Final Portrait

SYNOPSIS

In 1964, while on a short trip to Paris, the American writer and art-lover James Lord is asked by his friend, the world-renowned artist Alberto Giacometti, 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, by turns exhilarating, exasperating and bewildering, questioning whether the gift of a great artist is a blessing or a curse.

ABOUT ALBERTO GIACOMETTI

ALBERTO GIACOMETTI sculptor, painter, draughtsman and printmaker, was born near the Italian border of Switzerland in 1901. Giacometti’s father, Giovanni, was a well-known post-impressionist painter who instilled an interest of art in Alberto and his three siblings from a young age. After graduating from the Geneva School of Fine Arts, Giacometti moved to Paris in 1922 to study under Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Here he specialised in surrealism, and rose to success quickly, exhibiting for the first time in 1925. Around this time, it is noted that he began to find the task of copying received reality impossible which became a key theme in his works of art.

In 1927, Giacometti moved into a studio at 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron, which was to become his permanent home. His brother Diego joined him there and became his right-hand man. Following his first solo exhibition in 1932, Giacometti began distancing himself from the surrealist movement. His subsequent works from 1936–1940 were primarily sculptures of the human head and sitter’s gaze. These pieces were characterised by having a singular, isolated subject, and being based on models who Giacometti knew personally, such as Diego, friend and artist Isabelle Rawsthorne (née Delber) and his sister, Ottilia. It is said that his sculptures were paper thin because he continually carved away at them trying to make them exactly as he envisioned, a goal he often found to be unachievable.

During World War II, Giacometti left Paris and moved to Geneva where he met his wife Annette Arm in 1943. Upon his return to Paris in 1945, Giacometti began to sculpt his subjective view of the world producing his renowned elongated sculpted figures in 1946 and 1947. Giacometti achieved an international profile between 1948 and 1956. He held exhibitions in London, Paris, Zurich and Basel, he was asked to commission a large public work for the city of New York (which he declined), and he developed his ‘dark heads’ series, which became his quintessential contribution to 20th Century art and the so-called ‘generic’ man concept. In 1956, Giacometti went through an artistic crisis, triggered by his sessions with Isaku Yanihara, a Japanese philosopher who modelled for him. This period lasted for two years until Giacometti met Yvonne Poiraudeau, the prostitute known as Caroline. This marks the start of the final era of Giacometti’s legacy, referred to as the ‘last portraits’.

From 1958 until 1960 Giacometti painted nearly 30 portraits of Caroline. It was in 1964 that the American writer and art dealer James Lord sat for a portrait with Giacometti. The following year, Giacometti made his last sculpture of Diego. His final work was a 150-piece lithograph of all the places that he had lived during in his life.

Alberto Giacometti died in 1966 leaving behind countless half completed paintings and a room described by one reporter as a “repository of repeated failure”.

ABOUT JAMES LORD

JAMES LORD was an American author made famous by his biographies of both Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. Born in 1922 to an upper class family, Lord had a difficult upbringing. Despite his articulate writing, his ambitious were often mocked by his classmates and he was expelled from one boarding school. He came out as a homosexual to his father whose response was to send him to a psychiatrist. In 1942, Lord enlisted in the US army and served in the Intelligence Unit before being stationed in Paris after D-day, where a bold phone call led Lord to meet Picasso and his then mistress, Dora Maar.

This was the beginning of a long-time acquaintance between Lord, Picasso and Maar. When Lord returned home following the war, he started at Wesleyn University, but by 1947 he had returned to Paris without a degree. In Europe, Lord resumed his contact with Picasso and spent his time travelling, dealing art and socialising. Lord first met Giacometti in 1952 in Paris’s Deux Magots café. A decade later, Giacometti asked him to sit for a portrait. Lord and Giacometti met for over 18 sittings to both create the portrait, and set the stage for Lord’s memoir, ‘A Giacometti Portrait’, which he published in 1965. In 1966, Giacometti’s death inspired Lord to write a full-biography of the artist, and in 1986, nearly 20 years after Giacometti’s death, Lord published a lengthy biography praising the complicated artist.

Lord died in Paris in 2009.

Stanley Tucci

Writer/Director

Academy Award nominee Stanley Tucci has appeared in over 90 films and countless television shows. He has appeared in more than a dozen plays, on and off Broadway, and has been behind the camera working as a writer, director, and producer. Tucci reached his widest audience yet in the role of Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games franchise. A box office sensation and critical success, the fourth and final installment of the series (Mocking Jay) was released in late 2015.

Tucci was seen on screen in spring 2017 in Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast alongside Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor, Luke Evans, Dan Stevens, Emma Thompson and Ian McKellan, where he played Cadenza the grand piano – a new character to the realm, described as a neurotic maestro. Other upcoming projects for Tucci are Feud, an anthology TV series, developed by Ryan Murphy. Feud will center on the rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis during the production of their film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Tucci will play Jack L. Warner, the Canadian-American film executive and president of Warner Bros. Studio; Transformers: the Last Knight, where Tucci will reprise his role as Joshua Joyce; Patient Zero, alongside Natalie Dormer and Clive Standen; and Blue Angel, alongside Addison Timlin and Kyra Sedgwick.

Tucci was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, SAG Award and received a Broadcast Film Critics nomination for his performance in Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Furthermore, Tucci won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role in the TV movie Winchell. His performance as the fast-talking tattler, who exposed secrets and scandals, left audience and critics alike singing his praises. Winchell, directed by Paul Mazurksy, provided Tucci with one of the juiciest roles of his diverse career. He also received a Golden Globe for his role in HBO’s Conspiracy. His portrayal of Lt. Colonel Adolf Eichmann delivered a truly petrifying experience, where he often deceived others with his all but friendly smile.

Tucci is also a writer, director and producer. He produced The Canal and was the Executive Producer for Behind the Sun. He premiered the film Blind Date at the Sundance Film Festival – directing, starring, and co-writing this remake of Theo van Gogh’s film of the same name. Another directorial endeavor was USA Films’ Joe Gould’s Secret, which starred Ian Holm as bohemian writer Joe Gould and Tucci as Joseph Mitchell, the famed writer for The New Yorker. The film, set in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1940s, tells the story of the strange meeting with long lasting friendship between Gould and Mitchell, as well as the stories Mitchell wrote about Gould and his life.

Big Night, Tucci’s first effort as co-director, co-screenwriter, and actor on the same film, earned him numerous accolades, including the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, a recognition of excellence by the National Board of Review, an Independent Spirit Award, The Critics Prize at the 1996 Deauville Film Festival, and honors from the New York Film Critics and the Boston Society of Film Critics.

His second project, The Imposters, a film which he wrote, directed, co-produced and starred in, showed in Official Selection at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and was acquired by Fox Searchlight Pictures later that year. The 1930s farce starred Tucci and Oliver Platt as a pair of out-of-work actors who find themselves aboard a cruise ship passenger-ed by Steve Buscemi, Alfred Molina, Lili Taylor and Hope Davis.

His work on television includes BoJack Horseman, Metropolis, Fortitude, Bull, Equal Justice, Wiseguy, The Equalizer, thirtysomething and The Street. He also played Captain Hook in ITV’s two-hour drama, Peter & Wendy, alongside Laura Fraser and Paloma Faith. Tucci received Emmy nominations for his work in Murder One, and ER, and an Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Monk.

Tucci’s theatre work includes ‘Frankie & Johnny in the Claire de Lune’, ‘Execution of Hope’, ‘The Iceman Cometh’, ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ and ‘The Misanthrope’. He has also performed in a number of off-Broadway plays, at Yale Repertory Theater and SUNY Purchase, where he first studied acting. Tucci made his directorial debut on Broadway with a revival of Ken Ludwig’s ‘Lend Me a Tenor’ starring Tony Shalhoub. The production received a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play.

Tucci’s additional film credits include Spotlight, A Little Chaos, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Wild Card, Muppets Most Wanted, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, Some Velvet Morning, The Fifth Estate, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, The Company You Keep, Jack The Giant Slayer, Captain America: The First Avenger, Margin Call, Burlesque, Easy A, Julie & Julia, The Tale of Despereaux, Kit Kitteredge: An American Girl, Swing Vote, What Just Happened, The Devil Wears Prada, Shall We Dance, The Terminal, The Life And Death of Peter Sellers, Spin, Road To Perdition, America’s Sweethearts, Sidewalks of New York, A Mid Summer Nights Dream, The Alarmist, Deconstructing Harry, The Daytrippers, Big Trouble, A Life Less Ordinary, Kiss of Death, Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle, It Could Happen To You, The Pelican Brief, Prelude To A Kiss, In The Soup, Billy Bathgate and Slaves Of New York.

The Tucci Cookbook was released in October of 2012 where it reached the New York Times Best Sellers List. Tucci released his second cookbook, The Tucci Table: Cooking with Family and Friends in 2014. The family-focused cookbook includes recipes from Tucci’s traditional Italian roots as well as those of his British wife, Felicity Blunt. Tucci serves on the Board of Directors of The Food Bank for New York City. He resides in London with his family.

Gail Egan

Producer

Gail Egan is a qualified barrister and practiced commercial law at Lincoln's Inn before joining Price Waterhouse Corporate Finance. She later worked for the International Media Group Carlton Communications. In 2000 she formed the independent production company Potboiler Productions with Simon Channing Williams. In 2009 Potboiler Productions joined forces with Slate Films, run by Andrea Calderwood.

Egan has produced or executive produced 20 films including Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner, Another Year, Happy-Go-Lucky and Vera Drake; Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener and Blindness; A Most Wanted Man, adapted from John le Carré’s novel and directed by Anton Corbijn, A Little Chaos directed by Alan Rickman, Man About Dog with Paddy Breathnach and Brothers of the Head with Keith Fulton and Lou Pepe.

Most recently, Egan produced Our Kind of Traitor directed by Susanna White and starring Ewan McGregor, Stellan Skarsgard, Damian Lewis and Naomi Harris; and Trespass Against Us, directed by Adam Smith and starring Michael Fassbender, Rory Kinnear and Brendan Gleeson.

Nik Bower

Producer

Nik Bower continues to be a lead financer and producer in the British film industry.

Bower has recently served as executive producer on a number of films in post-production including Felt, directed by Peter Landesman and starring Liam Neeson; Sleepless, directed by Baran bo Odar; Wind River, by first-time director, Taylor Sheridan; Replicas, directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and starring Keanu Reeves and Show Dogs, directed by Raja Gosnell.

Since co-founding Riverstone Pictures in October 2014, Bower has been the executive producer on a number of prestigious films including Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette starring Carey Mulligan and Meryl Streep; Ava DuVernay’s Selma, starring David Oyelowo; and Michael Grandage’s debut feature Genius, starring Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Laura Linney. Prior to Riverstone Pictures, Bower was managing director of the media division of Ingenious Media, where he financed independent films including Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, Todd Haynes’s Carol and John Crowley’s Brooklyn as well as major studio motion pictures including Life of Pi, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Fault in Our Stars.

Before joining the film industry over a decade ago, Bower qualified as a barrister practicing intellectual property law before specializing in leveraged acquisitions and project finance with the law firm Allen & Overy.

Ilann Girard

Producer

French film producer Ilann Girard has supervised the financing and distribution of films for over 20 years. Girard is currently in the final stages of production on the Icelandic film Alma and Pan Nalin’s Beyond the Known World. In 2002 Ilann Girad founded Arsam, a film consultation and financing firm, followed by Arsam International in 2003. Since then, Girard has worked on Stéphane Cazes’ Ombline, Barnaby Southcombe’s Anna, Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, Billie August’s Goodbye Bafana, Academy Award winning film, March of the Penguin and Christian Volckman’s Renaissance.

Prior to Arsam, Girard was Pandora Cinema’s general counsel, supervised the financing and distribution of international box office hits such as Like Water For Chocolate, Kolya, Shine, Carlos Saura’s Tango and Donnie Darko. Additionally, Girard is a founding partner of Olffi.com, the largest database about public funding for film and television productions, and a board member of the European Film Academy.

Danny Cohen

Cinematographer

Cinematographer Danny Cohen has worked with a variety of directors including Stephen Frears, Lenny Abrahamson, Richard Curtis, Rupert Goold, Tom Hooper, Shane Meadows, Stephen Poliakoff and Dominic Savage on a number of feature films and television dramas.

A member of the British Society of Cinematographers since 2008, Cohen’s credits include This Is England, This is England 1986, This is England 1988, and Dead Man’s Shoes directed by Shane Meadows; for Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech, Les Miserables, John Adams and The Danish Girl; Lenny Abrahamson’s Room; Oliver Parker’s Johnny English Reborn; Richard II directed by Rupert Goold for the BBC; Dominic Savage’s Dive; Adrian Shergold’s Pierrepoint; Steven Poliakoff’s Glorious 39 and A Real Summer; and Richard Curtis’ The Boat That Rocked. Cohen has shot Stephen Frears’ three most recent films: The Program, Florence Foster Jenkins and the forthcoming Victoria and Abdul. His latest film is Disobedience directed by Sebastian Lelio.

Cohen was nominated for a Best Cinematography BAFTA for lighting Les Miserables, an Oscar and a BAFTA for his work on feature film The King’s Speech, and was also nominated for the BAFTA for Best Photography and Lighting: Fiction/Entertainment for his work on Longford.

James Merifield

Production Designer

Emmy-winning production designer, James Merifield, strives to design productions for film, television, commercials and theatre productions. Merifield recently finished working on Breathe, an Andy Serkis film about the life of an adventurous man who is met with an unexpected challenge after becoming paralyzed by Polio.

Merifield’s past works include David Koepp’s Mortdecai, the HBO TV-movie Virtuoso and Richard Laxton’s Effie Gray. Merifield has also designed productions including A Little Chaos, directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet; Jerusha Hes’s Austenland; The Deep Blue Sea directed by Terence Davies and starring Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston; and Rowan Joffe’s Brighton Rock with Sam Riley and Andrea Riseborough.

In 2001 Merifield was nominated for his first BAFTA Award for his production design on Channel 4’s The Life and Adventures of Nicolas Nickleby, and in 2008 he achieved critical acclaim and the Emmy Award for outstanding art direction for the BBC’s Little Dorrit.

Merifield, a British native, began his career working with director Ken Russell in various operas and films, and later going on to design Russell’s Lady Chatterley, his first major filmed production designer credit for the BBC in 1993.

Camilla Toniolo

Editor

Camilla Toniolo has been working as a film editor for over three decades. A native of Milan, Italy, she has also taught at Columbia University School of the Arts and NYU Film School.

Toniolo worked for the Italian TV network RAI’s New York bureau at the start of her career in the US. She then moved over to feature filmmaking and has worked with a number of directors including: Jonathan Demme as co-editor on Something Wild; Tom DiCillo on Living In Oblivion, Box Of Moonlight, The Real Blonde and Double Whammy; Stacy Cochran on My New Gun and Boys; on The Night We Never Met for Warren Leight; Douglas McGrath on Company Man, Infamous, His Way and Becoming Mike Nichols; Michael Hoffman on Game Six; as well as working on numerous other titles. Final Portrait marks her second project with Stanley Tucci after Blind Date.

Alongside her work in feature films, she has worked on high profile television projects including In Treatment, a series with Gabriel Byrne; Mildred Pierce, directed by Todd Haynes (the latter two both for HBO); The Red Road for Sundance channel; and two seasons of the TV series Smash. In addition to film editing, Toniolo is a passionate cook and is writing a book entitled ‘The Soccer-Dad Cookbook’.

Liza Bracey

Costume Designer

Liza Bracey has worked in film and television costume design in a career spanning two decades.

Bracey’s most recent projects include Final Score, directed by Scott Mann and starring Dave Bautista and Pierce Brosnan; The Escape, directed by Dominic Savage and starring Gemma Arterton; and Hampstead, directed by Joel Hopkins and starring Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson and James Norton.

Other film credits include Colm McCarthy’s The Girl with all the Gifts, starring Gemma Arterton and Glenn Close; Tom Green’s Monsters: Dark Continent; and Ashes and Spike Island, both directed by Matt Whitecross. Additionally, Bracey has had an extensive career in television including series such as Marcella, Fortitude, Top Boy, Babylon, True Love and Misfits. Bracey started out in the roles of assistant costume designer and costume supervisor for productions such as It’s a Wonderful Afterlife and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, both for Gurindha Chadha, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Derailed, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, Love Actually and Code 46.

Catherine Scoble

Make-up and Hair Designer

Catherine Scoble is a BAFTA winning make-up and hair designer working in film and television drama. Recent credits include TV’s Fortitude starring Sofie Gråbøl, A Streetcat Named Bob, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Luke Treadaway, TV’s Luther with Idris Elba, The Rack Pack, again starring Luke Treadaway and the This Is England series, for which she received her BAFTA award and an additional BAFTA nomination.

Scoble has recently worked on Guerrilla, a series for Sky Atlantic with Idris Elba from director John Ridley (TV’s American Crime).