“A Giacometti Portrait” is a little book written by James Lord (published in 1965, Giacometti died in 1966), a book that gives us a privileged look into Alberto Giacometti’s work and life.
It was compulsory reading in all the classes I taught.
It’s now been converted into a movie (am looking forward to seeing it) and the trailer shows that the movie is true to the book that it is based on: I showed it to a few friends and colleagues who are as familiar with Giacometti’s work as I am, and we all experienced the same thing: while everything is “fabricated” (Alberto’s studio is a set, not the “real” thing), the works are “fakes”, the actors barely look like the real-life people they are portraying and yet, within seconds of watching the trailer, it all becomes immensely believable, credible, it really works!
Here’s the trailer of the “Final Portrait” movie.
And for comparison, here's a short documentary about the original book and painting "behind” the ”Final Portrait” movie.
Insights into Giacometti's work process show that it is this succession of doing and undoing that leaves traces, like ashes after a fire, traces/ashes which are the real work of Art, at no time being what that artist intended/wanted.
Here’s a presentation of the “A Giacometti Portrait” book, and here's its cover:
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