Lisa Immordino Vreeland's 'Love, Cecil'

Beaton was a restless spirit. Despite worldwide fame, he never really felt he’d found his life’s work. But what he accomplished while looking made an impressive impact on the world of art and design.

Unrequited love?

Vreeland gives little attention to the events of Beaton’s life, and a great deal of attention to his relationships with people at each stage of his life. For instance, early in his career, when he was first making a name for himself as a photographer, illustrator, and writer for British Vogue, Beaton met and fell for art collector and artist benefactor Peter Watson. However, it was a troubled relationship.

Watson didn’t exactly reciprocate Beaton’s romantic feelings, allowing the relationship to proceed only on a no-touch basis. Nevertheless, for the rest of his life, Beaton considered Watson his greatest love.

When World War II broke out, Beaton desperately wanted to help with the war effort. Knowing that as a soldier he would make the worst sort of “sad sack,” he instead worked as a war correspondent and photographer during the Blitz, that period before the United States entered the war when London was carpet-bombed by Germany every night.

During this period, Beaton’s work came to the attention of the world at large. His unique ability to find beauty even in the harshest environments resulted in some of the war’s most evocative images. In fact, Beaton’s images are credited with helping to change U.S. attitudes toward involvement in the European war.

The glamorous life

After the war, Beaton’s star rose rapidly on several fronts, including fashion photography, illustration, and celebrity portraiture, most notably working as the photographer for the British royal family. He also garnered a strong reputation as a designer for stage and screen, winning multiple Tony and Oscar awards.

While he was in Hollywood, Beaton engaged in a celebrated affair with Greta Garbo. There’s no question he loved her extravagantly, but sadly, it didn’t last.

Vreeland seamlessly weaves together two approaches that aren’t always compatible: the strictly biographical and the artistic assessment. One reason that works so well here is that she assembled talking heads who can speak authoritatively from both perspectives, such as David Hockney and Isaac Mizrahi. She also includes film clips of Truman Capote and Diana Vreeland (Immordino Vreeland also directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a documentary about her legendary grandmother-in-law), and adds liberal doses of narration taken from Beaton’s diaries (read by Rupert Everett), helping us get inside his head.

Beaton’s influence as a celebrity portraitist cannot be underestimated. His ability to get even the most private celebrities to sit for him laid the groundwork for an approach followed with great success by photographers such as Annie Leibovitz.

If Beaton had been only a photographer, his influence would have been significant enough. But his restless spirit and boundless creativity showed a love of beauty in every discipline in which he engaged and was appreciated the world over. Vreeland’s Love, Cecil is a testament to an artist whose work resonates to this day.