This afternoon I went to see the new Michael Douglas/Matt Damon film – Behind the Candelabra and I am still disturbed by it some hours later. It wasn’t because it was a story about two men having an affair or the film was poorly produced or acted – far from it. I’m still really not sure but I think it was mainly due to the abusive relationship between Liberace and his one time lover Scott Thorson. If the film is to be believed, and it is based on Thorson’s book on his relationship so we always have to be careful, Liberace appeared to want to control everything about Thorson, even his physical appearance. The only light relief came from Dan Ackroyd’s wig and Rob Lowe’s outrageous face. Other than this it was really quite seedy and left me wanting to have a shower. This is a bit of a shame because the film is really well made apart from the bizarre makeup that Douglas wears when Liberace didn’t have his wig on – it made him look like something of the set of Star Trek circa 1966.

To try and get over this film I’ve started working of a new House of Cards set of paintings – this time it is the turn of Lady McBeth…lets see how they work out over the next few days.

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk