LUST FOR CONTROVERSY, written by Richard Spencer, America’s top celebrity editor, is currently featured in the 2019 Nice Film Market (it won Best Unproduced Screenplay). It’s the epic true story of French artist Gustave Courbet, who was called the most arrogant man in France, and, if he were alive today, would be insulted that a movie hasn’t already been made about him! Hear him counting at least five films for Van Gogh and about half a dozen for Coco Chanel (oh, no, Courbet just fainted!).

For more info on LUST FOR CONTROVERSY: 

If you would like to inquire about a meeting before, during Cannes (May 14 -18)

or after Cannes, please email Richard Spencer at p.street@mac.com

<ABOUT GUSTAVE COURBET>

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.

Courbet's paintings of the late 1840s and early 1850s brought him his first recognition. They challenged convention by depicting unidealized peasants and workers, often on a grand scale traditionally reserved for paintings of religious or historical subjects. Courbet's subsequent paintings were mostly of a less overtly political character: landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, nudes and still lifes. An active socialist, Courbet was active in the political developments of France. He was imprisoned for six months in 1871 for his involvement with the Paris Commune, and lived in exile in Switzerland from 1873 until his death.

"I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty."

Gustave Courbet: A Burial at Ornans / The Origin of the World ...

<ABOUT RICHARD SPENCER>

Richard Spencer’s screenplay about French artist Gustave Courbet, “Lust For Controversy,” won “Best Unproduced Screenplay at the Nice International Film Festival in 2017. In the same year “Lust” was part of the Official Selection of the Mediterranean Cannes Film Festival.

Spencer resides in New York City, where he serves as Global Brand Director of 10 celebrity weeklies including Us Weekly and OK! magazines. He has the unique distinction of creating more publications than anyone in the business, including the successful titles of In Touch Weekly and J-14.

His writing portfolio includes period dramas, as well as contemporary comedies and dramas.