Synopsis

Lisa Immordino Vreeland directs this documentary about Academy Award-winning costume designer Cecil Beaton. A respected photographer, artist and set designer, Beaton was best known for designing on award winning films such as 'Gigi' (1958) and 'My Fair Lady' (1964). The film features archive footage and interviews with a number of models, artists and film-makers who worked closely with Beaton during his illustrious career. Cecil Beaton was not only a dazzling chronicler of his time, but a supreme arbiter of its tastes. From the Bright Young Things, to the front lines of World War II, and from the international belle monde and the pages of Vogue to a role as the Queen's official photographer, Beaton embodied the cultural and political schisms of the twentieth century. In this warm - though critical - portrait, director Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict) blends archival footage and photographs with voice over from Beaton's famed diaries to capture his legacy as a complex and unique creative force. Dynamic and lyrical, LOVE, CECIL is an examination of Beaton's singular sense of the visual, which dictated a style that set standards of creativity that continue to resonate and inspire today.