at the camera.
"Do I possess some inner destructive demon?" Bacon wonders aloud. From his
horrifying portraits of pain and terror, we'd have to say yes, Bacon was demonized.
Through his eyes people are caged on canvas. Unwittingly, that includes George Dyer, his
most celebrated model.
Daniel Craig offers up George in a one-two punch. He's sparse on dialogue, but conveys a
strong presence. You feel sorry for him as he tries to keep pace with the erudite Bacon,
but the best he can do is recite weather forecasts and horoscopes. Fed up by his lack of
knowledge and class, Bacon dismisses him with money to squander on "rent boys."
Yet the moment of truth comes when he's finally out of the house. When will he come back?
LOVE IS THE DEVIL, a BBC film, will shock some not acquainted with sado-masochism or gay
sex. The director sets the scene of two men preparing to make love, but first separating
their clothes in neat piles. We can see Bacon's fascination with George's chiseled face.
The cigarette smoke pours through the air and we notice a close-up of his eyelashes, then
his nose and hair. What we don't foresee is George burning his lover with a cigarette.
"It's George's mixture of amorality and innocence" that appealed to Bacon, but
as the years drift by, George spins out of control under the influence of drugs and
alcohol. Emotionally, physically and spiritually he is all used up, and the scenes showing
his downward spiral are crafted with a realism that will make some shift uneasily in their
seats.
Without self-respect, Dyer finds no incentive to live. It's a question of where and when
he will take his life. He chooses Paris where Bacon is hailed as one of the greatest
painters of the Twentieth Century. From that night on, the artist will see George only on
canvas, immortalized in his work. Yet it's that work that lifts the petty thief into the
pages of art history where he and Bacon will remain lovers forever.
With love & knishes from your Show Biz Maven.
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Comments?
Email: shobzmaven@aol.com
Web: http://www.i.am/lindamarie
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