Daniel Farson Movies
- 1998
- NR
- Add Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon to QueueAdd Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon to top of Queue
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
- Starring:
- Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, (more)
- 1960
Richard Attenborough stars in this British drama as Tom Curtis, an ordinary man with a job in a factory. A new employee, Travers (Alfred Burke), begins complaining about conditions at the plant and stirs up disharmony among his fellow workers. Tom thinks that there's something fishy about Travers and his methods, and when Travers decides to call a wildcat strike, Tom refuses to participate and makes a point of standing his ground. However, Travers and his ideas have attracted a groundswell of support in the factory, and Tom soon finds himself on the outs with his fellow employees as Travers drifts off to make trouble at another factory. Tom, however, still has to deal with the angry reprisals of the men, and his wife Anna (Pier Angeli) doesn't understand why he continues to hold so unpopular an opinion at the expense of his safety and well-being. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Anna Maria Pier Angeli, (more)
- 1957
The small but resourceful Scots island of Todday, introduced in the 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore!, made a return visit to movie screens in 1958's Rockets Galore--released in the U.S. as Mad Little Island. In the first film, the good people of Todday faced up to the appalling dilemma of a whisky shortage. Now we're in the space age, and Todday has been targeted as the location for a rocket-launching site. Banding together as before, the islanders do their best to sabotage the project under the unsuspecting noses of the blinkered British military. Mad Little Island was better received in America than it was in England, where it was perceived as an uninspired rewarming of yesterday's haggis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Carson, Donald Sinden, (more)
