In Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait for Francis Bacon<\/em>, Craig played the hot, young muse to Derek Jacobi\u2019s tormented older artist. The film is based on the true story of the tumultuous love affair\/war of attrition between Bacon\u2014the most celebrated British painter of the post-war era, whose mix of figurative representation and abstract grotesquerie brought out the brutality in beauty and visa-versa\u2014and George Dyer, a rough but sensitive small-time thief who literally falls from the sky into Bacon\u2019s life. There\u2019s was tragic story, ending as it did in the latter\u2019s suicide following years of addiction and depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What reads on paper like a depressing slog is, in the hands of writer-director John Maybury (best known at that point for directing the music video for The Pet Shop Boys\u2019 \u201cWest End Girls\u201d), as entrancing as it is hideous. It\u2019s an elliptical, literary, unabashedly artsy work that uses the techniques associated with the music video era\u2014speed ramping, extreme close-up, fish-eyed lenses, expressionistic use of color\u2014and alternatively highly detailed\/Brechtian set design to bring, as much as is possible, Bacon\u2019s signature aesthetic to life. The film is awash in a lonesome dread that, for whatever reason, seems to have been a specialty of \u201890s independent cinema, as seen in the works from that period from the likes of David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Paul Schrader, Claire Denis, Derek Jarman, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (One of the key figures of queer cinema, Jarman\u2019s influence looms the largest, which makes sense given Maybury was his protege. Maybury brings along Jarman collaborators Karl Johnson and Tilda Swinton, who turns in a memorable performance as the acid-tongued proprietress of Bacon\u2019s member\u2019s only club and den mother to London SoHo\u2019s queer set.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than just sound and fury, these stylistic choices are of a piece with the film\u2019s portrait of love, which, as one character describes it, is indistinguishable from unhappiness. This is a harsh, honest look at a relationship between two believably unpleasant people: Bacon, for all his genius, is a bitchy, cruel narcissist; while George is, in the words of his lover\/patron, \u201ca combination of amorality and innocence,\u201d at least up until he starts breaking down, at which point he becomes clingy and vindictive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, for as clear-eyed and unsentimental a portrait as Maybury paints, it is not cold-hearted. It may not contain the big, weepy scenes one expects from true life tales of star-crossed love, but the ending\u2014abrupt though it is\u2014is suffused with the overwhelming feeling of void that comes from losing someone close to you, even if (especially if) you intentionally pushed them away. It is a dark film, but not a nihilistic one; as Bacon says sincerely at one point, \u201cI\u2019m profoundly optimistic about nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Jacobi and Craig rightfully earned plaudits for their portrayals of the real-life figures. Craig would use that acclaim to land bigger and bigger roles until eventually becoming a megastar after being cast as James Bond. Now that he\u2019s retired from that franchise (even as he immediately landed another in Rian Johnson\u2019s hit Knives Out<\/em> series), he seems intent on doing the type of raw, humanistic work he made his name with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which brings us to Queer <\/em>and that aforementioned full circle. It\u2019s not merely that Craig is playing a gay character again, nor that he, at 56, has aged into the Jacobi role. It\u2019s that Guadagino\u2019s film has direct meta-connections to Love is the Devil<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Queer<\/em>, Craig plays Bill Lee, the stand-in for Burroughs who appeared throughout his early novels. Bacon and Burroughs were both lightning rods for controversy thanks to their extreme subject matter: violent, surreal, frightening scenes that were openly, even aggressively queer. While their styles and viewpoints were different\u2014one of Burroughs\u2019s quotes about said difference, \u201cHe likes middle-aged lorry drivers and I like young boys,\u201d finds its way into Craig\u2019s mouth in Love is the Devil<\/em>\u2014they found in each other kindred haunted spirits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They met one another when Burroughs was living in London, and again in Tangiers, in the 1950s. Tangiers holds a special importance in both men\u2019s lives: the ancient Moroccan city was where Burroughs fled after shooting and killing his wife, Joan Vollman, during a drunken game of William Tell; and it was where Bacon spent time with his first serious lover, Peter Lacey. The latter\u2019s relationship was built on brutality, both consensual\u2014Bacon\u2019s taste for S&M is depicted in Love is the Devil<\/em>\u2013and non-consensual, with Lacey nearly beating Bacon to death on more than one occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bacon and Burroughs would eventually leave Tangiers and go on to achieve a level of fame and acclaim neither could have foreseen, and they would remain friends until their deaths five years apart, in 1992 and 1997, respectively. Along with the quote about their taste in sexual partners, Love is the Devil<\/em> also includes a sly reference to Dr. Benway, the sinister figure that haunts the pages of Burroughs\u2019s most famous novel, Naked Lunch<\/em> (as well as its brilliant film adaptation<\/a>, which would make a hell of a great, if queasy, double feature with Love is the Devil<\/em>).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between Craig\u2019s star, Guadagnino\u2019s heat (especially post-Challengers<\/em>), and the A24 brand, Queer <\/em>is coming out (no pun intended) with a lot more hype (and money) than the BFI-produced Love is the Devil<\/em>. Hopefully, the built-in audience for the new film will find their way to its spiritual predecessor. It deserves to be seen for many reasons, but foremost amongst them, as a study for a portrait of its leading man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait for Francis Bacon” is streaming on Kanopy<\/a> and Hoopla<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/queer-1024x614.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n