The time is 1964. The place is Paris. The specific locale is an art studio at 46 Rue Hippolyte Maindron. This is dowdy living and working environment of the Giacometti brothers, Diego and Alberto.
The film focuses on the craft of Alberto Giacometti, as he enlists the homosexual author James Lord to sit for a portrait. The film is intended as a kind of love letter to Giacometti, as told by Lord thinking back on his experience sitting for the great Swiss artist.
Geoffrey Rush gives another one of his quirky performances as the eccentric artist. Rush's portrait is that of an artist plagued by self-doubts in his own abilities and of a human being that is callous to those around him. His insecurity and insensitivity leads to a frustrating pattern of stopping and starting of the portrait of Lord. The frustration extends from the sitter James Lord to the audience attempting to make it to the end of this film.
One of the flaws of the film is that the mundane idea of sitting for an artist was not made interesting. In "The Girl With the Pearl Earring," the relationship of Vermeer and the young woman who was his sitter was carefully detailed, which made the film intriguing. By contrast, "Final Portrait" was static without a clear motivation for Lord to keep coming back for the unpleasant sittings.
There is an interesting moment in the film when Giacometti stops work on the Lord portrait to work on another painting of the prostitute Caroline. But when we see the portrait of Caroline, it looks exactly like that of the painting of Lord! The filmmakers failed to capture the artistic process where an artist of Giacometti's stature would have sought more completely to capture the soul of the sitter, leading to differences in the approaches to the two portraits.
The shabby working conditions in the filthy studio and the erratic lifestyle of Giacometti made the film an uninspiring experience. Instead of seeking to capture the essence of the creative process of an artist, the final portrait of Alberto Giacometti was rather pathetic.
The film focuses on the craft of Alberto Giacometti, as he enlists the homosexual author James Lord to sit for a portrait. The film is intended as a kind of love letter to Giacometti, as told by Lord thinking back on his experience sitting for the great Swiss artist.
Geoffrey Rush gives another one of his quirky performances as the eccentric artist. Rush's portrait is that of an artist plagued by self-doubts in his own abilities and of a human being that is callous to those around him. His insecurity and insensitivity leads to a frustrating pattern of stopping and starting of the portrait of Lord. The frustration extends from the sitter James Lord to the audience attempting to make it to the end of this film.
One of the flaws of the film is that the mundane idea of sitting for an artist was not made interesting. In "The Girl With the Pearl Earring," the relationship of Vermeer and the young woman who was his sitter was carefully detailed, which made the film intriguing. By contrast, "Final Portrait" was static without a clear motivation for Lord to keep coming back for the unpleasant sittings.
There is an interesting moment in the film when Giacometti stops work on the Lord portrait to work on another painting of the prostitute Caroline. But when we see the portrait of Caroline, it looks exactly like that of the painting of Lord! The filmmakers failed to capture the artistic process where an artist of Giacometti's stature would have sought more completely to capture the soul of the sitter, leading to differences in the approaches to the two portraits.
The shabby working conditions in the filthy studio and the erratic lifestyle of Giacometti made the film an uninspiring experience. Instead of seeking to capture the essence of the creative process of an artist, the final portrait of Alberto Giacometti was rather pathetic.