Classiq - An online journal that celebrates cinema, culture, style and storytelling.

6 January 2017

Talking Movies before the Golden Globes

As far as I’m concerned, the Golden Globes are just one more pretext to talk about films. By the time the event rolls in each year I have hardly had the chance to watch a few of the films released the previous year which I would be interested in. This year is no different. I have watched some of the movies nominated in various categories, but not many, so I will only remotely approach the subject of the nominations. I would rather talk about the films of 2016 that I liked. Many of them would deserve more recognition, not necessarily on the awards circuit (who cares about that anyway besides producers and distributors?), but in general. They should be made more available for people to see them.

So far, one of my absolute favourite films of last year is American Honey. Andrea Arnold has a way to tell stories that stays away from clichés. In American Honey, we find recurrent elements in her films, like social inequality, rebellious spirits, dangerous attractions. Both road journey and coming-of-age story, Andrea Arnold’s film captures the midland-American youth culture with electrifying energy. It feels real (the non-professional actors help achieve that), authentic, alive, there is always the promise of tomorrow hovering over. I also have to mention the performances of Sasha Lane (her feature debut), Shia LaBeouf and Riley Keough – all very good.

Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente, Colombia) is another great movie. Directed by Ciro Guerra, it is visually astonishing (filmed in black and white), impassioned, honest, a bold criticism of colonial imperialism and a powerful, honourable portrayal of disappearing cultures.

Isabelle Huppert is nominated for Elle (I hope she wins), but in Mia Hansen-Løve’s L’avenir (Things to Come), she delivers another great performance. And what I probably love more about the latter is that Isabelle is even more commanding on screen in this understated, note-perfect, warm performance than she is in her more controversial roles. I still don’t get the attention around Verhoeven’s Elle and I was expressing my opinion of it being a movie with problematic implications here, hence my reticence towards it and towards the appreciations it has constantly gained. L’avenir, on the other hand, is subtle and intimate and graceful and it left me with a smile on my face.

I was pleasantly, but not unexpectedly, surprised by Tom Ford’s second movie, Nocturnal Animals. Strangely seductive, beautifully constructed, cautiously glamorous. I also talked about Amy Adam’s costumes in a previous blog post. She did a great role, too, but deserves to be nominated for Arrival. The actor that did deserve a recognition for Nocturnal Animals is Michael Shannon. Instead, another supporting actor was nominated, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, which is beyond my understating.

Other notable mentions: Certain Women, by Kelly Reichardt, Emily Blunt’s performance in The Girl on the Train, Ben Affleck in The Accountant (that was a nice surprise). I had highly anticipated Pedro Almodóvat’s Julieta, and while it’s not a bad film, and most certainly not a bad cinematic experience, it left me with the impression that something was missing. The two leading actresses, Emma Suárez, Adriana Ugarte, and Rossy de Palma, in a supporting role, all did great though.

Of what I haven’t yet watched, what I am looking forward to the most is Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson. Also, Manchester by the Sea, directed by Kenneth Lonergan, and Hell or High Water, by David Mackenzie. What else? Yes, the Golden Globes nominees. Let’s have a little talk about them, too. Moonlight has been gaining much momentum. I am yet to watch it, and although my instinct tells me it probably is good, I can not shake off this vague feeling I have that some of the interest it has sparked is driven by the unspoken resolution of the Americans to avoid the risk of other discrimination issues as it was the case last year.

“Are they going to forgive Mel Gibson?” “Are they going to leave his mishaps behind?” I have repeatedly read this kind of thing in the media. For the record, Gibson’s film, Hacksaw Ridge, is a contender in two important categories, best picture and best director. I haven’t yet seen it, but what kind of talk is that? Did he make a good film? Then, damn it, give credit where it’s due! Leave the politics and political correctness aside. It is so pathetic what the movie industry has largely become, plain and simple, a business, dictated by people who, most times, don’t know and don’t give a damn about films. And I just have to quote Jim Jarmusch here, from an interview for The Talks. “My French distributor is a business, but he is also a cinephile. So if I mention Dziga Vertov’s films to him, he knows exactly who I am talking about. If I mention Dziga Vertov to someone in Hollywood, they go, “Is she a Russian model?” They don’t know what movies are. Sam Fuller told me once: “These people in LA, they used to run underwear factories, and now they tell us how to make movies.” What kind of thing is that?”

Update (07.01): I’ve just seen La La Land and it made it to my list of favourites. I didn’t expect to like it, from the simple fact that I rarely like musicals, even classics, but I absolutely loved Damien Chazelle’s modern classic. The leads, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are just perfect, singing and dancing, and Gosling also playing the piano. La La Land offers the kind of escapism and dream-chasing optimism that do you good. I wasn’t a fan of the opening scene, but the rest of the film made up for it and I really liked the bittersweet ending – I am so glad they didn’t mess it up as they usually do in Hollywood.

photos, from top left, clockwise: 1-L’avenir (Detailfilm/Arte France Cinéma) / 2-Embrace of the Serpent (Buffalo Films/Buffalo Producciones) / 3-American Honey (Parts and Labor/British Film Institute) / 4-Nocturnal Animals (Artina Films/Fade to Black Productions)

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3 January 2017

Truffaut, Kar Wai and Film Noir

First, I would like to say that these are not actual book reviews, from the simple fact that I seldom read film books da capo al fine over a short period of time, especially, surprisingly, good film books, unless it is a biography. I like to take my time with them, pick them up from time to time, let the information sink in in between. It can also be about the mood I am in or about the films I am watching. Truffaut’s The Films In My Life, for example, is the kind of book I like to pick up after I watched a film that intrigued me in search of a trusted opinion to compare mine with, or to check out film titles I haven’t yet watched. But, of course, it is much more than that. This is one of the best books on film ever written (and let’t not forget that Truffaut was the author of yet another one of the best, Hitchcock). I love his pragmatism, his intelligence, reasonable enthusiasm, knowledge and passion for making, watching and talking movies. A fascinating read.

Film Noir. 100 All-Time Favorites, by Paul Duncan and Jürgen Müller, is a book I didn’t expect to enjoy that much (I am very particular about film noir, it being my favourite genre). But the truth is that this is a great book and what I probably like the most about it is not the plot descriptions and the reviews, but the fact that this is indeed a great and very varied selection of films noir. European, American and Asian. Because film noir did not originate in Hollywood (appearantly, this still has to be reminded) and does not resume to Hollywood. It is obvious that this is the work of true movie lovers with an open mind. And, finally, I do prefer flipping through a book when I want to check out something instead of browsing online.

WKW : The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai is another wonderful book. One of those books that are the exception from the rule I was talking about above, because once I started it I wanted to keep reading and finish it in one standing. What I love about Kar Wai’s films is that they are beautiful, emotional, distinctive and cinematic. As the author, John Powers, says in the first part of the book (the second part is a lengthy interview he conducted with Kar Wai, going through each of his movies – such an impressive and valuable look into the director’s filmography and into cinema making, that kind of cinema that is meant to last),

“Yet, in trying to explain why I love his work so much, I find myself beginning with beauty and ending with emotion. These qualities only lay at the heart of the cinematic experience, which was designated to pull us out of ourselves and take us into a world richer and more magical than our own. […] Wong understands the romantic appeal of movie stars, and knows how to capture their aura on screen; yet he also has a forward-looking belief that cinema isn’t ultimately about plots and dialogue but about capturing evanescent moments of poetry, truth and emotion, about expressing that which can’t be reduced to words – spring light piercing through the ordinary and leaving it transfigured.”

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13 December 2016

One December Afternoon

On a December day, 55 years ago, two of America’s emblematic figures met for a friendly afternoon together. She was Marilyn Monroe. He was Carl Sandburg, the poet and writer and three-time Pulitzer prize winner (twice for poetry, once for his biography of Abraham Lincoln). They happened to meet in the New York apartment of photographer Len Steckler, a friend of Sandburg’s. The result? Simply, an afternoon between friends, that just happened to be captured on film – some of the most beautiful, natural, relaxed photos of Marilyn Monroe ever taken, just nine months before her untimely death.

This collection of photos of Marilyn and Carl was named “The Visit”, and Steckler only made them public in 2010. There is one photograph that stands out for me, especially this time of year. It’s the one pictured above, of Marilyn, radiant, happy, holding Carl’s hands with great affection. In one shot, Len Steckler, who passed away earlier this year, captured all the warmth, candour, friendship spirit, and sparkle that December brings. It is such a beautiful visual story. I talked to Pierre Vudrag, the president and founder of Limited Runs, the company that manages these previously unreleased photographs by Len Steckler alongside part of his fashion photography, to find out the real story behind the lens.

What is the story behind “Marilyn Monroe: The Visit”? Who came up with the idea of Marilyn Monroe and Carl Sandburg meeting?

Marilyn and Carl Sandburg were very good friends and Marilyn would often visit with Carl when she was in NYC. Carl invited Marilyn to Len’s apartment (but failed to mention to Len that he had done so). According to Len, he and Carl were hanging out when the door bell rang. Probably knowing that Len would be surprised when he opened the door, Carl looked at Len and said “it’s the girl, please let her in”. Len recalled that “when I opened the door, not knowing who ‘the girl’ was, I almost fell to the floor, there was Marilyn Monroe… I was in awe!” Marilyn, who was three hours late, had an excuse. She had been at the hairdresser, trying to get her hair colour to match Carl’s pure white.

Steckler’s photographs depict a natural, relaxed, completely off-guard Marilyn Monroe, some of the most beautiful shots of the actress ever taken. Her power of attraction is there all right, because it is inescapable, but there is also an ease about her that seems to evoke the other side of Marilyn, too, the Marilyn Monroe who preferred casual evenings and devoted them to UCLA classes and reading. What was Len Steckler’s secret?

Len had many photographic styles that he would employ depending on what he needed at the particular moment. During the afternoon he spent with Marilyn and Carl, he didn’t want to interfere with the moment, because this wasn’t a publicity event, but rather good friends casually and privately enjoying each other’s company. Len felt privileged to be part of the moment and didn’t want to, so to speak, intrude. Len explained that he casually and inconspicuously picked up his camera and just aimed it at the two. At some point later in the afternoon Marilyn and Carl did pose for Len, but, again, very casually, no different as friends pose for photographs.

The photos were released after 45 years, after having been kept in Steckler’s private archive. Why so late? What prompted him to do it?

Len, like most professional photographers, was constantly working, from fashion to commercial shoots and amassed a larger catalog of photographs, a collection which Limited Runs has been going through and organizing. The photos taken the afternoon he spent with Marilyn Monroe and Carl Sandburg were taken for himself and weren’t taken with the idea that they were to be published. So, as time went by, the photos remained in Len’s growing catalog and archive. It wasn’t until sometime in 2009 when Len’s son, while going through the vast archive, discovered the photos. Len’s family was unaware of the event and were surprised to find the photos. The following year Len made some of the photos available as fine art prints. Limited Runs recently released some additional photos that had not been released in 2010.

How did Len Steckler describe that December afternoon photographing Marilyn? What was it like?

I will quote from our press release as Len described the event: “It was a remarkable meeting of two genuine American icons that I admired very much. One, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winning author and poet, Carl Sandburg, and the other later named “the sexiest woman of the 20th Century” by Playboy magazine and worldwide film star Marilyn Monroe. Carl Sandburg, who was 83 at the time, and Marilyn Monroe, who was 35, were so in tune with each other that there was no generation gap but sincere admiration and respect between the two. That afternoon, as the hours passed (and the alcohol flowed), the bonds of this unique friendship were continued to solidified, a bond that would last until Marilyn’s untimely death about 9 months later, on August 5, 1962.

photos: Len Steckler, 1961, New York, published with the permission of Limited Runs

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6 December 2016

Everest: The First Ascent & Other Winter Reading

First of all, I should start by confessing that I bought this book, Everest – The First Ascent, by mistake. And I am glad I did. Another book, with a very similar title, The Ascent of Everest, had been on my radar ever since I read a recommendation by these two world travelers. And given my love of and interested in all things mountaineering, in my excitement that I had found it on one of my bookshop visits that was turning out to be least fruitful, I didn’t realise the author was not John Hunt, but Harriet Tuckey. Both books recount the story of the first ascent of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as part of a British team led by John Hunt. There is one major difference though: Tuckey’s book challenges many generally held beliefs and provides a very different perspective of the 1953 expedition than most other accounts. As the subtitle states, it is the untold story of the man who made it possible.

This is a biography of Griffith Pugh, one of the early pioneers of high altitude medicine and sports science, the man who designed much of the equipment for the 1953 expedition (from boots, windproof jackets and goggles, to tents, sleeping bags and cooking stoves), and who took part in it himself. He is also the author’s father. But make no mistake, this is not a sentimental memoir written by a doting daughter – they had a very difficult relationship and did not reconcile by the time of his death and before Harriet embarked on the writing of the book. It’s a very objective, warts-and-all tale of a man she never actually liked, but who, as she found out during her research for the book, was very different from the man she had known as her father.

It’s a book meant to set the record straight. I revel in this kind of books. As a physician and scientist, Pugh was a key part in the success of the 1953 expedition (after 10 failed expeditions and 29 years from the first attempt). A truly remarkable man, who dedicated his life to his work and research, and who, first and foremost, loved the mountain and was a climber himself. Acclimatisation, hydration, oxygen flow rates, food intake, energy balance, hygiene, proper equipment and sleep, coping with the cold, such things are taken for granted in expeditions today, but, for Pugh’s team mates, such simple instructions were a revelation that considerably improved their performance and which have served as template from then on to the present day. It’s always the details that make the whole, and it’s always the details that make the difference.

Yet, Griffith Pugh’s merits had never been acknowledged, not even remotely, and not even by the members of the 1953 expedition. The experiments he conducted prior and during the expedition, and practically the role of science in its success, were often regarded with scepticism and suspicion, even derision. This is why the book is so poignant. It is an important tribute to all of the many unsung heroes who make essential contributions to the success of high altitude mountaineering expeditions. And, quite frankly, a tribute to the unsung heroes in many fields. It’s always going to be the leading participants who take center stage. But I am glad that there are voices who make themselves heard and who remind us what a concertated effort from an entire team one person’s (or, in this case, two persons’) win really is.

Everest: The First Ascent opened my eyes in one other regard, too. The first ascent of Everest was not exactly a romantic triumph of the sporting spirit, as I myself thought and, quite honestly, liked to think in the past. It is not portrayed as a heroic triumph for Britain either, but rather as a story of incompetence and failure, sparing no criticism towards the beurocratic and diplomatic scheming involved in the process. Not only does Harriet Tuckey describe how the British failed seven times to climb Everest before the war, but how they also used their position of power and influence in India and Tibet to deny other nations the opportunity of climbing it themselves. The conquest of Everest was such an important moment in the history of humankind, and I appreciate a book meant to get the facts right.

On an ending note, here are other books I am planning to read – can’t think of a better read for the season ahead:
• Tiger of the Snow, by Tenzing Norgay – because the Sherpas are some of the unsung heroes, too.
• The Ascent of Everest, by John Hunt – I am still interested in a different point of view, although I am glad I read this one first.
• Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson – I have wanted to read it since I watched this gripping documentary, too long ago.

Changing the topic a little, here are a few travel books I am finally getting around to reading:
• The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux
• A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby
• The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

photos by me

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28 November 2016

Style in Film: Amy Adams in Nocturnal Animals

Tom Ford’s second film is strangely seductive, beautifully constructed, and cautiously glamorous

A friend of mine once told me that it’s when she’s most impeccably dressed that she is going through the most difficult times. I have never forgotten her words and, as I was watching Nocturnal Animals one evening last week in an almost empty cinema theater, my friend’s words kept ringing through my head. Amy Adams’ character, Susan Morrow, is glamorously dressed, severely buttoned up and incredibly precise throughout the entire film. But it’s not the kind of glamour that you end up aspiring to. At the very most, it’s the kind of glamour you admire from afar as beautiful presentation. It’s almost too perfect. And we all know that perfect does not exist. It makes you feel uneasy, builds up tension, acting like a warning for something very bad that’s about to happen.

Susan is an LA art gallery owner, living the high life. But despite her handsome husband, her immaculately luxurious mansion overlooking the city and her fabulous wardrobe, her whole life is far from idyllic. It soon becomes clear that her clothes are used as a glamorous armour, a façade, a front to mask the turbulence beneath the surface. The film is a cautionary tale about empty wealth and beauty, and about coming to terms with the choices one makes in life. And Susan’s life is thrown into an even deeper emotional turmoil after she receives the novel written by her ex-husband, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). As she reads the manuscript over a weekend, the contemporary timeline and the fictional story in the book (having the same Gyllenhaal as main character, Tony Hastings) begin to overlap, unlocking intimate flashes of Susan’s past and her relationship with her ex-husband.

The direction, cinematography, production design and the costumes all come into play to artfully interweave the three different story lines and settings. An acute aesthetic sense is one thing one might have expected from Tom Ford’s second foray into film. But not because the director is Tom Ford, the fashion designer, who has created a singular design aesthetic, a highly stylised and perfectly controlled image and unattainable perfect taste, but because director Tom Ford has the skill to use beautiful visuals to tell a story, even at its darkest.

Susan’s sleek tailored – even architectural – clothes, killer heels and somptuous statement jewellery “really help tell the story of her precision, her perfection and her attempt to be presentational at all times, even when her life is falling apart,” costume designer Arianne Phillips was saying in an interview for The Telegraph. Even when she is alone, at night, at home, reading the novel Edward has sent her, she is wearing steely-grey knitwear.

In case you were wondering, Amy Adams’ costumes were not designed by Tom Ford. He did not want to displace the viewer from within the plot by placing his own designs in the film. It’s the right approach and I didn’t expect anything less from Tom Ford, who turned once again to costume designer Arianne Phillips, the one also responsible for the both visually pleasing and highly suggestive wardrobes in Ford’s directorial debut movie, A Single Man.

There are a lot of neutrals in Susan’s wardrobe, but for the film’s climax scene, when she attends an important dinner, she is dressed in a green keyhole neckline dress. The dress was designed by Phillips in collaboration with Tom Ford’s design consultant David Bamber.

Green is rarely picked for film costumes. “I am not a fan of the red dress that you see in movies”, Phillips told The Telegraph. Red, however, recurs throughout the film, in different forms, from the blood from Susan’s paper cut when she opens the manuscript, to Tony’s checked shirt and the walls in her office. “We saved a strong colour for the end – this very strong green dress. It’s a public scene and we really wanted a colour that would stand out cinematically. That particular green is flattering to Amy Adams. I love a redhead in green and that was a yellowy chartreuse. It felt right, sometimes there’s an intuitive sensibility to film making.”

The sequence reminded me of Hitchcock’s Vertigo and the restaurant scene when Madeleine’s green suit stands out against the red wallpapered room, and the viewer is immediately drawn to the character. In Nocturnal Animals, Susan’s green dress, also set against the red walls of the opulent restaurant, seems to serve to awaken the right sense of discomfort and apprehension in the viewer. It can suggest both attraction and the potential for harm. It controls the screen in a way any other colour would have not. Green becomes the symbol of the night – Susan’s ex-husband used to call her a “nocturnal animal” – that eventually affected the lives of all the main characters in the three worlds that make up the film, so skillfully intertwined and all permeated with Susan’s obsession with rampant materialism and haunted by the decisions she once made.

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photos: film stills |Merrick Morton/Focus Features

Posted by classiq in Film costume | | 4 Comments