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John Maybury's new film, "Love Is the Devil," starring Sir Derek Jacobi as the great 20th-century British painter, Francis Bacon, is hardly a traditional biopic. This audacious first feature works as an open-ended, impressionistic essay which focuses on the stormy and sadomasochistic relationship between Bacon and his lover/model/muse George Dyer (beautifully played in the film by Daniel Craig), who committed suicide in Paris in 1971 just two days before Bacon's triumphant show at the Grand Palais. Inspired by Daniel Farson's memoir, "The Guilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon." (Farson himself acted as a consultant and viewed a rough cut of the film before he died), the film brilliantly evokes the era of '60s London, when Bacon and his friends would spend hours upon hours in such famous Soho watering holes as the Colony Room and French House. It was in the bitchy and alcoholic haze of these endless drinking sessions that the seeds to the end of Bacon's and Dyer's doomed love affair took root and grew. But it also resulted in Bacon's strongest and most beautiful paintings. It's an inspired
coupling: Jacobi, one of the great actors of the British classical
stage, and Maybury, a seasoned experimental video artist (not to mention
long-time friend and colleague of the late, filmmaker and painter, Derek
Jarman). They were both in town recently to talk about this challenging
and starkly beautiful film. 
DEREK JACOBI Derek Jacobi: Yes, there must have been some kind of sentimental cement that welded them together apart from the sex. Because when they were in public, certainly, Francis was pretty cruel to George. None of the friends really accepted George, I mean they accepted him, but they didn't make things easy for him. George was really a fish out of water, he came from the wrong side of the tracks, he had no great creative talent, and that in a sense, is what attracted Francis, too. He liked rough trade, that hint of criminality and danger: the roughness, the butchness of the man. But on a deeper level and in the wee small hours of the day, there must have been a bond. We had to fictionalize that bond. CS: Why
fictionalize?
DJ: Because we don't know, we can't know, there's no record of it. We could only guess what they said to each other in private, and guess at how soon Francis, on those terms, got bored and said, "Look, enough of this, get the cigarettes out." CS: And
speaking of the sadomasochistic component to the relationship, when it
comes to playing that, as an actor, and without getting too Freudian
about it, do you look into what might be at the base of such a
relationship? What childhood trauma might have led to this?
CS: Of
course, in this case, Bacon is a factual character…
DJ: Yes, and with a factual character rather than a fictional one, you've got a lot of help along the way, not only with books but also from the enormous amount of television coverage which exists of Francis. Also, a lot of his contemporaries and friends are still alive and still contactable. Many were in the film and were very helpful. They'd answer questions about Francis on any level that I cared to ask. CS: You
were made to look uncannily like Bacon, but did you also copy his look
and sound?
DJ: That was a big topic of conversation. I watched a lot of that television footage so I got to learn his body language. And he was also asthmatic so there was this physical rasp in his breathing which I tried to copy. But when it came to the actual sound of his voice, which was a very specific voice, I am not a mimic nor impressionist and I couldn't get it. I suppose if I had some training, I could have gotten it, but it would have become just about a voice. And when I talked to John about it, he said since we're not doing a biography, what we wanted was the spirit, the essence of the man. The tone, not the actual voice. And Daniel Farson said, "You look like him, you're walking like him, you're giving off Francis, it doesn't matter that you're not sounding exactly like Francis."
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Interview
by Stan Schwartz
DJ:
[You look at] all those things. I researched it. Bacon did have
a childhood full of trauma. He hated his father who was pretty ghastly
to him. His father once caught him dressing up in his mother's
clothes, and his reaction was to haul Bacon down to the stables and
have the stable boys flog him. Not the best start in life, I wouldn't
have thought, and certainly an early introduction to physical pain.
The father then proceeded when Francis was 16 to give him into the
company of his uncle, his father's brother, who took him on a trip to
Paris. Presumably his father didn't know, but the uncle was gay, and
he introduced Francis to the gay haunts in Paris. So by the late teens
he had experienced all the things that would become so much a part of
his private life later on. But as an actor you look at all that, and
one of the enjoyments is that you get to vicariously live the sort of
life you wouldn't otherwise be allowed to live, or otherwise by nature
want to live. And Francis and his talents, his lifestyle and desires
are a million miles from where I come from and my center. So are
Richard III and Macbeth. But it's fun imagining what it would be like.