Love on the Edge
Everyone who reviews John Maybury's movie, seems to mention his 1998 film about Francis Bacon, . Maybury, who trained as a painter and moved into filmmaking under the wing of Derek Jarman, is also refreshingly opinionated - have a look at a conducted with him following the release of The Jacket (which also starred Keira Knightley) back in 2005. I'd never seen Love is the Devil and watched it for the first time last night. It actually made me quite excited about watching The Edge of Love, although I still had to laugh at the that compared the furore around 'Keira Sings' to 'Garbo Talks!'.
In the earlier film, Maybury manages to make a virtue of limitation. Having been refused permission to use Francis Bacon's paintings the film becomes a representation of the work as much as the life of the artist. Faces are distorted when seen through a wine glass, screaming figures appear in dark dreamscapes and the bathroom surface reflects back a triptych of flesh. The effect is very much like that of somebody being parachuted into Bacon's studio, which is exactly how Maybury starts the film. The performances are excellent, capturing brilliantly, and Daniel Craig manages to combine weakness and dignity as Bacon's lover George Dyer.
It will be interesting to see if Maybury can draw such strong performances from his quartet of actors, and if he can find as fresh an approach to representing poetry on film as he managed to for painting. In other news, watch out for a at Tate Britain this autumn.
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