With haute couture week in Paris concluded, the spotlight of the fashion world shifted en masse to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the village perched on the Maritime Alps in southern France. Simon Porte Jacquemus chose it as the location to present his new collection for 2024 in the Maeght Foundation, a few kilometers from Nice, calling together his high-profile friends Gigi Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, model (and girlfriend, reportedly, of Leonardo DiCaprio) Vittoria Ceretti and Deva Cassel (daughter of Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel) who paraded on a platform set up among the works of Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder and Alberto Giacometti.
Not surprisingly, the collection of 47 looks, both women’s and men’s, was given the name “Les Sculptures” by the French designer (who himself grew up in the south of France, in the town of Mallemort, not far from Marseille). The presentation showcased leather dresses with rounded shoulders and sleeves curving...
Not surprisingly, the collection of 47 looks, both women’s and men’s, was given the name “Les Sculptures” by the French designer (who himself grew up in the south of France, in the town of Mallemort, not far from Marseille). The presentation showcased leather dresses with rounded shoulders and sleeves curving...
- 1/30/2024
- by Pino Gagliardi
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci star as a couple traveling through England in an old Rv visiting friends and places from their past in “Supernova.” Check out the trailer for the film above, shared exclusively with Variety.
Written and directed by Harry Macqueen (“Hinterland”), “Supernova” is billed as a modern love story centered on Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci), partners of 20 years who are traveling the country in a bid to reconnect with their past amid Tusker’s early-onset dementia diagnosis. As the trip progresses, their relationship is tested like never before. Ultimately, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s irreparable illness.
Firth won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his portrayal of King George VI in “The King’s Speech.” His performance in “A Single Man” also won him a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination.
Written and directed by Harry Macqueen (“Hinterland”), “Supernova” is billed as a modern love story centered on Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci), partners of 20 years who are traveling the country in a bid to reconnect with their past amid Tusker’s early-onset dementia diagnosis. As the trip progresses, their relationship is tested like never before. Ultimately, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s irreparable illness.
Firth won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his portrayal of King George VI in “The King’s Speech.” His performance in “A Single Man” also won him a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination.
- 9/22/2020
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Theaters are starting to actually reopen this month with purpose, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be populated with the same amount of new, first-run films like they would have pre-covid. Just count the number of Netflix titles below to see how tiny things have shifted. With the predictions of a rough fall on the pandemic front, venues may be shutting down again very soon. So hedging bets is the way to go.
And it’s not like there aren’t some quality titles to choose from via streamers and VOD. Besides Tenet (September 4) doing its damnedest to retain its tent-pole blockbuster status, the little guy is king of September 2020.
Isolation
To prove as much, here’s a quartet of sheets highlighting a lead or pair of leads hell-bent on showing who’s king of their film.
First up is #Alive and its fantastic set-up with a...
And it’s not like there aren’t some quality titles to choose from via streamers and VOD. Besides Tenet (September 4) doing its damnedest to retain its tent-pole blockbuster status, the little guy is king of September 2020.
Isolation
To prove as much, here’s a quartet of sheets highlighting a lead or pair of leads hell-bent on showing who’s king of their film.
First up is #Alive and its fantastic set-up with a...
- 9/3/2020
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
With his animated short Memorable, director Bruno Collet aimed to capture dementia, as experienced by an aging painter.
Examining challenges to the artist’s marriage, as his dementia advances, Collet’s film is unlike many explorations of the aging process, in that it wasn’t spurred by personal experience. Instead, it was inspired by the experiences of William Utermohlen, an artist who passed away in 2007.
“William Utermohlen was a painter who had Alzheimer’s disease, and painted self-portraits throughout his life, even when he was very sick. I was really interested in the fact that, for the first time, [with] the painter, we got a glimpse of a real person who was suffering from the disease—not from a person outside,” the director explains. “It’s very touching, because if you look at his paintings, you can really see the evolution of the disease from beginning to end.”
Given his intention...
Examining challenges to the artist’s marriage, as his dementia advances, Collet’s film is unlike many explorations of the aging process, in that it wasn’t spurred by personal experience. Instead, it was inspired by the experiences of William Utermohlen, an artist who passed away in 2007.
“William Utermohlen was a painter who had Alzheimer’s disease, and painted self-portraits throughout his life, even when he was very sick. I was really interested in the fact that, for the first time, [with] the painter, we got a glimpse of a real person who was suffering from the disease—not from a person outside,” the director explains. “It’s very touching, because if you look at his paintings, you can really see the evolution of the disease from beginning to end.”
Given his intention...
- 1/28/2020
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Supported projects include hybrid animated feature Coppelia and German-Belgian co-production The Walking Man.
In its latest funding round announced early during the Efm, Flemish economic fund Screen Flanders is to pump €850,000 Euros into five new films and TV productions.
The list of supported projects includes hybrid animated feature Coppelia which combines classical ballet with animation; the German-Belgian co-production The Walking Man; and the Arte commissioned French-Belgian TV series Moloch. The Dutch-Belgian TV series Commandos and Viva Boma!, the fourth feature of the successful Flemish Fc De Kampioenen franchise will also receive support.
Through the Screen Flanders economic fund, the Flanders...
In its latest funding round announced early during the Efm, Flemish economic fund Screen Flanders is to pump €850,000 Euros into five new films and TV productions.
The list of supported projects includes hybrid animated feature Coppelia which combines classical ballet with animation; the German-Belgian co-production The Walking Man; and the Arte commissioned French-Belgian TV series Moloch. The Dutch-Belgian TV series Commandos and Viva Boma!, the fourth feature of the successful Flemish Fc De Kampioenen franchise will also receive support.
Through the Screen Flanders economic fund, the Flanders...
- 2/8/2019
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Academy Award-winner Geoffrey Rush and Golden Globe-nominee Armie Hammer star in the compelling story about artistic genius and the search for creative perfection in Final Portrait, debuting on DVD and digital July 31 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Adapted from James Lord’s memoir “A Giacometti Portrait,” the film was written and directed by Stanley Tucci and tells the story of famed artist Alberto Giacometti (Rush) who asks the American writer and art-lover James Lord (Hammer) to sit for a portrait which takes much longer than either of them anticipate. Final Portrait also stars Golden Globe-winner Tony Shalhoub (TVs “Monk” 2002; “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Sylvie Testud (La Vie en Rose) and Clémence Poésy (In Bruges).
The DVD release of Final Portrait includes interview clips from the cast and filmmakers, plus behind the scenes footage from the set.
Now you can own the Final Portrait on DVD. We Are Movie Geeks has 3 copies to give away.
The DVD release of Final Portrait includes interview clips from the cast and filmmakers, plus behind the scenes footage from the set.
Now you can own the Final Portrait on DVD. We Are Movie Geeks has 3 copies to give away.
- 8/10/2018
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Our resident VOD expert tells you what's new to rent and/or own this week via various Digital HD providers such as cable Movies On Demand, FandangoNOW, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play and, of course, Netflix. Cable Movies On Demand: Same-day-as-disc releases, older titles and pretheatrical The Miracle Season Tully Overboard Final Portrait (biographical drama about Swiss painter-sculptor Alberto Giacometti; Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy; rated R) Anything (romantic...
- 7/31/2018
- by Robert B. DeSalvo
- Movies.com
Time for a hefty dose of culture down at the ole’ multiplex. The cinema arts have often used iconic figures in the other arts for inspiration and drama. Films have been based on the lives of writers, composers, musicians, and performers. Since the movies are such a visual medium, it’s only natural that they would veer into the worlds of illustration and fine art. Over the last few years, a cinematic art museum has featured lauded film biographies like Mr. Turner, Pollock, and last year’s Oscar-nominated wonder Loving Vincent. Really, Van Gough has been the focus or supporting character in several films, as have DaVinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, even Warhol. Now add another to that roster with this film about the 20th century sculptor Alberto Giacometti. But in this docudrama he’s not working his magic with clay and plaster. This story is told by the subject of his...
- 4/12/2018
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Chicago – Paris in the 1960s seems to be a place where anything was possible. “Final Portrait” is an indication of this, as Armie Hammer portrays a Mad Men style American critic (what!) in 1964, who sits for a portrait painting by eccentric artist Alberto Giacometti, portrayed with relish by Geoffrey Rush.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The film is written and directed by actor Stanley Tucci, and is his fifth directorial effort. And he brings along one of the lucky performers from his first film, “Big Night,” an unrecognizable Tony Shalhoub (“Monk”). The film – based on a true story – is deliberately paced, expressing the more leisurely and deeply felt times. One of the funnier bits is Hammer’s character constantly changing his airline flight as the portrait sitting goes on, something that may be impossible with such ease today (or with many fees attached). This is mostly a fascinating character study, as Geoffrey Rush has...
Rating: 3.5/5.0
The film is written and directed by actor Stanley Tucci, and is his fifth directorial effort. And he brings along one of the lucky performers from his first film, “Big Night,” an unrecognizable Tony Shalhoub (“Monk”). The film – based on a true story – is deliberately paced, expressing the more leisurely and deeply felt times. One of the funnier bits is Hammer’s character constantly changing his airline flight as the portrait sitting goes on, something that may be impossible with such ease today (or with many fees attached). This is mostly a fascinating character study, as Geoffrey Rush has...
- 4/2/2018
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Stanley Tucci has spent the majority of his directing career telling stories about eccentric artists, but it wasn’t until “Final Portrait” that he seemed to find them annoying. The struggling chefs of “Big Night,” the struggling actors of “The Imposters” and the struggling author of “Joe Gould’s Secret” could be forgiven their obsessions and flaws because they have nothing else to show for their lifetimes of work. If they behaved the exact same way after they were critically acclaimed and financially successful, they would be completely insufferable, just like this film’s version of Alberto Giacometti. “Final Portrait” stars Geoffrey Rush as...
- 3/23/2018
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
Gird your loins — because there was an impromptu The Devil Wears Prada reunion at the premiere of Stanley Tucci‘s latest film!
At Thursday’s premiere of Tucci’s new movie Final Portrait, both Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt showed up to lend their support to the 57-year-old actor-director.
Although the trio didn’t pose all together at the event, Tucci was spotted smiling alongside Streep — with whom he also starred in 2009’s Julie & Julia — and cozying up with Blunt.
And there was at least one superfan of the 2006 film who was probably freaking out about the mini-reunion: Blunt’s husband John Krasinski,...
At Thursday’s premiere of Tucci’s new movie Final Portrait, both Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt showed up to lend their support to the 57-year-old actor-director.
Although the trio didn’t pose all together at the event, Tucci was spotted smiling alongside Streep — with whom he also starred in 2009’s Julie & Julia — and cozying up with Blunt.
And there was at least one superfan of the 2006 film who was probably freaking out about the mini-reunion: Blunt’s husband John Krasinski,...
- 3/23/2018
- by Maria Pasquini
- PEOPLE.com
The setting is Paris in 1964. Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush) has invited his friend, the American art writer James Lord (Armie Hammer), to pose for a portrait. Intrigued and flattered – Giacometti's elongated sculptures and paintings had made him world famous – the subject agrees to sit for the master. Expecting to model for a few days, Lord found himself at the mercy of the notoriously self-critical artist for three weeks.
That's the movie, a "mere" look at an artist at work in his chosen habitat. Giacometti's Paris studio, beautifully captured by production designer James Merifield,...
That's the movie, a "mere" look at an artist at work in his chosen habitat. Giacometti's Paris studio, beautifully captured by production designer James Merifield,...
- 3/21/2018
- Rollingstone.com
Armie Hammer’s “Call Me by Your Name” follow-up is another Sony Pictures Classics period piece that casts him as an American on a European excursion.
In Paris-set “Final Portrait” — Stanley Tucci’s first film as a writer/director since 2007 (“Blind Date”) — Hammer plays James Lord, a writer who agrees to sit for a 1964 session with Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). But hasty, distracted Giacometti demands weeks of Lord’s life, and 18 sessions altogether.
More than two decades later, Lord published a nearly 600-page biography of his late friend and patience-tester. Giacometti died in 1966 at age 64, shortly after traveling to New York for an exhibition of his sculptures, lithographs, and paintings at the Museum of Modern Art.
“Final Portrait” premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival, where it earned a B+ from IndieWire. Co-starring three-time Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub, Clémence Poésy (the “Harry Potter” films), and Sylvie Testud (“La Vie en Rose...
In Paris-set “Final Portrait” — Stanley Tucci’s first film as a writer/director since 2007 (“Blind Date”) — Hammer plays James Lord, a writer who agrees to sit for a 1964 session with Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). But hasty, distracted Giacometti demands weeks of Lord’s life, and 18 sessions altogether.
More than two decades later, Lord published a nearly 600-page biography of his late friend and patience-tester. Giacometti died in 1966 at age 64, shortly after traveling to New York for an exhibition of his sculptures, lithographs, and paintings at the Museum of Modern Art.
“Final Portrait” premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival, where it earned a B+ from IndieWire. Co-starring three-time Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub, Clémence Poésy (the “Harry Potter” films), and Sylvie Testud (“La Vie en Rose...
- 2/26/2018
- by Jenna Marotta
- Indiewire
Armie Hammer has been making the most of his Euro trip movie roles. Of course, he spent nearly all of last year basking in the warmth of the Italy set, Oscar contending “Call Me By Your Name.” Now the actor plays a handsome American in Paris in the upcoming “Final Portrait.”
Written and directed by Stanley Tucci, and co-starring Geoffrey Rush, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud, the film tells the true story of the relationship between James Lord and the painter Alberto Giacometti.
Written and directed by Stanley Tucci, and co-starring Geoffrey Rush, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud, the film tells the true story of the relationship between James Lord and the painter Alberto Giacometti.
- 2/26/2018
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
"Your whole life can be swallowed up..." Sony Pictures Classics has debuted a new official Us trailer for the film Final Portrait, which was one of my favorites from last year's Berlin Film Festival. Glad it's finally hitting Us theaters soon. The film stars Geoffrey Rush as accomplished Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, an eccentric painter and sculptor who lived in Paris for the the last years of his life. The story is all about his friendship with an American journalist named James Lord, played by Armie Hammer, who visited in the 1960s. Giacometti asked Lord to sit down for a portrait, to be finished in only a few days, but it ends up going on and on for months - his final portrait. This also stars Clémence Poésy and Tony Shalhoub. I wrote in my review from last year's Berlinale: "Rush gives such an outstanding performance, it's compelling and thoroughly enjoyable to watch him.
- 2/21/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
MaryAnn’s quick take… A bleakly funny, genteelly twisted gloss on the clichés of temperamental creative genius, via the relationship between an artist and his subject, one that questions the sometimes high personal price of great art. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto) women’s participation in this film
(learn more about this)
In Paris in 1964, Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush: Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge, Gods of Egypt) invites a friend, American journalist James Lord (Armie Hammer: Call Me by Your Name, Cars 3), to sit for a portrait. Lord is about to fly home to New York in a few days, but Giacometti promises that this favor to him will require “two to three hours, an afternoon at the most.”
Spoiler (not really): it takes quite a bit longer than that.
I’m “biast” (con): nothing
(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto) women’s participation in this film
(learn more about this)
In Paris in 1964, Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush: Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge, Gods of Egypt) invites a friend, American journalist James Lord (Armie Hammer: Call Me by Your Name, Cars 3), to sit for a portrait. Lord is about to fly home to New York in a few days, but Giacometti promises that this favor to him will require “two to three hours, an afternoon at the most.”
Spoiler (not really): it takes quite a bit longer than that.
- 1/10/2018
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
Author: Competitions
To mark the release of Final Portrait on 8th January, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on DVD.
In 1964, while on a short trip to Paris, the American writer and art-lover James Lord (Armie Hammer) is asked by his friend, the world-renowned artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), to sit for a portrait. The process, Giacometti assures Lord, will take only a few days. Flattered and intrigued, Lord agrees.
So, begins not only the story of a touching and offbeat friendship, but, seen through the eyes of Lord, a uniquely revealing insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and, at times, downright chaos of the artistic process. Final Portrait is a bewitching portrait of a genius, and of a friendship between two men who are utterly different, yet increasingly bonded through a single, ever-evolving act of creativity. It is a film which shines a light on the artistic process itself,...
To mark the release of Final Portrait on 8th January, we’ve been given 2 copies to give away on DVD.
In 1964, while on a short trip to Paris, the American writer and art-lover James Lord (Armie Hammer) is asked by his friend, the world-renowned artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), to sit for a portrait. The process, Giacometti assures Lord, will take only a few days. Flattered and intrigued, Lord agrees.
So, begins not only the story of a touching and offbeat friendship, but, seen through the eyes of Lord, a uniquely revealing insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and, at times, downright chaos of the artistic process. Final Portrait is a bewitching portrait of a genius, and of a friendship between two men who are utterly different, yet increasingly bonded through a single, ever-evolving act of creativity. It is a film which shines a light on the artistic process itself,...
- 1/2/2018
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Geoffrey Rush is overly whimsical but this drama about the Swiss artist gets the look just right
That estimable actor Stanley Tucci has proved his directing ability with films including Big Night, but he doesn’t quite convince in an art-historical anecdote that could be titled The Agony and the Neurosis. It’s based on American writer James Lord’s memoir of sitting for a portrait by Alberto Giacometti, a process that took much longer than expected because of the Swiss artist’s perfectionist prevarication.
Related: How Stanley Tucci's Big Night helped kick off an American dining revolution
Continue reading...
That estimable actor Stanley Tucci has proved his directing ability with films including Big Night, but he doesn’t quite convince in an art-historical anecdote that could be titled The Agony and the Neurosis. It’s based on American writer James Lord’s memoir of sitting for a portrait by Alberto Giacometti, a process that took much longer than expected because of the Swiss artist’s perfectionist prevarication.
Related: How Stanley Tucci's Big Night helped kick off an American dining revolution
Continue reading...
- 8/20/2017
- by Jonathan Romney
- The Guardian - Film News
Films about artist Alberto Giacometti and Jacques Cousteau, a raunchy buddy comedy, and Al Gore's new documentary...
- 8/16/2017
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- The Independent - Film
The star of In Bruges and Harry Potter on working with Stanley Tucci, Brexit and Le Pen, and her fears for generation Instagram
The French actor Clémence Poésy, 34, is best known for her roles in The Tunnel, In Bruges and as Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter films. In Stanley Tucci’s film of the life of artist Alberto Giacometti she plays opposite Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer. She lives in Paris and east London, and earlier this year gave birth to her first child, Liam.
Your character in Final Portrait is Giacometti’s mistress and muse, Caroline. She’s full of life and colour, but is very temperamental and often skittish. How did you want to play her?
I was constantly scared of her being too much. But Stanley had his film very clear in his head, and knew that the story needed that burst of energy at some points.
The French actor Clémence Poésy, 34, is best known for her roles in The Tunnel, In Bruges and as Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter films. In Stanley Tucci’s film of the life of artist Alberto Giacometti she plays opposite Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer. She lives in Paris and east London, and earlier this year gave birth to her first child, Liam.
Your character in Final Portrait is Giacometti’s mistress and muse, Caroline. She’s full of life and colour, but is very temperamental and often skittish. How did you want to play her?
I was constantly scared of her being too much. But Stanley had his film very clear in his head, and knew that the story needed that burst of energy at some points.
- 8/6/2017
- by Alex Clark
- The Guardian - Film News
Author: Zehra Phelan
After its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival back in February 2017, where it received rave reviews, Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait has finally released an endearing trailer.
Related: Final Portrait Review
Starring Geoffrey Rush as the eccentric and procrastinating artist Alberto Giacometti and Armie Hammer as the American writer James Lord, Final Portrait is written and directed by the exceptional Stanley Tucci.
In the trailer, Rush with an odd resemblance to Bob Dylan portrays the artistic genius with utter believability as his own self-doubt turns him into a grumpy perfectionist behind the canvas as Armie Hammer’s Lord becomes impatient at the amount of time it takes the man to create his portrait. Graced with light-hearted humour, Giacometti struggles with alcohol and dabbles in an extramarital affair in order to let loose.
“That’s the terrible thing: the more one works on a picture,
The...
After its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival back in February 2017, where it received rave reviews, Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait has finally released an endearing trailer.
Related: Final Portrait Review
Starring Geoffrey Rush as the eccentric and procrastinating artist Alberto Giacometti and Armie Hammer as the American writer James Lord, Final Portrait is written and directed by the exceptional Stanley Tucci.
In the trailer, Rush with an odd resemblance to Bob Dylan portrays the artistic genius with utter believability as his own self-doubt turns him into a grumpy perfectionist behind the canvas as Armie Hammer’s Lord becomes impatient at the amount of time it takes the man to create his portrait. Graced with light-hearted humour, Giacometti struggles with alcohol and dabbles in an extramarital affair in order to let loose.
“That’s the terrible thing: the more one works on a picture,
The...
- 7/10/2017
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
"It's like he's determined to remain completely unsatisfied." Vertigo has unveiled an official UK trailer for the film Final Portrait, an intriguing look at the work of acclaimed Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. The film stars Geoffrey Rush as Giacometti, an eccentric painter and sculptor who lived in Paris for the the last years of his life. The story is all about his friendship with an American journalist named James Lord, played by Armie Hammer, who visited in the 1960s. Giacometti asked Lord to sit down for a portrait, to be finished in only a few days, but it ends up going on and on for months - his final portrait. Also starring Clémence Poésy and Tony Shalhoub. I saw this film at the Berlin Film Festival and wrote in my review that: "Rush gives such an outstanding performance, it's compelling and thoroughly enjoyable to watch him." Here's the official UK...
- 7/5/2017
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
- 7/5/2017
- by Hunter Harris
- Vulture
Although he’s best known for his acting career, Stanley Tucci also gets behind the camera every so often and he’s now done so for the first time in a decade with Final Portrait. The film follows American writer James Lord (Armie Hammer) as he sits for the final portrait by artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). Following a premiere at this year’s Berlinale and ahead of a U.K. release this summer, the first trailer has now arrived.
“Enough footage of Alberto Giacometti exists to suggest that Geoffrey Rush is quite uncanny as the renowned surrealist sculptor in Final Portrait, a depiction of the seventeen days it took him to paint his last portrait, that of the American writer James Lord (played here by Armie Hammer),” we said in our review. “Based on Lord’s resulting 1965 book A Giacometti Portrait, it’s an elegant if somewhat unambitious piece...
“Enough footage of Alberto Giacometti exists to suggest that Geoffrey Rush is quite uncanny as the renowned surrealist sculptor in Final Portrait, a depiction of the seventeen days it took him to paint his last portrait, that of the American writer James Lord (played here by Armie Hammer),” we said in our review. “Based on Lord’s resulting 1965 book A Giacometti Portrait, it’s an elegant if somewhat unambitious piece...
- 7/5/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
We’re in the midst of the big summer holiday in North America, with Canadians coming off July 1st and Americans gearing up for July 4th. So, it’s the perfect time for the first trailer for an art dramedy about an eccentric painter, right? Well, the folks behind “Final Portrait” sure think so.
Starring Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud, and directed by Stanley Tucci, the film is “a charming, modest” look at the unique artistic process of painter Alberto Giacometti, as he hits down to compose a portrait of art-lover James Lord.
Continue reading First Trailer For ‘Final Portrait’ Starring Armie Hammer & Geoffrey Rush at The Playlist.
Starring Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud, and directed by Stanley Tucci, the film is “a charming, modest” look at the unique artistic process of painter Alberto Giacometti, as he hits down to compose a portrait of art-lover James Lord.
Continue reading First Trailer For ‘Final Portrait’ Starring Armie Hammer & Geoffrey Rush at The Playlist.
- 7/3/2017
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America to Stanley Tucci’s latest directorial outing, “Final Portrait,” from Riverstone Pictures. The film had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year in an out of competition gala screening.
Written and directed by Tucci, the film stars Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud and is produced by Gail Egan, Nik Bower and Ilann Girard and executive produced by Deepak Nayar, Fred Hogge and Ted Blumberg.
Read More: ‘Final Portrait’ Review: Armie Hammer and Geoffrey Rush Star in Stanley Tucci’s Engaging Biopic — Berlinale 2017
The historical feature is billed as “the story of the touching and offbeat friendship between American writer and art-lover James Lord and Alberto Giacometti, as seen through Lord’s eyes and revealing unique insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and sometimes the chaos of the artistic process.
Written and directed by Tucci, the film stars Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud and is produced by Gail Egan, Nik Bower and Ilann Girard and executive produced by Deepak Nayar, Fred Hogge and Ted Blumberg.
Read More: ‘Final Portrait’ Review: Armie Hammer and Geoffrey Rush Star in Stanley Tucci’s Engaging Biopic — Berlinale 2017
The historical feature is billed as “the story of the touching and offbeat friendship between American writer and art-lover James Lord and Alberto Giacometti, as seen through Lord’s eyes and revealing unique insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and sometimes the chaos of the artistic process.
- 5/17/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Film premiered out of competition in Berlin. HanWay handles international sales.
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait
The Riverstone Pictures film premiered out of competition in Berlin and tells the story of an offbeat friendship between American writer and art-lover James Lord and Alberto Giacometti.
The story takes place in 1964 as Lord is asked by Giacometti to sit for a portrait while on a short trip to Paris.
Tucci wrote and directed Final Portrait, which stars Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud.
Gail Egan, Nik Bower and Ilann Girard produced and executive producers are Deepak Nayar, Fred Hogge and Ted Blumberg.
“Giacometti’s work and life and Lord’s poignant memoir have fascinated me for years,” Tucci said. “To finally bring my adaptation to the screen with this extraordinary cast and crew has been indeed a pleasure and to have Sony Classics distributing is a great...
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait
The Riverstone Pictures film premiered out of competition in Berlin and tells the story of an offbeat friendship between American writer and art-lover James Lord and Alberto Giacometti.
The story takes place in 1964 as Lord is asked by Giacometti to sit for a portrait while on a short trip to Paris.
Tucci wrote and directed Final Portrait, which stars Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clémence Poésy, Tony Shalhoub and Sylvie Testud.
Gail Egan, Nik Bower and Ilann Girard produced and executive producers are Deepak Nayar, Fred Hogge and Ted Blumberg.
“Giacometti’s work and life and Lord’s poignant memoir have fascinated me for years,” Tucci said. “To finally bring my adaptation to the screen with this extraordinary cast and crew has been indeed a pleasure and to have Sony Classics distributing is a great...
- 5/17/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to Stanley Tucci's Final Portrait.
Written and directed by Tucci, the film tells the story of the friendship between American writer James Lord and Alberto Giacometti.
Final Portrait had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival out of competition.
THR's review of the 1964-set film stated: "Writer-director Stanley Tucci's fascination with the artistic process yields a lively character study if not quite a full-bodied exploration of the uneven relationship between painter and subject in Final Portrait."
The film also stars Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clemence Poesy, Tony...
Written and directed by Tucci, the film tells the story of the friendship between American writer James Lord and Alberto Giacometti.
Final Portrait had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival out of competition.
THR's review of the 1964-set film stated: "Writer-director Stanley Tucci's fascination with the artistic process yields a lively character study if not quite a full-bodied exploration of the uneven relationship between painter and subject in Final Portrait."
The film also stars Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Clemence Poesy, Tony...
- 5/17/2017
- by Rebecca Ford
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the U.S./Canada rights to Stanley Tucci's Final Portrait from Riverstone Pictures. The movie made its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival out of competition in a gala screening. Final Portrait follows the friendship between American writer and art-lover James Lord (Armie Hammer) and Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), as seen through Lord's eyes and revealing unique insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity…...
- 5/17/2017
- Deadline
Exclusive: Vertigo acquires project starring Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer and Clémence Poésy.
Vertigo Releasing has acquired Final Portrait, a biopic of Alberto Giacometti directed by Stanley Tucci, for the UK and Ireland.
Geoffrey Rush plays the Swiss painter and sculptor with Armie Hammer and Clémence Poésy co-starring.
Adapted from U.S. writer James Lord’s memoir A Giacometti Portrait, the film offers a window into the chaotic life of the artist in 1960s Paris.
Ed Caffrey from Vertigo Releasing and Nicole Mackey of Hanway Films struck the deal.
The film, a labour of love for Beauty And The Beast and Hunger Games star Tucci, premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
Vertigo are planning a summer 2017 release to coincide with Tate Modern’s Giacometti retrospective and are exploring opportunities to cross promote.
Gail Egan produces for Potboiler alongside Nik Bower for Riverstone Pictures and Ilann Girard for Arsam International. Riverstone Pictures fully financed...
Vertigo Releasing has acquired Final Portrait, a biopic of Alberto Giacometti directed by Stanley Tucci, for the UK and Ireland.
Geoffrey Rush plays the Swiss painter and sculptor with Armie Hammer and Clémence Poésy co-starring.
Adapted from U.S. writer James Lord’s memoir A Giacometti Portrait, the film offers a window into the chaotic life of the artist in 1960s Paris.
Ed Caffrey from Vertigo Releasing and Nicole Mackey of Hanway Films struck the deal.
The film, a labour of love for Beauty And The Beast and Hunger Games star Tucci, premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
Vertigo are planning a summer 2017 release to coincide with Tate Modern’s Giacometti retrospective and are exploring opportunities to cross promote.
Gail Egan produces for Potboiler alongside Nik Bower for Riverstone Pictures and Ilann Girard for Arsam International. Riverstone Pictures fully financed...
- 4/28/2017
- by orlando.parfitt@screendaily.com (Orlando Parfitt)
- ScreenDaily
“The Other Side of Hope”
Winsome, sweet, and often very funny, the second chapter of Aki Kaurismäki’s unofficial trilogy about port cities is a delightful story about the power of kindness that unfolds like a slightly more somber riff on 2011’s “Le Havre.” The Finnish auteur’s latest refugee story begins with a twentysomething Syrian man named Khaled (terrific newcomer Sherwan Haji), who escapes from Aleppo after burying most of his family and sneaks into Finland by stowing away in the cargo hold of a coal freighter. His path eventually crosses with Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen), a newly single restauranteur who could use a helping hand. Part Roy Andersson and part Frank Capra, “The Other Side of Hope” deepens the director’s recognition of how immigrants and refugees are victimized by their invisibility, and its timeliness could help it strike a chord with domestic audiences. “Le Havre” grossed more than...
Winsome, sweet, and often very funny, the second chapter of Aki Kaurismäki’s unofficial trilogy about port cities is a delightful story about the power of kindness that unfolds like a slightly more somber riff on 2011’s “Le Havre.” The Finnish auteur’s latest refugee story begins with a twentysomething Syrian man named Khaled (terrific newcomer Sherwan Haji), who escapes from Aleppo after burying most of his family and sneaks into Finland by stowing away in the cargo hold of a coal freighter. His path eventually crosses with Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen), a newly single restauranteur who could use a helping hand. Part Roy Andersson and part Frank Capra, “The Other Side of Hope” deepens the director’s recognition of how immigrants and refugees are victimized by their invisibility, and its timeliness could help it strike a chord with domestic audiences. “Le Havre” grossed more than...
- 2/20/2017
- by David Ehrlich, Eric Kohn and Jude Dry
- Indiewire
If ever there was a film summed up by its opening shot, “Final Portrait,” the gentle two-hander from mostly-actor-occasional-director Stanley Tucci (“Big Night“) is it. In an art gallery, underneath a white wall emblazoned with his dynamic, carelessly elegant signature slouches, famous Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), a rumpled, untidy assemblage of a man, stares morosely at the floor.
Continue reading Stanley Tucci’s Sprightly, Winning ‘Final Portrait’ With Geoffrey Rush & Armie Hammer [Berlin Review] at The Playlist.
Continue reading Stanley Tucci’s Sprightly, Winning ‘Final Portrait’ With Geoffrey Rush & Armie Hammer [Berlin Review] at The Playlist.
- 2/20/2017
- by Jessica Kiang
- The Playlist
Nothing like watching artists work. Final Portrait is a film directed by Stanley Tucci (of Blind Date, The Impostors, Big Night previously) starring actor Geoffrey Rush playing the famed Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. If you don't know who Giacometti is, it's better to get acquainted with him and his incredible sculpture work before getting into this film. Final Portrait tells the story of, literally, his final portrait as an artist - a painting he did of an American novelist who was visiting Paris, where his studio was, in the 1960s. The film has a small, intimate feel to it exploring the pained life and quirky antics of a great artist, which is becoming increasingly common these days (e.g. Inside Llewyn Davis, Maudie, Mr. Turner, Love & Mercy). Armie Hammer plays James Lord, an American novelist who has been profiling Giacometti and is already friends with him at the start. Giacometti...
- 2/18/2017
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Author: Stefan Pape
Though renowned primarily for his work in front of the screen, Final Portrait marks the fifth directorial outing for Stanley Tucci, with that spanning across two decades – and you’d have to go back half of that time for the last one, which was Blind Date back in 2007. This is the first time Tucci has opted not to star in one of his productions however, leaving all of his focus on the narrative at hand – and it’s a sacrifice that has paid off, as tonally this production was one presented with many obstacles, and yet it’s exactly here where the endeavour thrives.
Armie Hammer plays James Lord, a journalist, and close friend of the venerable, eccentric Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), who has agreed to pose for a portrait, promising to sit for the renowned post-impressionist painter one afternoon. If only that was the case,...
Though renowned primarily for his work in front of the screen, Final Portrait marks the fifth directorial outing for Stanley Tucci, with that spanning across two decades – and you’d have to go back half of that time for the last one, which was Blind Date back in 2007. This is the first time Tucci has opted not to star in one of his productions however, leaving all of his focus on the narrative at hand – and it’s a sacrifice that has paid off, as tonally this production was one presented with many obstacles, and yet it’s exactly here where the endeavour thrives.
Armie Hammer plays James Lord, a journalist, and close friend of the venerable, eccentric Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), who has agreed to pose for a portrait, promising to sit for the renowned post-impressionist painter one afternoon. If only that was the case,...
- 2/12/2017
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Used up your vacation days? The news got you burned out, battered and blue? Well, let director Stanley Tucci offer this balm for frayed nerves, whisking you off to France with the amiable, shaggy-dog of a film that is “Final Portrait.” The story of artist Alberto Giacometti towards the end of his life, the film is less a biopic than it is a long ramble with an engaging eccentric, all set in Paris, 1964.
If this sounds appealing and oddly familiar, hey, you’re right on both counts. With his fifth directorial feature, Tucci returns to territory he previously explored with his 2000 outing, “Joe Gould’s Secret.” Both films tell of the relationship between a young writer and an older oddball, treading lightly on narrative to instead focus on the textures, settings and details that make up the older man’s vie bohème. Swap out Greenwich Village of the ’40s for...
If this sounds appealing and oddly familiar, hey, you’re right on both counts. With his fifth directorial feature, Tucci returns to territory he previously explored with his 2000 outing, “Joe Gould’s Secret.” Both films tell of the relationship between a young writer and an older oddball, treading lightly on narrative to instead focus on the textures, settings and details that make up the older man’s vie bohème. Swap out Greenwich Village of the ’40s for...
- 2/11/2017
- by Ben Croll
- Indiewire
Tucci writes and directs this amusing, occasionally Beckettian, episode from the life of the great painter, in which he forever delays an American admirer (Armie Hammer) from returning home
Stanley Tucci has created a very amusing, astringent chamber piece of a movie, performed with sympathy and wit by Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer.
It is based on the true story of how Alberto Giacometti invited the young American critic and influential admirer James Lord to sit for him in Paris in 1964; the resulting comedy is written for the screen by Tucci and based on Lord’s own memoir of the event.
Stanley Tucci has created a very amusing, astringent chamber piece of a movie, performed with sympathy and wit by Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer.
It is based on the true story of how Alberto Giacometti invited the young American critic and influential admirer James Lord to sit for him in Paris in 1964; the resulting comedy is written for the screen by Tucci and based on Lord’s own memoir of the event.
- 2/11/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Writer-director Stanley Tucci's fascination with the artistic process yields a lively character study if not quite a full-bodied exploration of the uneven relationship between painter and subject in Final Portrait. Amusing but slight, the small-scale film is elevated by a spirited characterization from Geoffrey Rush as mercurial artist — is there any other kind in movies? — Alberto Giacometti. But as James Lord, the American art writer invited to pose for his friend in what became an epic sitting, Armie Hammer's role lacks depth, remaining somewhat trapped behind journal entry-style voiceovers.
The name talent involved will ensure at least a...
The name talent involved will ensure at least a...
- 2/11/2017
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Enough footage of Alberto Giacometti exists to suggest that Geoffrey Rush is quite uncanny as the renowned surrealist sculptor in Final Portrait, a depiction of the seventeen days it took him to paint his last portrait, that of the American writer James Lord (played here by Armie Hammer). Based on Lord’s resulting 1965 book A Giacometti Portrait, it’s an elegant if somewhat unambitious piece of biographical work from writer-director Stanley Tucci, who has created — along with cinematographer Danny Cohen and art designer David Hindle (who worked with Rush before on Tom Hooper’s The Kings Speech) — a chicly grim vision of some of the shadier corners of the 1960s Parisian art scene.
It must be said that Hammer looks right at home smoking a cigarette in a beige trench and black-tie suit (had he been born ten years earlier he might have given Jon Hamm a run for his...
It must be said that Hammer looks right at home smoking a cigarette in a beige trench and black-tie suit (had he been born ten years earlier he might have given Jon Hamm a run for his...
- 2/11/2017
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Stanley Tucci on Saturday slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for reportedly looking to axe or slash arts funding.
"I can only imagine with this administration, if they have their way, they would eviscerate the National Endowment for the Arts, which would be devastating on so many levels," Tucci told a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival for his latest movie, Final Portrait.
The actor was dismissive when asked if his Geoffrey Rush starrer about Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti might influence Trump to support the arts. "I don't think our film can influence the President...
"I can only imagine with this administration, if they have their way, they would eviscerate the National Endowment for the Arts, which would be devastating on so many levels," Tucci told a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival for his latest movie, Final Portrait.
The actor was dismissive when asked if his Geoffrey Rush starrer about Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti might influence Trump to support the arts. "I don't think our film can influence the President...
- 2/11/2017
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Starting today at 8:10Am Et/5:10Am Pt, you can watch a live stream of the Berlinale press conference featuring the cast and crew of “Final Portrait.” Filmmaker Stanley Tucci is expected to attend the conference, as well as cast members including Armie Hammer, Geoffrey Rush and Clémence Poésy.
Tucci’s latest venture behind the camera follows a decidedly offbeat story related to the waning days of Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti (Rush).
Read More: Paul Verhoeven to Serve as Berlin Film Festival Jury President
Per the film’s official synopsis, “Alberto Giacometti is the one who decides when it is time for work, drink, doubt, destruction, flirtation or laughter in his studio. An established artist whose works fetch record prices, he hides his earnings in his studio. This is just one of the causes of many an argument with his wife Annette, another being the fact that...
Tucci’s latest venture behind the camera follows a decidedly offbeat story related to the waning days of Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti (Rush).
Read More: Paul Verhoeven to Serve as Berlin Film Festival Jury President
Per the film’s official synopsis, “Alberto Giacometti is the one who decides when it is time for work, drink, doubt, destruction, flirtation or laughter in his studio. An established artist whose works fetch record prices, he hides his earnings in his studio. This is just one of the causes of many an argument with his wife Annette, another being the fact that...
- 2/11/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
In Contention Lion is using T****'s unconstitutional travel ban its advertisements
Boy Culture 70s star and Battlestar Galactica hunk Richard Hatch has died
Awards Daily Jazz talks to Joel Harlow about the Oscar nominated Hair and Makeup of Star Trek: Beyond
Towleroad a close-up of Glenn Close returning to Sunset Boulevard
Cottages & Gardens the Grey Gardens estate is up for sale
Variety Stanley Tucci has directed a movie about Alberto Giacometti starring Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer
Tracking Board the Coen brothers are polishing the remake script for Scarface (which was made twice already in the 30s and 80s)
Towleroad Finland is the first country to release their own national emojis and one of them is for the gay artist Tom of Finland
Mnpp "Smile like Trevante Rhodes"
New Yorker Oscar Spotlight: The Actresses
World of Reel a synopsis of Nicolas Winding Refn's new Amazon series...
Boy Culture 70s star and Battlestar Galactica hunk Richard Hatch has died
Awards Daily Jazz talks to Joel Harlow about the Oscar nominated Hair and Makeup of Star Trek: Beyond
Towleroad a close-up of Glenn Close returning to Sunset Boulevard
Cottages & Gardens the Grey Gardens estate is up for sale
Variety Stanley Tucci has directed a movie about Alberto Giacometti starring Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer
Tracking Board the Coen brothers are polishing the remake script for Scarface (which was made twice already in the 30s and 80s)
Towleroad Finland is the first country to release their own national emojis and one of them is for the gay artist Tom of Finland
Mnpp "Smile like Trevante Rhodes"
New Yorker Oscar Spotlight: The Actresses
World of Reel a synopsis of Nicolas Winding Refn's new Amazon series...
- 2/11/2017
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
The European Film Market at the Berlin Film Festival marks the first major film market of the year, and is one of the few events where nearly everyone from the global movie business comes together to network and launch new projects.
Read More: 5 Exciting Films in the 2017 Berlin Film Festival Competition Lineup
This year’s Efm will draw more than 1,600 buyers from roughly 70 countries into a deal-making bonanza for films in every stage of development and production, much like the American Film Market in Los Angeles and the Marché du Film in Cannes. Efm will include around 730 screenings this year, more than 600 of which will be market premieres.
What are the movies and screenplays already on executives’ radars? Here are 10 hot projects that could be prime targets.
“Borg/McEnroe”
Summary: This sports drama stars Shia Labeouf as John McEnroe and Sverrir Gudnason as Björn Borg. The movie focuses on the pair’s 1980 Wimbledon tennis championship,...
Read More: 5 Exciting Films in the 2017 Berlin Film Festival Competition Lineup
This year’s Efm will draw more than 1,600 buyers from roughly 70 countries into a deal-making bonanza for films in every stage of development and production, much like the American Film Market in Los Angeles and the Marché du Film in Cannes. Efm will include around 730 screenings this year, more than 600 of which will be market premieres.
What are the movies and screenplays already on executives’ radars? Here are 10 hot projects that could be prime targets.
“Borg/McEnroe”
Summary: This sports drama stars Shia Labeouf as John McEnroe and Sverrir Gudnason as Björn Borg. The movie focuses on the pair’s 1980 Wimbledon tennis championship,...
- 2/9/2017
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Exclusive: Stanley Tucci's Paris-set Final Portrait, his sixth feature as director, is world premiering out of competition at the Berlin Film Festival on February 11. Geoffrey Rush stars as Alberto Giacometti with Armie Hammer playing U.S. art critic James Lord. Check them out in the zippy clip above as artist and subject face off amid frustration and a lot of F-words. The story goes like so: In 1964, while on a sort trip to Paris, American writer and art-lover Lord is…...
- 2/2/2017
- Deadline
The big honkin’ four-part crossover on the CW is past and I guess we have no particularly interesting reactions to it. If I were in a mood to pick nits, I might raise an eyebrow, chuckle in the manner of one who knows he is not one of the little people, and observe that it was really only a three-part crossover. Oh sure, The Flash and his friend Cisco did pop into Supergirl’s turf at the very end of the first episode, but by then the Maid of Might and her crew had solved their difficulties and all was (temporarily) well. All The Flash and Cisco did was ask for help dealing with some of their problems.
This is a crossover? Maybe by your definition (I sneer, cocking an eyebrow). Anyway, it seems that some alien invaders were causing woe on the neighboring universe, where The Flash and company hang,...
This is a crossover? Maybe by your definition (I sneer, cocking an eyebrow). Anyway, it seems that some alien invaders were causing woe on the neighboring universe, where The Flash and company hang,...
- 12/8/2016
- by Dennis O'Neil
- Comicmix.com
Armie Hammer and Geoffrey Rush are set to star in Stanley Tucci's nee drama "Final Portrait" for Riverstone Pictures. Shooting begins later this month.
The story focuses on the end of Swiss painter and surreal sculpturist Alberto Giacometti's life. At the time Lord, a young American writer, was studying him as the artist painted Lord's picture in 1964.
Giacometti died two years later in Switzerland. Tucci directs from his own script, based on James Lord's book "A Giacometti Portrait". Gail Egan, Nik Bower and Ilann Girard will produce.
Source: Variety...
The story focuses on the end of Swiss painter and surreal sculpturist Alberto Giacometti's life. At the time Lord, a young American writer, was studying him as the artist painted Lord's picture in 1964.
Giacometti died two years later in Switzerland. Tucci directs from his own script, based on James Lord's book "A Giacometti Portrait". Gail Egan, Nik Bower and Ilann Girard will produce.
Source: Variety...
- 2/2/2016
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer star in the true story of Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti.
London-based Riverstone Pictures has closed financing on Stanley Tucci’s Final Portratit, with principal photography set to commence this month in London.
Telling the story of real-life Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, the film is an adaptation of Us critic James Lord’s biography and will star Geoffrey Rush (Shine) in the lead role alongside Armie Hammer.
The project was originally launched during last year’s European Film Market.
Gail Egan produces for Potboiler alongside Ilann Girard for Arsam International and Nik Bower for Riverstone Pictures; the latter fully-financed the project.
Riverstone Pictures co-founder Deepak Nayar is executive producer and the film is produced in association with Olive Productions and Lowsun Productions.
Founded in 2014, Riverstone Pictures, which is backed by Reliance Entertainment and Ingenious Media, also has the Jamie Foxx and Michelle Monaghan-starring Sleepless Night and the Nicole Kidman and Jude Law-starring...
London-based Riverstone Pictures has closed financing on Stanley Tucci’s Final Portratit, with principal photography set to commence this month in London.
Telling the story of real-life Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, the film is an adaptation of Us critic James Lord’s biography and will star Geoffrey Rush (Shine) in the lead role alongside Armie Hammer.
The project was originally launched during last year’s European Film Market.
Gail Egan produces for Potboiler alongside Ilann Girard for Arsam International and Nik Bower for Riverstone Pictures; the latter fully-financed the project.
Riverstone Pictures co-founder Deepak Nayar is executive producer and the film is produced in association with Olive Productions and Lowsun Productions.
Founded in 2014, Riverstone Pictures, which is backed by Reliance Entertainment and Ingenious Media, also has the Jamie Foxx and Michelle Monaghan-starring Sleepless Night and the Nicole Kidman and Jude Law-starring...
- 2/1/2016
- ScreenDaily
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Ron Moody in Mel Brooks' 'The Twelve Chairs.' The 'Doctor Who' that never was. Ron Moody: 'Doctor Who' was biggest professional regret (See previous post: "Ron Moody: From Charles Dickens to Walt Disney – But No Harry Potter.") Ron Moody was featured in about 50 television productions, both in the U.K. and the U.S., from the late 1950s to 2012. These included guest roles in the series The Avengers, Gunsmoke, Starsky and Hutch, Hart to Hart, and Murder She Wrote, in addition to leads in the short-lived U.S. sitcom Nobody's Perfect (1980), starring Moody as a Scotland Yard detective transferred to the San Francisco Police Department, and in the British fantasy Into the Labyrinth (1981), with Moody as the noble sorcerer Rothgo. Throughout the decades, he could also be spotted in several TV movies, among them:[1] David Copperfield (1969). As Uriah Heep in this disappointing all-star showcase distributed theatrically in some countries.
- 6/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Armie Hammer has largely been seen in bigger dramas or action adventures such as J. Edgar or The Lone Ranger, so it’s nice to see him taking a crack at other things too. He’s signed on for a role in Stanley Tucci’s The Final Portrait opposite Geoffrey Rush.Tucci is once more on writing and directing duty for the film, which will chronicle the friendship between American art critic James Lord (Hammer) who agrees to sit for a portrait by his friend, noted Swiss painter Alberto Giacometti (Rush). Unfortunately, though the two knew each other socially, Lord wasn’t quite prepared for the demanding nature of the artist at work and the experience tests their relationship to the limit.The script has been adapted from Lord’s writing on the experience, A Giacometti Portrait. Tucci’s producers are still rounding up the funding, and he should be shooting this year.
- 5/14/2015
- EmpireOnline
Armie Hammer is the latest cast member to be added to Final Portrait, the upcoming biopic from Stanley Tucci in his first major feature as director since 2007’s Blind Date. The Lone Ranger star with join Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush, who will take the lead as Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti. Tucci is working from his own script based on the novel A Giacometti Portrait by the artist’s friend, the American critic James Lord, who in 1960s Paris sat down for 18 days, studying Giacometti as he painted his picture using oils. Gail Egan, Potboiler Productions, Ilann Girard, Fred
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- 5/14/2015
- by Alex Ritman
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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