WORDS DON'T ADEQUATELY EXPRESS PAINTER BACON'S SADISTIC NATURE.Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic It comes as no shock that Francis Bacon, the British painter with the infernally in·fer·nal adj. 1. a. Of or relating to a lower world of the dead. b. Of or relating to hell: infernal punishments; infernal powers. 2. fertile imagination for depicting souls in agony, was a pretty nasty piece of work himself. What is shocking, at least in the way writer-director John Maybury presents it in his movie ``Love Is the Devil,'' is that Bacon was such a lame sadist. Focusing on a segment of the Swinging '60s, when Bacon's emotional cruelty drove his lover and model George Dyer to suicidal depression, the film more convincingly gives the impression that poor, dumb George was undone by listening to Bacon's sniveling sniv·el intr.v. sniv·eled or sniv·elled, sniv·el·ing or sniv·el·ling, sniv·els 1. To sniffle. 2. To complain or whine tearfully. 3. To run at the nose. n. 1. excuses for witticisms all the time. ``Champagne for my real friends; real pain for my sham friends,'' Bacon (Derek Jacobi) snips as he enters a pubful of abuse-loving perverts, and that's about as bon as his mots ever get. I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. what Bacon's personality was really like, but it seems logical that a man with so harrowing a talent for visual expression could sometimes speak in lines that didn't sound lifted from a third-rate drag queen drag queen Female impersonator, gynemimetic Sexology A ♂ with ♀ affect–often 'overplayed'; a ♂ homosexual and ♀ wannabe, with ♂ genitalia; DQs may take hormones to ↑ breasts, and thus are hormonally, but not surgically revue. There's a fascinating transference TRANSFERENCE, Scotch law. The name of an action by which a suit, which was pending at the time the parties died, is transferred from the deceased to his representatives, in the same condition in which it stood formerly. going on here between Bacon and Dyer (played with a lot of trembling and perspiration by Daniel Craig); as long, at least, as they keep their mouths shut about it. Bacon met the Cockney crook while the latter was burglarizing his studio. The artist, of course, wasted no time blackmailing the hunky hun·ky 1 n. pl. hun·kies Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a person, especially a laborer, from east-central Europe. thief into bed. He even encouraged Dyer to take the upper hand in their bondage games. But in all other aspects of their relationship, Bacon dominated the intellectually limited Dyer. In public and private, the poor dope was constantly criticized and embarrassed - and by Bacon's circle of roadshow Noel Cowards, no less. No wonder he turned to drugs. On the formal front, Derek Jarman protege Maybury is incorrigibly in·cor·ri·gi·ble adj. 1. Incapable of being corrected or reformed: an incorrigible criminal. 2. Firmly rooted; ineradicable: incorrigible faults. 3. artsy art·sy adj. art·si·er, art·si·est Informal Arty. , but interestingly so. Employing distorting lenses, shadowy compositions punctuated by splatters of vivid color and all manner of weird angles and foreground clutter, he comes close to approximating the elongated e·lon·gate tr. & intr.v. e·lon·gat·ed, e·lon·gat·ing, e·lon·gates To make or grow longer. adj. or elongated 1. Made longer; extended. 2. Having more length than width; slender. , twisted hellscapes of Bacon's paintings. Paintings which, perversely, Maybury never shows us. I don't know if there was a problem with the Bacon estate or what, but it plays like another misjudged aesthetic strategy. ``Love Is the Devil'' is hardly without merit. It shows us, in excruciating but bold detail, how a toxic relationship can fuel unique and vital creativity. It just shouldn't have left us asking whether so much bad, ironic dialogue was worth all the torment. THE FACTS The film: ``Love Is the Devil'' (NR; sex, nudity, language, drug use, violence). The stars: Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton. Behind the scenes: Written and directed by John Maybury. Produced by Chiara Menage. Released by Strand Releasing. Running time: One hour, 30 minutes. Playing: Town Center 5, Encino; Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Westside Pavilion, West L.A. Our rating: Two and one half stars. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: British painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi) is portrayed as artistically imaginative but verbally dull in ``Love Is the Devil.'' |
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