We’re pleased to present two exclusive previews of Stanley Tucci’s Final Portrait (in cinemas 18 August) in the context of Tate Modern’s landmark Giacometti exhibition.
Starring Geoffrey Rush, Armie Hammer, Tony Shalhoub, Sylvie Testud and Clémence Poésy, the film depicts the making of Giacometti’s final portrait, a painting of American writer and art lover James Lord. Giacometti had asked Lord to sit for this portrait while he was in Paris on a short trip, and assured him that the process would take only a few days. So began not only the story of a touching and offbeat friendship but a revealing insight into the beauty, frustration, profundity and, at times, downright chaos of the artistic process.
Adapted from a memoir written by Lord, Final Portrait is a bewitching portrait that questions whether the gift of a great artist is a blessing or a curse.
I don’t care for biopics. I don’t know how you cram somebody’s life into an hour and a half or two hours. It just becomes an event-driven film whereas this is a character-driven film … I’ve culled different experiences and circumstances, events from Giacometti’s life, and put them into these two weeks to create a life in microcosm so that you get a sense of who he was inside and outside of that studio.
Stanley Tucci
Programme:
Stanley Tucci, Final Portrait, UK 2017, digital, colour, sound, 90 min, English, French and Italian with English subtitles
This film has been rated as a 15 by the BBFC.
About Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci (b.1960, US) is an American actor, writer and filmmaker based in London. He has performed in over ninety films in addition to many television shows and plays, and in 2009 was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. He has also worked behind the camera as a writer, producer and filmmaker, beginning with Big Night 1996, which was awarded a screenwriting prize at the Sundance Film Festival. His second filmmaking endeavor, The Impostors 1998, was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. Tucci went on to direct Joe Gould’s Secret 2000 and Blind Date 2007 before his most recent project, Final Portrait 2017.
Stanley Tucci Final Portrait 2017, film still. Courtesy Vertigo Films