by Martin I. Petrov
Many years after his last film and having starred in numerous other titles, Stanley Tucci returns behind the camera with Final Portrait, a period biopic drama that follows the last few years of the life of Swiss-Italian painter Alberto Giacometti. Geoffrey Rush stars as the famous painter alongside Clémence Poésy as his prostitute mistress and Armie Hammer as an American writer who becomes Giacometti’s obsession for the perfect portrait, which was also the last he completed.
In the official press conference, Stanley Tucci underlined he feels more secure and a bit more experienced now and this gave him a better understanding of the pace and the rhythm while doing the film. Working with a talented DoP helped I'm imagine the film in the best possible way and keep it as naturalistic as possible, considering it a period drama set in Paris.
Tucci, when asked why he decided to focus on the last few years of Giacometti’s life, commented that biopics can sometimes be quite “expositional and you can't explore the entire life of a person. In the film we show 18 days of the artist’s life but there is quite a lot of background to his personal life.”
Armie Hammer who plays Giacometti’s subject for the final portrait referred to how smooth his collaboration with Stanley Tucci was, because “when the director is an actor too he knows what his actors want and this makes it much easier.” Also, he continued “we used mostly handled cameras and the set was almost empty and free which felt quite liberating.”
Geoffrey Rush arrived from Prague where he is filming at the moment for the evening premiere of the film, where he was also awarded with the festival’s camera award for his contribution. Concluding the press conference, Stanley Tucci said humorously “…of course Geoffrey didn't stay in character. That's would've been a waste of time.”