The film covers 10 years in the life of British bad-boy painter, Francis Bacon. Maybury chose to focus on their stormy relationship, as a window into Bacon's world. Unable to use Bacon' s actual paintings, Maybury shot the entire film as if it was a Bacon painting.
Images slide off the screen.
Entire scenes are filmed through cocktail glasses. Ryuchi Sakamoto's minimalist, staccato soundtrack surfaces throughout Maybury's plot. Strand Releasing is distributing the film in the United States, for what is rumored to be the most they have ever paid for a film. Actually it was a title I had planned for a completely different project three years ago. While I was writing the film, my decision early on was that it was secretly going to be the George Dyer story.