Search - Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon on DVD

Content Advisory: Violence, Nudity, Adult Language, Sexual Situations Movie Release: 1998 DVD Release: 04/04/2000 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 28 mins Studio: Strand Home Video Members Wishing: 8 Genres: Drama, Biopic [feature], Gay & Lesbian Films

This British biographical drama probes the life of painter Francis Bacon (1909-1992), critically acclaimed as the outstanding British painter of the latter half of the 20th Century. This unsympathetic portrait of Bacon (Derek Jacobi) begins when George Dyer (Daniel Craig), a small-time criminal from working-class East End environs, drops through a skylight to rob Bacon's studio -- and is ordered into bed by Bacon. The two become a familiar couple at Bacon's hangout, the Colony Room in Soho. Bacon's sexual interests lean toward S&M, but as the cruel Bacon loses interest in Dyer and begins to look elsewhere, the couple splits. Left to his own devices, Dyer turns to drugs and alcohol -- and a tragic suicide. Visual grotesqueries and a trancelike Ryuichi Sakamoto music score capture the essence of Bacon's work (although paintings by Bacon are not seen onscreen here). The film is told in the form of a flashback from Bacon's successful 1971 retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris to a period in the mid-'60s. Bacon biographer Daniel Farson (The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon) served as consultant on the film. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Derek Jacobi - Francis Bacon
Daniel Craig - George Dyer
Tilda Swinton - Muriel Belcher
Anne Lambton - Isabel Rawsthorne
Adrian Scarborough - Daniel Farson

John Maybury's biopic of Francis Bacon comes to DVD with a standard full-frame transfer. The English soundtrack is rendered in Dolby Digital Stereo. There are neither subtitles nor closed-captions on this release. Supplemental materials include theatrical trailers. This is a solid release from Strand. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide