In 1948, tickets to the Met Gala were $50 apiece. In 2024, a single entry fee for the exclusive social event was about $75,000. Despite the high cost, celebrities, designers, and the who’s who of NYC and beyond shell out for the gala, which benefits the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Since the ’70s, the annual affair has attracted household names wearing the most haute couture fashions — always adhering to the chosen theme. See some of the most out-there and iconic guests and looks at the Met Gala over the years.
Jackie Onassis and singer Debbie Harry at the 1979 Met Gala | Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Jackie Onassis served as a Met Gala co-chair in 1976 and 1977. The former First Lady wore a black taffeta gown to the 1979 Met Gala for “Fashions of The Hapsburg Era.” That same year, Debbie Harry of Blondie graced the famous event in a more casual look.
Jackie Onassis and singer Debbie Harry at the 1979 Met Gala | Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Jackie Onassis served as a Met Gala co-chair in 1976 and 1977. The former First Lady wore a black taffeta gown to the 1979 Met Gala for “Fashions of The Hapsburg Era.” That same year, Debbie Harry of Blondie graced the famous event in a more casual look.
- 5/7/2024
- by Ali Hicks
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
In 2006, a movie came out starring Daniel Craig, Sandra Bullock, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Isabella Rossellini, Peter Bogdanovich, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Toby Jones. That’s a murderer’s row of talent bringing to life writer/director Douglas McGrath’s script — and very few people paid it much mind. But “Infamous” was a victim of bad timing, not bad filmmaking.
One can’t blame audiences for greeting it with a collective shrug. McGrath’s movie tackled the exact same topic as the previous year’s “Capote” (the movie that earned Philip Seymour Hoffman his first and only Oscar): Truman Capote’s time spent researching and writing his true-crime classic “In Cold Blood.” After the buzzy release of “Capote” and months spent in awards season campaigning mode, no one was ready to revisit the subject.
What a shame, because “Infamous” restores much of what was missing from Bennett Miller...
One can’t blame audiences for greeting it with a collective shrug. McGrath’s movie tackled the exact same topic as the previous year’s “Capote” (the movie that earned Philip Seymour Hoffman his first and only Oscar): Truman Capote’s time spent researching and writing his true-crime classic “In Cold Blood.” After the buzzy release of “Capote” and months spent in awards season campaigning mode, no one was ready to revisit the subject.
What a shame, because “Infamous” restores much of what was missing from Bennett Miller...
- 2/13/2024
- by Mark Peikert
- Indiewire
The first Monday in May is every fashion lover’s favorite holiday and the internet’s glorified punching bag. It’s the day we observe the Met Gala — a pinnacle moment in American culture, resulting in countless headlines, thousands of memes, and sometimes a scandal or two. Remember when Jay-Z went toe-to-toe with Solange in an elevator after rumors broke about his alleged infidelity? It’s the only time when showing up dressed as a sexy Pope Francis could actually be endorsed, and the only place you can get accused...
- 5/1/2023
- by Kyle Lamar Rice
- Rollingstone.com
Snakes slither, cobras strike and boas squeeze have instilled dread in people for millennia. But snakes also are objects of fascination — for their sly power and a cunning born of a singular evolution. Bulgari has recognized the allure of snakes for 75 years, ever since creating its now iconic Serpenti jewelry in 1948.
Famously worn by Elizabeth Taylor — of whom Richard Burton once remarked, “The only word she knows in Italian is Bulgari”— the Italian luxury house’s Serpenti collection made a glamorous appearance at the 2023 Oscars on March 12. Presenter Pedro Pascal wore two Serpenti rings, while Angela Bassett, Cara Delevingne and Phoebe Waller-Bridge all gleamed in high-jewelry Serpenti necklaces sparkling with diamonds and emeralds.
Now through April 16, it’s possible to see a whole trove of Serpenti jewelry in one place at a special pop-up — the house’s first-ever in the U.S. — on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Visiting the store,...
Famously worn by Elizabeth Taylor — of whom Richard Burton once remarked, “The only word she knows in Italian is Bulgari”— the Italian luxury house’s Serpenti collection made a glamorous appearance at the 2023 Oscars on March 12. Presenter Pedro Pascal wore two Serpenti rings, while Angela Bassett, Cara Delevingne and Phoebe Waller-Bridge all gleamed in high-jewelry Serpenti necklaces sparkling with diamonds and emeralds.
Now through April 16, it’s possible to see a whole trove of Serpenti jewelry in one place at a special pop-up — the house’s first-ever in the U.S. — on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Visiting the store,...
- 4/4/2023
- by Degen Pener
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Click here to read the full article.
John Lithgow is set to direct the off-Broadway run of Everything’s Fine, the one-man show from Academy Award and BAFTA nominee Douglas McGrath.
The autobiographical play recounts the actor, writer and director’s life, starting at the age of 14 in Midland, Texas, the town made famous by the 1987 well rescue of “Baby Jessica.” The Emma and Nicholas Nickleby screenwriter will detail some of his most significant remembrances, including the courtship of his one-eyed father and his mother — the latter of whom worked at Harper’s Bazaar for Diana Vreeland and became pals with Andy Warhol — and an eighth-grade teacher who changed McGrath’s life in the most unexpected way.
Everything’s Fine will mark McGrath’s first New York stage performance in more than 25 years. The show serves as Lithgow’s return to directing after more than four decades.
The world premiere is set...
John Lithgow is set to direct the off-Broadway run of Everything’s Fine, the one-man show from Academy Award and BAFTA nominee Douglas McGrath.
The autobiographical play recounts the actor, writer and director’s life, starting at the age of 14 in Midland, Texas, the town made famous by the 1987 well rescue of “Baby Jessica.” The Emma and Nicholas Nickleby screenwriter will detail some of his most significant remembrances, including the courtship of his one-eyed father and his mother — the latter of whom worked at Harper’s Bazaar for Diana Vreeland and became pals with Andy Warhol — and an eighth-grade teacher who changed McGrath’s life in the most unexpected way.
Everything’s Fine will mark McGrath’s first New York stage performance in more than 25 years. The show serves as Lithgow’s return to directing after more than four decades.
The world premiere is set...
- 8/22/2022
- by Abbey White
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It has been recorded in previous Drag Race reviews how I believe that a musical challenge on the opening episode is the perfect way to open any season! On regular seasons of Drag Race, these lyric writing challenges give the queens an opportunity to introduce themselves to the audience which is especially important for early eliminations. For the first episode of all winners Drag Race All-Stars, the queens had to write, record and perform an original verse to Ru Paul’s song “Legends” that matched the prestige of the extremely successful queens involved. This song was the perfect opportunity for the queens to reintroduce themselves to the viewers (as one of them competed just over twelve years ago) but also allowed them to inject their performance with bucket loads of personality that reminds everyone why they won their original seasons! The track itself is available on Spotify and has been...
- 5/31/2022
- by Rhys Payne
- Nerdly
For this season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” RuPaul Charles brought back eight crowned queens to compete again for the chance to be named “Queen of All Queens,” earn a second crown, and take home a cash prize of 200,000. On Friday, May 20, the first two episodes of the new season dropped on Paramount Plus. We were re-introduced to Shea Couleé, Jaida Essence Hall, Yvie Oddly, Trinity the Tuck, Monét X Change, Jinkx Monsoon, Raja, and The Vivienne with the reading mini challenge and two iconic maxi challenges, the Ru-mix and “Snatch Game.”
In episode 2, titled “Snatch Game,” the eight queens participated in the iconic challenge not once, but twice with two different celebrity impersonations. Which queens earned the week’s Legendary Legend Stars and which of the two got to block another queen for the next week? Check out our recap of the episode below:
Following Shea’s win,...
In episode 2, titled “Snatch Game,” the eight queens participated in the iconic challenge not once, but twice with two different celebrity impersonations. Which queens earned the week’s Legendary Legend Stars and which of the two got to block another queen for the next week? Check out our recap of the episode below:
Following Shea’s win,...
- 5/21/2022
- by John Benutty
- Gold Derby
Prepare for a fashion blast from the past. Though it seems impossible to imagine, there was once a time in which the Met Gala was not a product of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The British journalist has certainly played a big role in making the annual event what it is today—she's been the gala's chair since 1995, after all—but the soiree actually dates back to 1948, when it was simply a midnight supper that invited guests could attend for 50 a ticket. The gala, also known as the Costume Institute Benefit, remained that way until fashion editor Diana Vreeland became a special consultant to the Institute in 1972. Before long, the dinner had transformed...
- 5/2/2022
- E! Online
André Leon Talley, the fashion icon who was once Vogue’s creative director and later its editor-at-large in the U.S. has died. The news was first reported by TMZ and later confirmed via a statement posted to the official Met Gala Twitter page. Talley was 73.
“Fashion lost another giant today,” read the Met Gala statement. “André Leon Talley, thank you for your groundbreaking work that has inspired so many of us. Your legacy will live on forever. Rip.”
Fashion lost another giant today. André Leon Talley, thank you for your groundbreaking work that has inspired so many of us. Your legacy will live on forever. Rip...
“Fashion lost another giant today,” read the Met Gala statement. “André Leon Talley, thank you for your groundbreaking work that has inspired so many of us. Your legacy will live on forever. Rip.”
Fashion lost another giant today. André Leon Talley, thank you for your groundbreaking work that has inspired so many of us. Your legacy will live on forever. Rip...
- 1/19/2022
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
Tennessee Williams at his desk. Courtesy of Harry Ransom Center. The University of Texas at Austin. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.
Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were literary giants of the mid-20th century but they were also friends. Truman And Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is more a tandem biography of these legendary authors than a conversation, but the documentary’s use of only the authors’ own words, read by actors Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto, does give it a conversational feel at times. However that conversation is not between the two great authors but rather with us, the listeners, as they discuss their lives and their work. Truman and Tennessee talk about each other, rather than to each other, as this excellent, insightful and entertaining documentary explores their lives and work through the lens of their long friendship.
It was a friendship had its ups and downs, but it was a long connection.
Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were literary giants of the mid-20th century but they were also friends. Truman And Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation is more a tandem biography of these legendary authors than a conversation, but the documentary’s use of only the authors’ own words, read by actors Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto, does give it a conversational feel at times. However that conversation is not between the two great authors but rather with us, the listeners, as they discuss their lives and their work. Truman and Tennessee talk about each other, rather than to each other, as this excellent, insightful and entertaining documentary explores their lives and work through the lens of their long friendship.
It was a friendship had its ups and downs, but it was a long connection.
- 6/25/2021
- by Cate Marquis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Over the course of just three features, filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland has already made a stamp on that documentary subgenre culture hounds find most irresistible — the 20th-century personality portrait — taking names we know well and sharing the private realms of their creative worlds. With “Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation,” she delivers two titans for the price of one, drawing parallels between novelist Truman Capote and playwright Tennessee Williams, whose real-life friendship-cum-rivalry serves as a natural dummy on which to hang a tailored homage to this quintessential pair of queer literary pioneers.
The trouble — and it’s no small obstacle — is that unlike Immordino Vreeland’s previous subjects, Capote and Williams were wordsmiths, not visual artists, which makes them harder to represent on screen. As such, the resulting project feels better suited to book form than that of a feature-length movie, and the devices she uses, like hiring “The Boys in the Band...
The trouble — and it’s no small obstacle — is that unlike Immordino Vreeland’s previous subjects, Capote and Williams were wordsmiths, not visual artists, which makes them harder to represent on screen. As such, the resulting project feels better suited to book form than that of a feature-length movie, and the devices she uses, like hiring “The Boys in the Band...
- 6/18/2021
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
“I love doing things that are about fashion,” Ryan Murphy tells us on the latest episode of Crew Call.
“A lot of people think fashion is frivolous and treat it as such. I think it’s true art, it’s how we live and it’s ‘the time’. I take it quite seriously,” adds the EP and writer who made Halston a priority as a limited series in his Netflix production deal.
Producer Christine Vachon and filmmaker Daniel Minahan tried to get the story about the rise and fall of Roy Halston Frowick made as early as 1996. The Des Moines, Iowa native went from being the milliner who made Jackie Kennedy’s famed pillbox hat to a roaring fashion icon known for shimmery, easy to wear one pieces and dresses. Halston was arguably the first among his peers to make couture available to the masses, and his selling-out remains a cautionary tale to the industry.
“A lot of people think fashion is frivolous and treat it as such. I think it’s true art, it’s how we live and it’s ‘the time’. I take it quite seriously,” adds the EP and writer who made Halston a priority as a limited series in his Netflix production deal.
Producer Christine Vachon and filmmaker Daniel Minahan tried to get the story about the rise and fall of Roy Halston Frowick made as early as 1996. The Des Moines, Iowa native went from being the milliner who made Jackie Kennedy’s famed pillbox hat to a roaring fashion icon known for shimmery, easy to wear one pieces and dresses. Halston was arguably the first among his peers to make couture available to the masses, and his selling-out remains a cautionary tale to the industry.
- 6/14/2021
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
When we first met Peregrine Fisher in 2019’s “Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries” on AcornTV, she was a little bit at loose ends. Sure, she inherited a sweet house, a sports car, and a knockout wardrobe from her aunt — the indefatigable Phryne Fisher of the cult favorite TV show “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” — but Peregrine was unsure about taking on her relative’s whole “solving crimes while looking fabulous” thing.
Judging by the trailer for the upcoming second season of the spinoff, Peregrine has come to terms with her new role — and she even has the private detective nameplate to prove it. Below, IndieWire exclusively debuts the trailer, first look photos, and release date for the second season of “Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries.”
Per AcornTV’s official synopsis:
“As murders continue to plague the streets of 1964 Melbourne, daring detective Peregrine Fisher tackles her trickiest assignment yet: juggling her career,...
Judging by the trailer for the upcoming second season of the spinoff, Peregrine has come to terms with her new role — and she even has the private detective nameplate to prove it. Below, IndieWire exclusively debuts the trailer, first look photos, and release date for the second season of “Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries.”
Per AcornTV’s official synopsis:
“As murders continue to plague the streets of 1964 Melbourne, daring detective Peregrine Fisher tackles her trickiest assignment yet: juggling her career,...
- 4/27/2021
- by Ann Donahue
- Indiewire
Bill Cunningham, the renowned chronicler of fashion, once wrote of himself, “I just loved to see wonderfully dressed women…That’s all there is to it.”
That fascination abided over a long lifetime as he roamed the streets of New York on bicycle, stopping to snap candid photos of the city’s most fashionably dressed. At night he kept at it, capturing the fashion choices of New York’s elite at glittering events. His astonishing career comes into focus in the Oscar-contending documentary The Times of Bill Cunningham, directed by Mark Bozek.
“He documented everything,” Bozek tells Deadline. “He never left his place without a camera since 1966, when he covered Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball at The Plaza.”
Cunningham was deeply self-effacing. Despite himself, he became a kind of New York institution, most notably through his work for the New York Times, where he was employed from 1978 until...
That fascination abided over a long lifetime as he roamed the streets of New York on bicycle, stopping to snap candid photos of the city’s most fashionably dressed. At night he kept at it, capturing the fashion choices of New York’s elite at glittering events. His astonishing career comes into focus in the Oscar-contending documentary The Times of Bill Cunningham, directed by Mark Bozek.
“He documented everything,” Bozek tells Deadline. “He never left his place without a camera since 1966, when he covered Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball at The Plaza.”
Cunningham was deeply self-effacing. Despite himself, he became a kind of New York institution, most notably through his work for the New York Times, where he was employed from 1978 until...
- 2/4/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Two of the most engaging and beguiling talkers—and, oh yes, two of the better writers—of the last century share the spotlight in Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation. Good friends in real life—both were from the South and gay, had difficult upbringings, made it big with early works that were made into popular films and battled drink and drug issues—the two men make for easy and natural stablemates in Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s sympathetic and nicely shaped documentary, which takes their great talents as a given and happily refuses to sensationalize their struggles. The film world premiered at the recent Hamptons Film Festival.
Vreeland, whose previous documentaries over the past decade have focused upon Diana Vreeland (her husband’s grandmother), Peggy Guggenheim and Cecil Beaton, is right at home with fashionable greats of the past century. But in addition to the usual archival material, which includes significant...
Vreeland, whose previous documentaries over the past decade have focused upon Diana Vreeland (her husband’s grandmother), Peggy Guggenheim and Cecil Beaton, is right at home with fashionable greats of the past century. But in addition to the usual archival material, which includes significant...
- 10/19/2020
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
The history of the Met Gala can be divided into three eras: Eleanor Lambert's founding, the Diana Vreeland renaissance and the Anna Wintour empire. Without these style icons, the Met Gala would merely be a fundraiser rather than the party of the year. One could even say that without these trailblazers, fashion wouldn't be included among the works of art that are currently displayed for the masses at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, these timeless pieces would remain in the vaults of famous ateliers, collecting dust. But Eleanor Lambert, among others, had a different vision for the ensembles designed by Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and designers...
- 5/1/2020
- E! Online
Bill Cunningham on the move at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology press preview. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The last time I encountered Bill Cunningham was on the first Monday in May of 2016 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology press preview. The exhibition, organised by Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, included the work of Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel), Yves Saint Laurent, Raf Simons (Christian Dior), Miuccia Prada, Pierre Cardin, Gabrielle Chanel, and Yohji Yamamoto.
Mark Bozek on Bill Cunningham: “I'd point him in one direction and suddenly he'd go 20 minutes on Diana Vreeland.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
James Crump's documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, Richard Press’s Bill Cunningham New York and Kate Novack's The Gospel According To...
The last time I encountered Bill Cunningham was on the first Monday in May of 2016 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology press preview. The exhibition, organised by Andrew Bolton, Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, included the work of Rei Kawakubo (Comme des Garçons), Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel), Yves Saint Laurent, Raf Simons (Christian Dior), Miuccia Prada, Pierre Cardin, Gabrielle Chanel, and Yohji Yamamoto.
Mark Bozek on Bill Cunningham: “I'd point him in one direction and suddenly he'd go 20 minutes on Diana Vreeland.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
James Crump's documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, Richard Press’s Bill Cunningham New York and Kate Novack's The Gospel According To...
- 2/15/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
She was photographed by Warhol, and Dalí wanted to paint her; the first films she made were Death in Venice and Cabaret. So why did she walk away?
Most people, says Marisa Berenson, “tend to live in my past. Which is fine.” She smiles, well aware of the fascination. “But I tend to live in the present and in the future.” A 2001 profile of the model/actor in the New York Times described her as a “Zelig of the zeitgeist … popping up in the right place at the right time”. And there is certainly something magical about her life and the people who have passed through it. As a child (she is now 72) she was taught to dance by Gene Kelly. Greta Garbo came to her parents’ parties; Salvador Dalí – a friend of her grandmother, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli – wanted to paint her. The legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland pushed...
Most people, says Marisa Berenson, “tend to live in my past. Which is fine.” She smiles, well aware of the fascination. “But I tend to live in the present and in the future.” A 2001 profile of the model/actor in the New York Times described her as a “Zelig of the zeitgeist … popping up in the right place at the right time”. And there is certainly something magical about her life and the people who have passed through it. As a child (she is now 72) she was taught to dance by Gene Kelly. Greta Garbo came to her parents’ parties; Salvador Dalí – a friend of her grandmother, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli – wanted to paint her. The legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland pushed...
- 10/30/2019
- by Emine Saner
- The Guardian - Film News
There’s no question Hulu wants to get its viewers in the Halloween mood — the streaming service will add a fresh slate of horror movies to its collection once October hits. In addition to watching Jigsaw psychologically torture victims in “Saw,” “Saw 2” and “Saw 6,” audiences will also be able to see the original Hill House in the 1963 thriller “The Haunting.” For those in the mood for a classic, horror favorites from Alfred Hitchcock will also become available come Oct. 1, including “Rear Window,” “Psycho” and “The Birds.”
Anticipated Hulu Originals will also premiere this coming month. Season 2 of “Light as a Feather” will launch on the streamer on Oct. 4, while “Looking for Alaska,” based on John Green’s best-selling novel of the same name, will premiere on Oct. 18.
Scroll through the list below:
Oct. 1
60 Days In: Season 5
Alien Encounters: Season 2-3
American Pickers: Season 19
Basketball Wives La: Seasons 1-5
Biography: The...
Anticipated Hulu Originals will also premiere this coming month. Season 2 of “Light as a Feather” will launch on the streamer on Oct. 4, while “Looking for Alaska,” based on John Green’s best-selling novel of the same name, will premiere on Oct. 18.
Scroll through the list below:
Oct. 1
60 Days In: Season 5
Alien Encounters: Season 2-3
American Pickers: Season 19
Basketball Wives La: Seasons 1-5
Biography: The...
- 9/27/2019
- by Anna Tingley
- Variety Film + TV
Spooky season is upon us, and Hulu is getting into the spirit with a number of horror or Halloween-themed offerings on its October line-up.
Along with Hulu originals like the horror anthology “Into the Dark” and the second season of Stephen King’s “Castle Rock,” the streamer is also offering films from the “Saw,” “Blade” and “Hellraiser” franchises beginning next month. For the more faint of heart, Hulu is also offering three seasons of Food Network’s “Halloween Wars” and the surely adorable “Kids Halloween Baking Championship.”
Not specifically Halloween-themed, but potentially haunting: All six seasons of the original run of “The Hills” will be available to stream on Oct. 1 for those looking to revisit the halcyon days of reality television and questionable late-aughts fashion.
Also Read: Lizzy Caplan's Annie Wilkes Arrives, Causes Mayhem in Hulu's 'Castle Rock' Season 2 Teaser (Video)
Hulu is also debuting all seven...
Along with Hulu originals like the horror anthology “Into the Dark” and the second season of Stephen King’s “Castle Rock,” the streamer is also offering films from the “Saw,” “Blade” and “Hellraiser” franchises beginning next month. For the more faint of heart, Hulu is also offering three seasons of Food Network’s “Halloween Wars” and the surely adorable “Kids Halloween Baking Championship.”
Not specifically Halloween-themed, but potentially haunting: All six seasons of the original run of “The Hills” will be available to stream on Oct. 1 for those looking to revisit the halcyon days of reality television and questionable late-aughts fashion.
Also Read: Lizzy Caplan's Annie Wilkes Arrives, Causes Mayhem in Hulu's 'Castle Rock' Season 2 Teaser (Video)
Hulu is also debuting all seven...
- 9/24/2019
- by Reid Nakamura
- The Wrap
Amazon Prime Video has confirmed that five original shows will be debuting new episodes on the streaming service in September. Among these are the first seasons of the groundbreaking animated series “Undone,” which will be available in both 4K and Hrd, and the German import “Chris Tall Presentes,” an unscripted series starring the comedian. Another animated series, “Niko And The Sword of Light,” returns for a sophomore season. And “Transparent” will sign off with a sung finale.
The Amazon original film “Late Night” will start streaming justt a few months after its successful theatrical run. Mindy Kaling both wrote and starred in this wry look at the world of TV, with Emma Thompson stealing scenes as the beleaguered host of a failing talk show.
Below is the full schedule of everything that is coming to Amazon Prime Video in September 2019. Unlike Netflix, Amazon does not disclose the shows and movies...
The Amazon original film “Late Night” will start streaming justt a few months after its successful theatrical run. Mindy Kaling both wrote and starred in this wry look at the world of TV, with Emma Thompson stealing scenes as the beleaguered host of a failing talk show.
Below is the full schedule of everything that is coming to Amazon Prime Video in September 2019. Unlike Netflix, Amazon does not disclose the shows and movies...
- 9/1/2019
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
If you’re looking for movies to watch in September, Amazon Prime will let you have a Max Rockatansky marathon. “Mad Max” movies “The Road Warrior” and “Beyond Thunderdome” are among the titles hitting the service next month. If you’re looking for something new, on the other hand, the rotoscope original series “Undone,” about a young woman’s journey to prevent the death of her father by manipulating time, will be available for streaming on the 13th.
As for other options, you can get caught up in a web of Pentagon intrigue with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman in “No Way Out.” Disco dance to the Bee Gees with John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.” Curate your own Reese Witherspoon double feature with “Election” and “Legally Blonde.” Snack on popcorn while watching the daring corn silo scene in “Witness.” Take a Martian vacation with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Total Recall.
As for other options, you can get caught up in a web of Pentagon intrigue with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman in “No Way Out.” Disco dance to the Bee Gees with John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever.” Curate your own Reese Witherspoon double feature with “Election” and “Legally Blonde.” Snack on popcorn while watching the daring corn silo scene in “Witness.” Take a Martian vacation with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Total Recall.
- 8/31/2019
- by Dano Nissen
- Variety Film + TV
The 2019 Met Gala's parade of overly-exaggerated outfits produced more than just some unforgettable photo ops ... the event raised a record-breaking amount of money for charity. The shindig held Monday night at The Metropolitan Museum of Art raised an astonishing $15 million ... this according to a Met rep. That's a jump from last year's $13M figure. The Met Gala is the museum's main source of annual funding for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and capital improvements. The stars didn't disappoint this year.
- 5/7/2019
- by TMZ Staff
- TMZ
In 1965 Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland came up with the term “youthquake” to describe the social upheaval as the 1950s-set constraints on pop culture, fashion, and, well, decorum were cast aside. The new four-part series from Acorn TV, “Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries,” takes place in Australia during this exact era, and costume designer Maria Pattison was tasked with capturing this exuberance in the outfits worn by Peregrine Fisher, portrayed by Geraldine Hakewill.
“She was grounded in the youthquake movement and power to the people,” Pattison said recently in an interview with IndieWire. “A lot of expression was coming out through clothing, because ready-to-wear was happening and people were able to choose things off the rack and create their own style.”
The result is a vibrant color palette of jewel tones and pastels in polished, tailored looks that never veer into fusty. “When we think of the ‘60s a lot...
“She was grounded in the youthquake movement and power to the people,” Pattison said recently in an interview with IndieWire. “A lot of expression was coming out through clothing, because ready-to-wear was happening and people were able to choose things off the rack and create their own style.”
The result is a vibrant color palette of jewel tones and pastels in polished, tailored looks that never veer into fusty. “When we think of the ‘60s a lot...
- 4/30/2019
- by Ann Donahue
- Indiewire
So what dropped trailer-wise over the past seven days, you innocently ask? How about the final clip for an upcoming movie about a mutant run amuck and an uncensored look at a TV show about folks trying to bring down power-mad superheroes? Plus an animated show about birdy BFFs voiced by two of the funniest woman on the planet, the return of a horror-flick icon, a look at a limited series about the Central Park Five and a no-holds-barred drama about life as a racist hatemonger. Oh, and a sneak...
- 4/20/2019
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
James Crump, in his documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, shows Karl Lagerfeld acting in Paul Morrissey and Andy Warhol's obscure fashion film L'Amour: "Karl would send little personal notes and was always an extraordinarily supportive person."
Karl Lagerfeld died today at the age of 85 at the American Hospital in Paris. Lagerfeld, never shy to be caught on camera, had a cameo in Julie Delpy's Lolo and was seen in Fabien Constant's Carine Roitfeld documentary Mademoiselle C with Sarah Jessica Parker. Frédéric Tcheng, editor of Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor, co-director with Lisa Immordino Vreeland of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, and director of Dior And I, sent the following remembrance in honour of Karl Lagerfeld.
Dany Boon with Karl Lagerfeld in Julie Delpy's Lolo
"What news! I thought Karl was going to live forever. I guess he died on stage,...
Karl Lagerfeld died today at the age of 85 at the American Hospital in Paris. Lagerfeld, never shy to be caught on camera, had a cameo in Julie Delpy's Lolo and was seen in Fabien Constant's Carine Roitfeld documentary Mademoiselle C with Sarah Jessica Parker. Frédéric Tcheng, editor of Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor, co-director with Lisa Immordino Vreeland of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, and director of Dior And I, sent the following remembrance in honour of Karl Lagerfeld.
Dany Boon with Karl Lagerfeld in Julie Delpy's Lolo
"What news! I thought Karl was going to live forever. I guess he died on stage,...
- 2/19/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Lisa Immordino Vreeland on Rupert Everett as the voice of Cecil Beaton for Love, Cecil: "I always wanted him. That was my first instinct. I love him." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second half of my conversation with the director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, Lisa Immordino Vreeland discusses more about her latest documentary Love, Cecil and the connections to Rupert Everett, Robin Muir, and Paul Lyon-Maris.
We also spoke about Cecil Beaton as the production and costume designer for Vincente Minnelli's Gigi with Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan, his stormy relationship with George Cukor on My Fair Lady, a Manolo Blahnik comment quoting Beaton on a Gary Cooper photograph, and an upcoming Truman Capote project.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland on Cecil Beaton: "What interested me was that he really wanted to put everything on a stage. His whole life...
In the second half of my conversation with the director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, Lisa Immordino Vreeland discusses more about her latest documentary Love, Cecil and the connections to Rupert Everett, Robin Muir, and Paul Lyon-Maris.
We also spoke about Cecil Beaton as the production and costume designer for Vincente Minnelli's Gigi with Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan, his stormy relationship with George Cukor on My Fair Lady, a Manolo Blahnik comment quoting Beaton on a Gary Cooper photograph, and an upcoming Truman Capote project.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland on Cecil Beaton: "What interested me was that he really wanted to put everything on a stage. His whole life...
- 7/18/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
“Love, Cecil” demonstrates how a documentary can be a magical experience. I went into the film barely having heard of Cecil Beaton, who (as I learned) was one of the most incandescent photographers who ever lived. The reason I state my ignorance in such blunt terms — hey, I’m a film critic, not a photography scholar — is that for me, as I suspect will be the case for many others, the movie’s splendor lies in the sensation of being washed over by an elated experience of discovery.
The documentary tells the story of Beaton’s life, and it’s a moving and majestic one that spans many of the revolutions in perception that defined the 20th century. Yet “Love, Cecil” is rooted in the mind-bendingly eclectic splendor of Beaton’s images. He was a visionary fashion photographer, a fearless journalist of war, an indelible chronicler of celebrity, and — through...
The documentary tells the story of Beaton’s life, and it’s a moving and majestic one that spans many of the revolutions in perception that defined the 20th century. Yet “Love, Cecil” is rooted in the mind-bendingly eclectic splendor of Beaton’s images. He was a visionary fashion photographer, a fearless journalist of war, an indelible chronicler of celebrity, and — through...
- 6/30/2018
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Lisa Immordino Vreeland on Cecil Beaton: "It was something that he was born with. That he just needed to create on multiple platforms. He's known as a photographer but he was so much more than that." Photo: Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby's
On-camera interviews with David Hockney, Leslie Caron on Vincente Minnelli's Gigi, Isaac Mizrahi, Hamish Bowles, Manolo Blahnik, David Bailey and Penelope Tree, and terrific archival footage that includes George Cukor on My Fair Lady, Truman Capote and Diana Vreeland on their take on Cecil Beaton, are skilfully combined to show us a great deal about the photographer, costume and set designer and his complicated personal life, that included a marriage proposal to Greta Garbo.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, in her latest documentary, Love, Cecil, shot by Shane Sigler (Elaine Stritch...
On-camera interviews with David Hockney, Leslie Caron on Vincente Minnelli's Gigi, Isaac Mizrahi, Hamish Bowles, Manolo Blahnik, David Bailey and Penelope Tree, and terrific archival footage that includes George Cukor on My Fair Lady, Truman Capote and Diana Vreeland on their take on Cecil Beaton, are skilfully combined to show us a great deal about the photographer, costume and set designer and his complicated personal life, that included a marriage proposal to Greta Garbo.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, in her latest documentary, Love, Cecil, shot by Shane Sigler (Elaine Stritch...
- 6/27/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Chicago – He’s not a household name, but his influence has affected the closets of those households. André Leon Talley (“Alt”) is a New York City fashionista of the highest order, despite a background that would never predict that fate. But a person in the right place at the right time with the right work ethic can product magical results, and “The Gospel According to André” conjures that journey for Talley.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
In a crisp document of the life and times of Alt, by director Kate Novack, “The Gospel…” uses a parallel of the 2016 election as a backdrop for his past accomplishments, and the results of that election end up in an unexpected scene. The rest of the show is the life story – of an African American boy coming from the Jim Crow American South and driving the media of fashion – and the talking heads around that story, the cream...
Rating: 3.5/5.0
In a crisp document of the life and times of Alt, by director Kate Novack, “The Gospel…” uses a parallel of the 2016 election as a backdrop for his past accomplishments, and the results of that election end up in an unexpected scene. The rest of the show is the life story – of an African American boy coming from the Jim Crow American South and driving the media of fashion – and the talking heads around that story, the cream...
- 6/3/2018
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
It’s depressing to realize that a whole lot of non-fiction films in the next few years will be framed in one way or another by Donald Trump’s presidency, whether or not they’re specifically about or exploring politics. Such is the case with “The Gospel According to André,” a movie ostensibly profiling fashion journalism luminary André Leon Talley.
Through his eyes, we’re forced to rewatch the dispiriting build-up to the 2016 election — though, thankfully, Talley remains available (and wildly entertaining) to documentarian Kate Novack (“Eat This New York”) despite promises to the contrary after Trump wins.
In spite (or possibly because) of that context, an especially loving, reflective portrait of an African-American from the Jim Crow-era South who becomes one of the notoriously white fashion world’s great witnesses, “Gospel” chronicles singular creativity and skill gravitating to its perfect field, and one extraordinary man’s evolution into an institution unto himself.
Through his eyes, we’re forced to rewatch the dispiriting build-up to the 2016 election — though, thankfully, Talley remains available (and wildly entertaining) to documentarian Kate Novack (“Eat This New York”) despite promises to the contrary after Trump wins.
In spite (or possibly because) of that context, an especially loving, reflective portrait of an African-American from the Jim Crow-era South who becomes one of the notoriously white fashion world’s great witnesses, “Gospel” chronicles singular creativity and skill gravitating to its perfect field, and one extraordinary man’s evolution into an institution unto himself.
- 5/23/2018
- by Todd Gilchrist
- The Wrap
Lisa Immordino Vreeland presented Love, Cecil at Sotheby's in New York Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
On a stormy spring Saturday night, Art Agency, Partners and Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber hosted a reception and preview screening of Love, Cecil at Sotheby's in New York.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, presented her documentary on Cecil Beaton narrated by Rupert Everett and edited by Bernadine Colish (Absolute Wilson).
Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts - Coco on Broadway, costumes by Cecil Beaton Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Through on-camera interviews with David Hockney, Leslie Caron, Isaac Mizrahi, Hamish Bowles, Manolo Blahnik, David Bailey and Penelope Tree, and terrific archival footage, including an exchange between Truman Capote and Diana Vreeland on their take on Cecil Beaton, we...
On a stormy spring Saturday night, Art Agency, Partners and Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber hosted a reception and preview screening of Love, Cecil at Sotheby's in New York.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland, the director of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, presented her documentary on Cecil Beaton narrated by Rupert Everett and edited by Bernadine Colish (Absolute Wilson).
Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts - Coco on Broadway, costumes by Cecil Beaton Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Through on-camera interviews with David Hockney, Leslie Caron, Isaac Mizrahi, Hamish Bowles, Manolo Blahnik, David Bailey and Penelope Tree, and terrific archival footage, including an exchange between Truman Capote and Diana Vreeland on their take on Cecil Beaton, we...
- 5/14/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
At Magnolia Pictures, The Gospel According To André director Kate Novack with Andrew Rossi on André Leon Talley: "He is a great storyteller." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Kate Novack's all embracing The Gospel According To André, produced by Andrew Rossi and Josh Braun, features interviews with Tom Ford, Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs, Valentino Garavani, will.i.am, and Manolo Blahnik on the bigger than life André Leon Talley. Fran Lebowitz has more than one funny anecdote on Talley when he worked at Andy Warhol's Interview magazine.
On André Leon Talley at his house: "He is this quiet, serene, gentle soul and that was really surprising." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The man who invented himself with style and grace, talks about the great importance of Diana Vreeland, states "I loved seeing Pat Cleveland in Vogue", visits the Condé Nast archives with Tonne Goodman, comments in a live blog with Maureen Dowd...
Kate Novack's all embracing The Gospel According To André, produced by Andrew Rossi and Josh Braun, features interviews with Tom Ford, Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs, Valentino Garavani, will.i.am, and Manolo Blahnik on the bigger than life André Leon Talley. Fran Lebowitz has more than one funny anecdote on Talley when he worked at Andy Warhol's Interview magazine.
On André Leon Talley at his house: "He is this quiet, serene, gentle soul and that was really surprising." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The man who invented himself with style and grace, talks about the great importance of Diana Vreeland, states "I loved seeing Pat Cleveland in Vogue", visits the Condé Nast archives with Tonne Goodman, comments in a live blog with Maureen Dowd...
- 5/1/2018
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
A long time in the making, Reach Me, from filmmaker/actor John Herzfeld brings ‘positive thinking’ and ‘self-help’ to the big screen. It stars a bevy of Herzfeld’s actor friends and friends of friends, including Sylvester Stallone, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Connolly.
The title is one of a dozen or so newcomers opening in limited release this weekend. Music Box’s Happy Valley and Kino Lorber’s Monk With A Camera are among Friday’s debuting documentaries.
Happy Valley, named after the area where Pennsylvania State University is located, dives into the child sexual-abuse scandal that rocked Penn State, while Monk looks at an unlikely ascetic who gave up life in the fast lane.
Kino Lorber also is launching Iranian Western Vampire pic A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which it is releasing with Vice Films. The title, which was born out of a previous short film, debuted at Sundance in January.
The title is one of a dozen or so newcomers opening in limited release this weekend. Music Box’s Happy Valley and Kino Lorber’s Monk With A Camera are among Friday’s debuting documentaries.
Happy Valley, named after the area where Pennsylvania State University is located, dives into the child sexual-abuse scandal that rocked Penn State, while Monk looks at an unlikely ascetic who gave up life in the fast lane.
Kino Lorber also is launching Iranian Western Vampire pic A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which it is releasing with Vice Films. The title, which was born out of a previous short film, debuted at Sundance in January.
- 11/21/2014
- by Brian Brooks
- Deadline
By Michael Atkinson
Like a missing-link hominid stepping out of the jungle, famous photographer William Klein emerges on 21st century DVD as the great bullgoose Art Film-era satirist we never knew we had. Hallowed for his still images and his documentaries, the Paris-based Klein also made three furiously hostile lampoons that were nominally released, ignored and then forgotten. Until now, you could only find "Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?" (1966), "Mr. Freedom" (1969) and "The Model Couple" (1977) in scruffy bootlegs from pro-am vendors like Pimpadelic Wonderland . and given the movies' paucity of reputation, you would've had little reason to do so. A busy '60s shutterbug for the French Vogue, Klein more or less fell in with the Left Bank New Wavers (Resnais, Demy, Marker, Varda) and the Panic Movement (Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor both show up in "Polly Maggoo"). But his perspective was New Yawk pugilistic, his humor was mercilessly...
Like a missing-link hominid stepping out of the jungle, famous photographer William Klein emerges on 21st century DVD as the great bullgoose Art Film-era satirist we never knew we had. Hallowed for his still images and his documentaries, the Paris-based Klein also made three furiously hostile lampoons that were nominally released, ignored and then forgotten. Until now, you could only find "Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?" (1966), "Mr. Freedom" (1969) and "The Model Couple" (1977) in scruffy bootlegs from pro-am vendors like Pimpadelic Wonderland . and given the movies' paucity of reputation, you would've had little reason to do so. A busy '60s shutterbug for the French Vogue, Klein more or less fell in with the Left Bank New Wavers (Resnais, Demy, Marker, Varda) and the Panic Movement (Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor both show up in "Polly Maggoo"). But his perspective was New Yawk pugilistic, his humor was mercilessly...
- 5/27/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
The story of New York it girl, fashion icon and Andy Warhol muse Edie Sedgwick (1943-71) has taken on the proportions of a cult myth, as do most true tales of brief, intense lives. Focusing on the year or so in the mid-1960s when she burned brightest and crashed most dramatically, "Factory Girl" boasts its own bright intensity, fueled in large part by leads Sienna Miller and Guy Pearce. Director George Hickenlooper captures the energy and ultra-irony of Warhol's scene, but his attempts to give the film a conventional biopic arc end up wallowing in dime-store psychology. The central performances will generate strong word-of-mouth for the picture, which enters limited release today.
A work-in-progress version that the Weinstein Co. screened only weeks ago had a rawer, more immediate power than the final cut. In particular, the addition of a framing interview set in 1970 -- with Miller's Sedgwick in scrubbed California-girl mode, having abandoned Manhattan, heavy eyeliner and hard drugs -- has a defusing effect, explaining what already is evident, especially when it is used in voice-over. Intercut talking-head comments from the likes of George Plympton and one of Sedgwick's brothers, which provided far more interesting context and commentary than the current narration by Sedgwick, are now relegated to the end-credits sequence.
Some of the changes might have to do with Bob Dylan's objections to the original script and threatened legal action. He apparently was concerned that the film would draw a cause-and-effect line between the end of his relationship with Sedgwick and her suicide. (Sedgwick has long been viewed as a key inspiration to "Blonde on Blonde"-era Dylan, but whether they did indeed have a love affair appears less likely.) Coyly unnamed in the film, the famous, scruffy musician who temporarily draws Edie out of the Warhol orbit is clearly based on Dylan. If anything, though, the character, played by a charismatic Hayden Christensen, comes across as the sole voice of reason in Sedgwick's increasingly out-of-control life.
"Factory Girl" draws a too-easy opposition between the musician's authenticity and the artificiality of Warhol's world of surfaces. But at its strongest, it explores a timeless tension between style and substance, form and meaning. At the center of this tug of war is the blueblood gamine Sedgwick, a striking beauty and would-be artist whose unique glamour snags Warhol's heart, inasmuch as he will admit to having one.
Perhaps the cruelest irony of Sedgwick's story, as it is presented here, is that she escapes her troubled family, albeit on trust-fund purse strings, only to end up in the grip of another ultimately poisonous clan. If there is a villain here besides Edie's father (James Naughton), the part goes to Warhol (Pearce). After making Edie the "superstar" of his controversial movies, he jealously guilt-trips her over her involvement with the rock star. He is an unlikely Oedipal figure for Sedgwick, whose suspicions toward happy-family facades are explained in all-too-familiar melodramatic fashion.
Pearce, one of the most versatile of screen actors, is compelling and witty as the pallid Svengali, for whom society gossip seeps into even Catholic confession. His anxious, hungry gaze conveys envy, self-loathing and a childlike fascination with beauty. As the beauty who for a while captivated him beyond all others, Miller delivers a powerful performance, often baring all to give us Edie at her most candlelit exquisite as well as her most degraded. From the throaty laugh and old-money inflections to the extreme vulnerability, neediness and intelligence, she brings to life Sedgwick's legendary allure.
Supporting performances are a mixed bag, ranging from the awkward (a decidedly unflamboyant Jimmy Fallon as a "flamboyant socialite," Mena Suvari as rich girl Richie and Illeana Douglas as Diana Vreeland) to the convincing (Armin Amiri as fellow Factory girl Ondine, Beth Grant as Andy's mother and Edward Herrmann as the Sedgwick family attorney).
Screenwriter Captain Mauzner, who co-scripted the John Holmes-centered "Wonderland", indulges in too much explanatory psychologizing. But stripped of that overlay, his screenplay often sizzles with the self-conscious humor of smart nonconformists. DP Michael Grady ably helps Hickenlooper pay homage to Warhol's inventively bad-is-good filmmaking and renowned B&W screen tests. Playing '60s New York, Shreveport, La., lends a fitting vintage feel, while the production design by Jeremy Reed and John Dunn's costumes create an exuberant blend of high society and underground scene.
A work-in-progress version that the Weinstein Co. screened only weeks ago had a rawer, more immediate power than the final cut. In particular, the addition of a framing interview set in 1970 -- with Miller's Sedgwick in scrubbed California-girl mode, having abandoned Manhattan, heavy eyeliner and hard drugs -- has a defusing effect, explaining what already is evident, especially when it is used in voice-over. Intercut talking-head comments from the likes of George Plympton and one of Sedgwick's brothers, which provided far more interesting context and commentary than the current narration by Sedgwick, are now relegated to the end-credits sequence.
Some of the changes might have to do with Bob Dylan's objections to the original script and threatened legal action. He apparently was concerned that the film would draw a cause-and-effect line between the end of his relationship with Sedgwick and her suicide. (Sedgwick has long been viewed as a key inspiration to "Blonde on Blonde"-era Dylan, but whether they did indeed have a love affair appears less likely.) Coyly unnamed in the film, the famous, scruffy musician who temporarily draws Edie out of the Warhol orbit is clearly based on Dylan. If anything, though, the character, played by a charismatic Hayden Christensen, comes across as the sole voice of reason in Sedgwick's increasingly out-of-control life.
"Factory Girl" draws a too-easy opposition between the musician's authenticity and the artificiality of Warhol's world of surfaces. But at its strongest, it explores a timeless tension between style and substance, form and meaning. At the center of this tug of war is the blueblood gamine Sedgwick, a striking beauty and would-be artist whose unique glamour snags Warhol's heart, inasmuch as he will admit to having one.
Perhaps the cruelest irony of Sedgwick's story, as it is presented here, is that she escapes her troubled family, albeit on trust-fund purse strings, only to end up in the grip of another ultimately poisonous clan. If there is a villain here besides Edie's father (James Naughton), the part goes to Warhol (Pearce). After making Edie the "superstar" of his controversial movies, he jealously guilt-trips her over her involvement with the rock star. He is an unlikely Oedipal figure for Sedgwick, whose suspicions toward happy-family facades are explained in all-too-familiar melodramatic fashion.
Pearce, one of the most versatile of screen actors, is compelling and witty as the pallid Svengali, for whom society gossip seeps into even Catholic confession. His anxious, hungry gaze conveys envy, self-loathing and a childlike fascination with beauty. As the beauty who for a while captivated him beyond all others, Miller delivers a powerful performance, often baring all to give us Edie at her most candlelit exquisite as well as her most degraded. From the throaty laugh and old-money inflections to the extreme vulnerability, neediness and intelligence, she brings to life Sedgwick's legendary allure.
Supporting performances are a mixed bag, ranging from the awkward (a decidedly unflamboyant Jimmy Fallon as a "flamboyant socialite," Mena Suvari as rich girl Richie and Illeana Douglas as Diana Vreeland) to the convincing (Armin Amiri as fellow Factory girl Ondine, Beth Grant as Andy's mother and Edward Herrmann as the Sedgwick family attorney).
Screenwriter Captain Mauzner, who co-scripted the John Holmes-centered "Wonderland", indulges in too much explanatory psychologizing. But stripped of that overlay, his screenplay often sizzles with the self-conscious humor of smart nonconformists. DP Michael Grady ably helps Hickenlooper pay homage to Warhol's inventively bad-is-good filmmaking and renowned B&W screen tests. Playing '60s New York, Shreveport, La., lends a fitting vintage feel, while the production design by Jeremy Reed and John Dunn's costumes create an exuberant blend of high society and underground scene.
- 12/29/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It wasn't intended this way. Nevertheless, "Infamous" gives you the unique opportunity to see how two sets of filmmakers can take exactly the same story, make extremely tough though different choices in emphasis and tone and achieve brilliant movies. "Infamous" follows Truman Capote on his tortuous and ultimately soul-damaging six-year quest to write his masterpiece, "In Cold Blood", just as the Oscar-winning "Capote" did last year.
Which raises the question: Will "Infamous" be hurt by being released a year later? You would think people who enjoyed "Capote" and Philip Seymour Hoffman's amazing impersonation of that famous, self-aggrandizing writer would want to see the new film. Then again, there may be "Truman fatigue". "Capote" grossed $28.7 million at the domestic boxoffice, so you figure "Infamous" should at least make it past the $20 million mark.
Naturally, both films rely heavily on the central performance. English stage actor Toby Jones certainly looks like Truman Capote. Jones is small, and he makes this one of the keys to understanding this contradictory figure. His imitation of Capote's high-pitched voice and gloriously fey manner is equal to Hoffman's, but his emphasis is less on Tru the tortured author than on his lonely, yearning soul.
His Truman is a man on a lifelong, unrequited search for love. The great irony is that he comes closest to achieving this quest with four-time killer Perry Smith.
Here is where the two movies crucially diverge. "Infamous" spends much longer in the prison cell where the writer and his subject engage in a courtship that results in Perry opening up to Truman and allowing him to write his book. Daniel Craig plays the psychopath with a divided heart. As Truman says, "the tender and the terrible" dwell within him side by side. One side wars against the other, igniting rages that may well have fed the 1959 killing spree in Holcomb, Kansas.
"Infamous" covers the same time period as "Capote": from 1959 until the executions of Perry and his partner Dick Hickock (Lee Pace) in 1965. There are superficial similarities in how the movies juxtapose two dramatically different worlds -- plain-folks Kansas and forbidding prison cells in contrast to the martini-soaked, name-dropping, gossip-fixated Manhattan set where Truman's wit and literary fame made him the toast of many parties.
"Infamous" adds one more juicy ingredient. The movie is based on George Plimpton's oral biography, "Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career." So you get not only barbed "interviews" with the likes of author Gore Vidal (Michael Panes) but parties and boozy lunches with Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), wife of CBS chairman William Paley; Neapolitan princess Marella Agnelli (Isabella Rossellini); socialite Slim Keith (Hope Davis); and Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson). The movie even opens with Gwyneth Paltrow as Peggy Lee, singing and breaking down over "What Is This Thing Called Love?" That question haunts the rest of the movie.
According to "Infamous", Truman and Perry fall for each other. The author's seduction of the murderer for the sake of his book exposes each to a weird sort of alter ego: Both men had fathers who disappeared and disappointed and mothers who committed suicide. Both were greedy for attention. Truman earned his, but Perry had to kill four people.
Truman is accompanied to Kansas by childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock). She acts as guide and guardian for this strange little man, who initially is hapless and lost in the Midwest. But in this version, she gradually drifts to the sidelines while remaining a confidante and sounding board as the movie shifts from mannered comedy to gripping drama.
Jeff Daniels finds many layers in the role of Alvin Dewey, the Kansas police inspector who must be gradually and grudgingly won over to Truman's cause. Peter Bogdanovich is quite good as Bennett Cerf, the affable editor who ushers "In Cold Blood" into print.
Without the usual fuss and feathers of period pieces, cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel and designer Judy Becker make the past come wonderfully alive. Rachel Portman's melancholy score contributes to the film's sense of regret. For in "Infamous" Truman finds himself in love with a man who needs to die for him to achieve his goal. That kills him spiritually. It is a fact that Capote never finished another book.
INFAMOUS
Warner Independent
Killer Films/John Wells Prods.
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Douglas McGrath
Based on the book by: George Plimpton
Producers: Christine Vachon, Jocelyn Hayes, Anne Walker-McBay
Executive producer: John Wells
Director of photography: Bruno Delbonnel
Production designer: Judy Becker
Music: Rachel Portman
Costumes: Ruth Myers
Editor: Camilla Toniolo
Cast:
Truman Capote: Toby Jones
Harper Lee: Sandra Bullock
Perry Smith: Daniel Craig
Dick Hickock: Lee Pace
Bennett Cerf: Peter Bogdanovich
Alvin Dewey: Jeff Daniels
Slim Keith: Hope Davis
Peggy Lee: Gwyneth Paltrow
Marella Angelli: Isabella Rossellini
Diana Vreeland: Juliet Stevenson
Babe Paley: Sigourney Weaver
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 118 minutes...
Which raises the question: Will "Infamous" be hurt by being released a year later? You would think people who enjoyed "Capote" and Philip Seymour Hoffman's amazing impersonation of that famous, self-aggrandizing writer would want to see the new film. Then again, there may be "Truman fatigue". "Capote" grossed $28.7 million at the domestic boxoffice, so you figure "Infamous" should at least make it past the $20 million mark.
Naturally, both films rely heavily on the central performance. English stage actor Toby Jones certainly looks like Truman Capote. Jones is small, and he makes this one of the keys to understanding this contradictory figure. His imitation of Capote's high-pitched voice and gloriously fey manner is equal to Hoffman's, but his emphasis is less on Tru the tortured author than on his lonely, yearning soul.
His Truman is a man on a lifelong, unrequited search for love. The great irony is that he comes closest to achieving this quest with four-time killer Perry Smith.
Here is where the two movies crucially diverge. "Infamous" spends much longer in the prison cell where the writer and his subject engage in a courtship that results in Perry opening up to Truman and allowing him to write his book. Daniel Craig plays the psychopath with a divided heart. As Truman says, "the tender and the terrible" dwell within him side by side. One side wars against the other, igniting rages that may well have fed the 1959 killing spree in Holcomb, Kansas.
"Infamous" covers the same time period as "Capote": from 1959 until the executions of Perry and his partner Dick Hickock (Lee Pace) in 1965. There are superficial similarities in how the movies juxtapose two dramatically different worlds -- plain-folks Kansas and forbidding prison cells in contrast to the martini-soaked, name-dropping, gossip-fixated Manhattan set where Truman's wit and literary fame made him the toast of many parties.
"Infamous" adds one more juicy ingredient. The movie is based on George Plimpton's oral biography, "Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career." So you get not only barbed "interviews" with the likes of author Gore Vidal (Michael Panes) but parties and boozy lunches with Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), wife of CBS chairman William Paley; Neapolitan princess Marella Agnelli (Isabella Rossellini); socialite Slim Keith (Hope Davis); and Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson). The movie even opens with Gwyneth Paltrow as Peggy Lee, singing and breaking down over "What Is This Thing Called Love?" That question haunts the rest of the movie.
According to "Infamous", Truman and Perry fall for each other. The author's seduction of the murderer for the sake of his book exposes each to a weird sort of alter ego: Both men had fathers who disappeared and disappointed and mothers who committed suicide. Both were greedy for attention. Truman earned his, but Perry had to kill four people.
Truman is accompanied to Kansas by childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock). She acts as guide and guardian for this strange little man, who initially is hapless and lost in the Midwest. But in this version, she gradually drifts to the sidelines while remaining a confidante and sounding board as the movie shifts from mannered comedy to gripping drama.
Jeff Daniels finds many layers in the role of Alvin Dewey, the Kansas police inspector who must be gradually and grudgingly won over to Truman's cause. Peter Bogdanovich is quite good as Bennett Cerf, the affable editor who ushers "In Cold Blood" into print.
Without the usual fuss and feathers of period pieces, cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel and designer Judy Becker make the past come wonderfully alive. Rachel Portman's melancholy score contributes to the film's sense of regret. For in "Infamous" Truman finds himself in love with a man who needs to die for him to achieve his goal. That kills him spiritually. It is a fact that Capote never finished another book.
INFAMOUS
Warner Independent
Killer Films/John Wells Prods.
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Douglas McGrath
Based on the book by: George Plimpton
Producers: Christine Vachon, Jocelyn Hayes, Anne Walker-McBay
Executive producer: John Wells
Director of photography: Bruno Delbonnel
Production designer: Judy Becker
Music: Rachel Portman
Costumes: Ruth Myers
Editor: Camilla Toniolo
Cast:
Truman Capote: Toby Jones
Harper Lee: Sandra Bullock
Perry Smith: Daniel Craig
Dick Hickock: Lee Pace
Bennett Cerf: Peter Bogdanovich
Alvin Dewey: Jeff Daniels
Slim Keith: Hope Davis
Peggy Lee: Gwyneth Paltrow
Marella Angelli: Isabella Rossellini
Diana Vreeland: Juliet Stevenson
Babe Paley: Sigourney Weaver
MPAA rating R
Running time -- 118 minutes...
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