Love, Cecil

Cecil Beaton was probably best known for his production design for Oscar-winning films Gigi and My Fair Lady (especially the white and black Edwardian costumes for the unforgettable Ascot race) but his talents went far beyond that. Beaton himself was frustrated by his wide-ranging interests and abilities––as photographer, theatre and film designer, gifted diarist––and wondered whether he would have done better to concentrate on just one field, but Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s film makes it clear that our culture would have been far less fortunate if he had. Using previously unseen footage and stills, and with excerpts from his diaries wittily narrated by Rupert Everett, you get a sense of Beaton as the furthest from “just an ordinary, anonymous person,” his lifelong fear. His world is one of utter fascination –– from his work for Vogue, as a photographer in World War II, to his relationship with the Royal Family and his alleged affair with Greta Garbo (her picture was discovered in his bedroom among those of two of his male lovers).