Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

John Maybury

Writer:

John Maybury (writer)

Release Date:

7 October 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama

Tagline:

Study for a portrait of Francis Bacon.

Plot:

Biography of British painter Francis Bacon focuses on his relationship with his lover, George Dyer, a former small time crook.

Plot Keywords:

Francis Bacon | Burglar | Painter | Drinking | Bed

Awards:

7 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

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

Also Known As:

Love Is the Devil (France) (UK) (short title)
Ai no akuma (Japan)
Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (USA)

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

UK | France | Japan

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

New Zealand:R18 | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Norway:15 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:18

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

Several of the extras, including Daniel Farson and Sandy Fawkes, were real-life acquaintances of Francis Bacon.

Quotes:

Francis Bacon: Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Jubilee: A Time Less Golden (2003) (V)

Hauntingly evil

This film will insinuate itself into the images under your closed eyelids. Meat, blood, cuts, scars, wounds, assassinations, executions, dismemberments, car accidents, beatings, and burnings will all rush together in an explosion of pain, longing, and unsatisfied hungers. Homosexual sado-masochism, not gay love. The absolute evil of pure genius. A paint brush slashes the spirit as a razor, the body. The tormented torments; the masochist punishes the sadist. Flesh is set aflame with a cigarette, not a kiss. Francis Bacon is the one true artist of the postwar era. He understood that humanity had irrevocably crossed the barrier between reason and madness. This film casts us into the abyss of the collective unconscious where we may swim or be burned to a crisp. Hold your eyelids open with sharp orange toothpicks and suck on the bloody images. Watch the film five times and then seek out Bacon's work, at least in books, if not in museums. Perhaps then your unspoken thirst may be quenched and you will grasp the 20th Century before you plummet into the 21st.