The Edge of Love

It was as a student in the late 70s that John Maybury first picked up a Super-8mm camera to capture the real-life emergence of the London punk scene. He saw himself as an artist more than a documentary filmmaker, having studied art with a view to painting canvases. However, a chance meeting with avant-garde director Derek Jarman inspired a deeper exploration of new filmmaking techniques. He served as a set designer for Jarman on his punk portrait Jubilee (1977) then, in the late 80s, worked as his editor and designer on rabble-rousing dramas The Last Of England and War Requiem. In between, he also directed his own low-budget films which pushed the envelope on visual effects and informal structure. Eventually, Maybury’s talent was recognised at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 where Love Is The Devil got critics talking. The film starred Derek Jacobi as the celebrated artist Francis Bacon and chronicled his doomed love affair with a small-time crook played by a young Daniel Craig. Perhaps the glare of the spotlight was too much for Maybury who followed that success by turning his attention back to painting and the occasional video installation.
His next film, The Jacket, didn’t come until 2005. It was a Hollywood thriller, but hardly standard stuff with Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley playing kindred spirits crossing the fabric of time and space. It offered plenty of scope for the kind of visual quirks that Maybury favours, but his latest offering is a much straighter, sepia-toned affair. Even so, The Edge Of Love does touch upon previously examined themes about the cost of artistic genius. The story unfolds in wartime Wales where the renowned poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys) acts as one corner in a love triangle that brings together his wife (played by Sienna Miller) and childhood lover (Keira Knightley).The Edge of Love (BBC Films) receives its world premiere at the Opening Night Gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wednesday 18th June 2008.