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| Alberto Giacometti, 'Portrait Of James Lord', Oil On Canvas, 1964 |
There are certain
artists I always come back to over the years, regardless of how much, or how
little, they influence my own work directly. The sculptor [1.], Alberto Giacometti is one, so it’s no surprise I found myself at Leicester’s Phoenix media centre
the other night, to watch Stanley Tucci’s film, ‘Final Portrait’ [2.].
Actually, it’s
been a good year for Giacometti enthusiasts - with Tate Modern also staging themost recent in a series of excellent retrospectives that I’ve attended across
the decades [3.]. Whilst I (seemingly alone)
have a few reservations about the way the work was displayed in the Tate
survey, I have very few about the actual selection. And I definitely have none at all about the enduring
power of those works to move me profoundly – even those with which I have
become very familiar through repeat encounters.
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| 'Giacometti' Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2017 |
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| Alberto Giacometti, 'Bust Of Diego', Plaster, c.1956 |
It was a thrill
to experience once more, the particular variety of perceptual ambiguity exerted
by Giacometti’s blade-form portrait busts, the disturbing sense of
sexually-charged alienation embodied by ‘Four
Figurines On A Stand’, [4.] or the inexplicable power of a tiny head to hold one
it’s thrall from the far side of a crowded room. All that sense of human presence, of
energised space around his figures, or of one’s grip on perceived reality
slipping away, the harder one stares, should be getting old by now – but it all
still moves me every time.
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| Alberto Giacometti, 'Four Figurines On A Stand', Cast Bronze, 1950-66 |
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| 'Giacometti' Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2017 |
Clearly,
Giacometti’s work and preoccupations have little correspondence with my own
current output. However, as a student,
and for many subsequent years of wrestling unsuccessfully with my own hang-ups
about drawing, and how to even make art at all, he did seem to represent a kind
of mountain I might yearn to climb – but never successfully scale. The irony is, of course, that he was beset by
much the same kind of self-doubt, even whilst operating at an elevation of
which I (and most others) might only dream.
In fact, as Tucci’s film serves to reinforce – he really is the No.1
poster boy for a particular form of angst-ridden artistic authenticity.
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Ernst Scheidegger, 'Giacometti In His Studio', 1958, (Foundation Ernst Scheidender/
Giacometti Estate |
It’s a habit of
thought in which it’s hopeless to even dream of producing anything of real
value; in which all attempts are doomed to failure; in which the very task one
has set oneself is impossible; and yet one that still compels an individual
artist to sacrifice their whole life, happiness, and even sanity, in its
pursuit. It manifests itself in works
which, however profound their effect on others, mostly feel like
disappointments, wrong turnings, or aborted excursions along the way - and in a
sense that the struggle is far more significant than any individual artefact thrown-up.
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| 'Giacometti' Exhibition, Tate Modern, London, 2017 |
All this focus on
futility, despair, and other such portentous stuff, clearly ties into what philosophers
call Existentialism. At its most
profound, and in the hands of its most sincere exponents (Giacometti, Samuel
Becket, Harold Pinter, even Ian Curtis, perhaps), it can cut deeper and more
uncompromisingly than most other stuff.
It notably captured a distinct twentieth century zeitgeist, and Giacometti
has often been identified as one of the few visual artists to fully engage with
the genocidal implications of World War 2, in its immediate aftermath. If he did so, it was through a stripping-away
of everything other bar the essentials of human existence (what it is to simply
inhabit this body, in this space). Of
course, all that soul searching can all too easily slip into affectation too (something
that, the film suggests, even Giacometti was aware of). It can become a performance or a form of indulgent
self-sabotage. It can surely become
an alibi for failing to complete, or to advance by setting achievable goals. Indeed, “If I can’t be as good as I want to be, it’s all meaningless
– so I won’t do anything at all”, was my own sulky mantra for far too many years - I now realise.
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| Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti In: Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', 2017 |
‘Final Portrait’, might therefore just have been a vicarious excursion
through the entertaining psychosis of yet another obsessive artist. Certainly, it pulls few punches in examining
Giacometti’s legendry eccentricities, and Geoffrey Rush brings an intensity commensurate
to that of his subject’s reputation. We
first encounter him as a shuffling, hunched ruin of a man, who proceeds to
chain-smoke and hack his way through the remainder of the movie – one minute
frozen in despondent immobility – the next, leaping impulsively into an
outburst of frustrated anger, or some inexplicable action.
But we’re far
from the Hollywood excesses of ‘Lust For
Life’ [5.] or ‘The Agony And The Ecstasy’ [6.] here. This film is actually based on
American author, James Lord’s celebrated factual account of sitting for a painting, ‘A Giacometti Portrait’; late
in the artist’s own life. I think he’s
generally accepted as a pretty reliable narrator. Aside from those periodic demonstrations of
‘artistic temperament’ and the bohemian lifestyle choices, the real experience
of modeling for Giacometti, it would appear, was one of a baffling endurance
test. As his wife Annette, and
heroically stoic brother (and studio technician), Diego attest, the artist
really knew how to torture his sitters.
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(L.) Armie Hammer As James Lord, And (R.) Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti, In:
Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', 2017 |
Thus, Lord finds
himself sequestered in the Spartan, cave–like environs of the Giacometti
atelier - a place where the standard rules of time, consideration of a model’s other
commitments, and clearly defined deadlines, are all sacrificed to the artist’s
obsession. The insights into
Giacometti’s unorthodox domestic arrangements, openly triangular (and
emotionally abusive) love life, and totally cavalier disregard for money,
actually represent colourful, if disturbing, punctuations, it transpires. Otherwise, it’s mostly an interminable
process of sitting immobile, as the days tick by and the artist goes through
his cycles of attempting to really ‘start’ (drawing with the small black brush)
and collapsing in despair at the impossibility of his task (obliterating with
the large, grey brush). It might be ‘Waiting For Godot’, by another name.
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(L.) Sylvie Testud As Annette, And (R.) Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti, In:
Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', 2017 |
It would be
foolish to ignore the fact that, aside from creating a cauldron of existential
drama/non-drama, within four walls – the film’s other real strength lies in the
power of its five main performances.
Geoffrey Rush himself pulls-out what feels like one of those
‘career-defining’ turns as Giacometti - tempering the forbidding aspects of his
subject with moments of genuine vulnerability, and even wry amusement at his
own acknowledged character defects. His
achievement is to depict with considerable nuance, his selfish disregard for
the feelings of others, and apparent appreciation of the sacrifices and
discomfort they endure on his behalf. We
are left with the sense of a fallible but deeply ‘human’ personality (if not
exactly a humane one).
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| Alberto Giacometti, 'Portrait Of Annette', Oil On Canvas, 1964 |
Alongside him,
Armie Hammer depicts the growing exasperation of the initially urbane Lord with
aplomb, whilst Tony Shaloub proves eminently convincing as the disengaged, but
palpably benign Diego. Clemence Poesy’s
depiction of Giacometti’s paid-for mistress, Caroline, has a certain built-in
caricature quality, but is enjoyable nonetheless. Sylvie Testud, on the other hand, feels immensely
relatable as his wife, Annette. She’s a woman
carelessly spurned, and yet heroically aware of her enduring importance as the
mainstay of Giacometti’s domestic (and, as we discover - emotional)
wellbeing. It’s a tough role to play
with dignity over victimhood – in drama, as in life.
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| Alberto Giacometti, 'Caroline', Oil On Canvas, 1965 |
Actually, for me,
there’s a sixth member of the cast – namely, the recreation of post-war
bohemian Paris. The surrounding streets
and cafés of Montparnasse reek of seductive bohemia, but shun excessive
romanticism - preferring a more convincingly gritty squalor [7.]. The Studio and adjacent courtyard, at Rue
Hyppolite Maindron, appear to have been very faithfully reconstructed from
various familiar documentary photos. And
while we’re at it - whomever did Mr. Rush’s costume, hair and make-up would definitely
get my vote for Oscars.
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| Henri Cartier-Bresson, 'Portrait Of Alberto Giacometti', 1961 |
I’m sure many
keen moviegoers will have succumbed to the perennial temptation to adopt the
demeanor of a favourite character, on emerging into the ‘real world’. So it may just be that I exited Phoenix with
a slight Existentialist’s trudge, or possibly surveyed the car park with a particular
weary gaze. However, the fact is I no longer
really identify with all that stuff. My
own creative re-awakening actually came when I consciously gave up fetishising
‘the struggle’, accepting that it’s okay to actually finish things - and even to
take pleasure in the process, and in one’s achievement. If something’s not good enough, these days –
that’s just a reason to look forward to making something else. Certainly, my own work no longer aspires to
looking or proceeding anything like Giacometti’s (like that was ever possible!)
- and I’m happy to just try to make the kind of art I probably should have been
making all along (for better or worse).
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| Geoffrey Rush As Giacometti In, Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait' 2017 |
My love for Giacometti's oeuvre, and my fascination with the various accounts of his life and times, remain undiminished though. I no longer want to live and work that way - but I'm glad he did.
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Alberto Giacometti, 'Small Man On Plinth', Cast Bronze, c. 1939-45
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[1.]: Giacometti painted a lot for someone primarily thought of as a sculptor. They must be some of the least 'painterly' canvases ever made however. Anyway, it's my view that (in terms of his his mature work, at least), pretty much everything he did was actually drawing - regardless of the medium.
[2.]: Stanley Tucci (Dir.), 'Final Portrait', UK, Olive Productions, Potboiler Productions, Riverstone Pictures, 2017
[3.]: 'Giacometti', Tate Modern, London, Until 10. 09.17. (There's still just time, if you're quick).
[4.]: Famously, Giacometti linked this piece to a memory of viewing four prostitutes in a brothel. It was an experience, he claimed - in which sexual desire was combined with a sense of the seemingly uncrossable distance in the room, between himself and the women. Giacometti's psycho-sexual hinterland - and indeed, his sexual politics - were more than somewhat 'complex'. His four figurines are both remote, and quite literally - on a pedestal.
[5.]: 'Vincente Minelli (With George Cukor) (Dir.), 'Lust For Life', U.S., John Houseman/MGM, 1956). Kirk Douglas does his best raving madman impression, in Hollywood's depiction of the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
[6.]: Carol Reed (Dir.), 'The Agony And The Ecstasy', U.S., Carol Reed/C20 Fox, 1965. A physically implausible Charlton Heston, as Michelangelo, tries to complete the Sistine Chapel ceiling, as Rex Harrison's Pope Julius II looks on in exasperation.
[7.]: It turns out the best way to recapture the flavour of post-war Montparnasse, is to shoot your film in Stoke Newington. Who knew?
