The Horror: Francis Bacon as a motif in Inception (2010)
I' ve just been to watch inception. i Will try my best not to put any spoilers in this note, for it is not my intention to discuss the plot or the events that inhabit it. I wish to follow one strand, which puts a particular perspective on the film which I found illuminating.
for all the many genre of films that inception uses I felt at its core its essence was a horror film.
in the beginning of the film there is a shot of a Francis Bacon portrait of George Dyer, his late Lover over his life he produced many paintings of Mr Dyer here is an example of one
Now a few facts about Francis Bacon
1: he was the only British painter this century to gain international influence within his life time.
2. he is consistent in presenting a fully articulated world view from early on to his last works
3: he's a bloody good painter, anyone who has any experience with oils can say that he was incredibly lucid with the material
4: he has been eloquently and positively and extensively written about. Especially the internal implications of his work within its own terms.
some people say that Bacon expresses the anguished loneliness of western man. some people say that what he expresses is what happens after the apocalypse. in Bacons mind the worst has already happened. the worst is not the blood stains and the screaming the worst is that mankind has become to be seen as mindless.
the frames of his paintings act like cages for mankind . cages alongside show other people and trapeze rails and cords But the ape cannot know this
there is no escape in bacons work no alternatives no shift in time or change no way to escape his reality's.
the horror of the film is connected with bacons work the idea of mindlessness. the terror of foregoing your mind to being reduced to a nervous system unable to separate yourself from the world which is created around you. to be trapped unknowingly and unable to exist from the fiction. this danger is ever present and the only escape is Death.
after watching inception i couldn't help and think about apocalypse now i think they have alot in common
A John Berger essay called Francis Bacon and Walt Disney talks about this better than I can
for all the many genre of films that inception uses I felt at its core its essence was a horror film.
in the beginning of the film there is a shot of a Francis Bacon portrait of George Dyer, his late Lover over his life he produced many paintings of Mr Dyer here is an example of one
(Study for the Head of George Dyer (1966))
Now a few facts about Francis Bacon
1: he was the only British painter this century to gain international influence within his life time.
2. he is consistent in presenting a fully articulated world view from early on to his last works
3: he's a bloody good painter, anyone who has any experience with oils can say that he was incredibly lucid with the material
4: he has been eloquently and positively and extensively written about. Especially the internal implications of his work within its own terms.
some people say that Bacon expresses the anguished loneliness of western man. some people say that what he expresses is what happens after the apocalypse. in Bacons mind the worst has already happened. the worst is not the blood stains and the screaming the worst is that mankind has become to be seen as mindless.
the frames of his paintings act like cages for mankind . cages alongside show other people and trapeze rails and cords But the ape cannot know this
there is no escape in bacons work no alternatives no shift in time or change no way to escape his reality's.
the horror of the film is connected with bacons work the idea of mindlessness. the terror of foregoing your mind to being reduced to a nervous system unable to separate yourself from the world which is created around you. to be trapped unknowingly and unable to exist from the fiction. this danger is ever present and the only escape is Death.
after watching inception i couldn't help and think about apocalypse now i think they have alot in common
A John Berger essay called Francis Bacon and Walt Disney talks about this better than I can
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