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

London, 1964. Petty criminal George Dyer (Daniel Craig) breaks through the skylight into the studio of the painter Francis Bacon (Derek Jacobi). But instead of handing the intruder over to the police, Francis invites him into his bed. George becomes the famous artist’s lover, muse and model, and inspires some of his most celebrated paintings. Bacon introduces him to the bohemian circle around the Soho club “Colony Room” and its landlady Muriel Belcher (Tilda Swinton). But the sensitive Dyer remains an outsider there. As Bacon’s fame grows, his lover increasingly falls prey to alcohol, his nightmares and the artist’s cool cruelty. Because Bacon’s estate refused permission to use his paintings, not a single work appears in the film. Director John Maybury makes a virtue of necessity: with reflections, distortions and panes of glass, he translates Bacon’s deformed bodies into cinematic images. Jacobi shines as a charismatic cynic, and Craig, in one of his early roles, displays an impressive vulnerability. In film history, the work stands in the tradition of British queer cinema and of Derek Jarman, with whom Maybury had collaborated. Jarman’s “Caravaggio” is a close relative. A radical portrait of an artist that tells of Bacon’s imagery rather than his biography. “A highly artificial biographical film, refracted in many ways, about the English painter Francis Bacon and his long-standing relationship with George Dyer, a petty criminal from London’s East End [...]. Stylistically modelled on the painter’s work, the film paints an unsparing portrait of a brooding monster, yet skilfully maintains its balance through its formal design and minimalist music, and in its most intense moments evokes aesthetic experiences similar to those of Bacon’s paintings.” (Lexikon des Internationalen Films)