Sundance 2023: ‘Invisible Beauty’ Directed by Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng
Premieres
How to write and how to make a film about one’s life is an ongoing discussion between Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng as Bethann’s life reveals itself. She is new to writing and filmmaking but she has the confidence to go forward without putting obstacles in front of herself. Her procrastination or preparation for writing takes a role in the film as well. This immediately allies me to her. Don’t we all procrastinate about the most important things in our lives?
Raised by her mother and grandmother in the South til the age of 12, she then moved in with her father in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Her mother was very social; her father was very intellectual. He was an Iman at the local mosque and was a mentor to Malcolm X himself. He made her aware of things poltically and socially as well as directing her reading about the Moslem religion and the Koran. Raising consciousness was most important to her father. When she turned 18 she yearned for teen freedom and her father returned her to her mother and grandmother. Subsequently she attended NYU.
Bethann Hardison
Over the five decades of her career, from working in New York City’s Garment District, modeling and founding her eponymous modeling agency, she has become an advocate, mentor and muse. To hear her honest and forthwright assessment of the state of her own life is inspirational.
She was a fashion revolutionary, but to her, fashion was merely the vehicle for her revolutionary ideas which changed the fashion industry’s diversity of models to include people of all colors. Her main concern was changing the world. “I always know — because I have lived life long enough — you can change things.”
From walking runway shows alongside Iman to discovering supermodels like Tyson Beckford (that gorgeous black model for Ralph Lauren) and mentoring icons like Naomi Campbell, Hardison has been at the epicenter of major representational shifts in fashion. Catalyzing change requires continuous championing, and as the next generation takes the reins, Hardison reflects on her personal journey and the cost of being a pioneer.
She has received many awards in recognition of her decades of advocacy work .See Naomi Campbell present Bethann with the Founders Award at 2014 Cfda Fashion Awards award and her acceptance speech.
In tandem with Frédéric Tcheng (Halston, Dior and I), the co-directors trace Hardison’s impact on fashion from runway shows in New York and Paris in the ’70s to roundtables about lack of racial diversity in the early 2000s. Hardison’s audaciousness and candor are inspiring and inviting. Interviews with industry speak to the state of fashion, while friends and family attest to Hardison’s rebellious and ambitious spirit. The film is an absorbing record of Hardison’s accomplishments and a rare contemplation on the life of a radical thinker.
The arc of Bethann’s life was easily illustrated through archival and commentary, but the great depth of the film is created by Bethann herself. The film centers on Bethann writing her memoir as much as it does the events of her life. She’s filled with adages and life lessons, “Bethann-isms” as her crew called them. The process of Bethann writing her memoir gives the opportunity to better inject her personality and humor into the film, both through traditional voiceover and with an incredible cache of recorded phone calls between Fred and Bethann. Many of these conversations are the two co-directors discussing how best to tell such an expansive story. They give a genuine sense of an artist in process. Putting together such disparate elements to make a unified whole is not an easy process. For successfully integrating the scenes of reflection and introspection, the feeling of Bethann’s inner thought processes, credit goes to the editing by Chris McNabb. Read his enlightening interview in Filmmaker Magazine.
McNabb in turn also give much credit to the music in the film. His own great muse is music. States he, “I’d say one of my biggest influences is actually music. I grew up playing percussion and carry a lot of that experience with me in the edit room when locating the internal rhythm of footage. I think it helps me build scenes that can affect a viewer on a corporeal level rather than just an intellectual one. In terms of film influences, Paris Is Burning, despite its thorny ethical history, was a formative film for me on a personal and creative level.” About the Invisible Beauty: “And music! Music was very important, and composer Marc Anthony Thompson did a great job capturing the vibe we wanted.”
Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. His specialty is fashion. He co-directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, and his award-winning directorial debut, Dior and I, premiered at Tribeca in 2014. Halston, with CNN Films and Amazon Studios as executive producers, premiered at Sundance in 2019.
The producer of Invisible Beauty, Lisa Cortés directed another Sundance 2023 film, Little Richard: I Am Everything. After its critical success there, being nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in U.S. Documentary Competition (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni won) and being picked up by Magnolia for U.S. and international distribution, Cortés entered into a first-look development agreement with the Museum of the City of New York, where she will hone documentary IP based on the museum’s exhibitions. She plans for projects on food, social justice, music, and more. The first being made under the deal is a docuseries based on Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off, an exhibition inviting bakers from every borough to design New York City-inspired gingerbread creations.
Invisible Beauty invites comparison with Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project as both are autobiographical docs about notably important Black women. Bethann is an activist forever aiming to reach objectives and Niki is a poet, looking inward, exposing herself and making changes in the awareness around her. Bethann on the other hand, as she states it, always held her hand close to her chest and rarely let her emotional have free rein.
They make a good pairing though if I were to have to choose one, I would choose Invisible Beauty. The film ranges broadly from the outer world of fashion itself to Bethann’s part in it and to her inner reflections whereas the Nikki Giovanni doc mostly shows her speaking to others. Moreover, and on a strictly personal level, I would rather be in Bethann’s company. Bethann is a positive, strong nurturing woman. Nikki’s inner pain and anger often seem to vent in the doc and I think I would feel uncomfortable in her company. In fact I don’t think she would like me much either. Bethann’s fortitude sets the tone of Invisible Beauty and it is fortitude and love that will propel us forever forward.
FashionMoviesDocumentaryBlack WomenFilm Festivals...
Premieres
How to write and how to make a film about one’s life is an ongoing discussion between Bethann Hardison and Frédéric Tcheng as Bethann’s life reveals itself. She is new to writing and filmmaking but she has the confidence to go forward without putting obstacles in front of herself. Her procrastination or preparation for writing takes a role in the film as well. This immediately allies me to her. Don’t we all procrastinate about the most important things in our lives?
Raised by her mother and grandmother in the South til the age of 12, she then moved in with her father in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Her mother was very social; her father was very intellectual. He was an Iman at the local mosque and was a mentor to Malcolm X himself. He made her aware of things poltically and socially as well as directing her reading about the Moslem religion and the Koran. Raising consciousness was most important to her father. When she turned 18 she yearned for teen freedom and her father returned her to her mother and grandmother. Subsequently she attended NYU.
Bethann Hardison
Over the five decades of her career, from working in New York City’s Garment District, modeling and founding her eponymous modeling agency, she has become an advocate, mentor and muse. To hear her honest and forthwright assessment of the state of her own life is inspirational.
She was a fashion revolutionary, but to her, fashion was merely the vehicle for her revolutionary ideas which changed the fashion industry’s diversity of models to include people of all colors. Her main concern was changing the world. “I always know — because I have lived life long enough — you can change things.”
From walking runway shows alongside Iman to discovering supermodels like Tyson Beckford (that gorgeous black model for Ralph Lauren) and mentoring icons like Naomi Campbell, Hardison has been at the epicenter of major representational shifts in fashion. Catalyzing change requires continuous championing, and as the next generation takes the reins, Hardison reflects on her personal journey and the cost of being a pioneer.
She has received many awards in recognition of her decades of advocacy work .See Naomi Campbell present Bethann with the Founders Award at 2014 Cfda Fashion Awards award and her acceptance speech.
In tandem with Frédéric Tcheng (Halston, Dior and I), the co-directors trace Hardison’s impact on fashion from runway shows in New York and Paris in the ’70s to roundtables about lack of racial diversity in the early 2000s. Hardison’s audaciousness and candor are inspiring and inviting. Interviews with industry speak to the state of fashion, while friends and family attest to Hardison’s rebellious and ambitious spirit. The film is an absorbing record of Hardison’s accomplishments and a rare contemplation on the life of a radical thinker.
The arc of Bethann’s life was easily illustrated through archival and commentary, but the great depth of the film is created by Bethann herself. The film centers on Bethann writing her memoir as much as it does the events of her life. She’s filled with adages and life lessons, “Bethann-isms” as her crew called them. The process of Bethann writing her memoir gives the opportunity to better inject her personality and humor into the film, both through traditional voiceover and with an incredible cache of recorded phone calls between Fred and Bethann. Many of these conversations are the two co-directors discussing how best to tell such an expansive story. They give a genuine sense of an artist in process. Putting together such disparate elements to make a unified whole is not an easy process. For successfully integrating the scenes of reflection and introspection, the feeling of Bethann’s inner thought processes, credit goes to the editing by Chris McNabb. Read his enlightening interview in Filmmaker Magazine.
McNabb in turn also give much credit to the music in the film. His own great muse is music. States he, “I’d say one of my biggest influences is actually music. I grew up playing percussion and carry a lot of that experience with me in the edit room when locating the internal rhythm of footage. I think it helps me build scenes that can affect a viewer on a corporeal level rather than just an intellectual one. In terms of film influences, Paris Is Burning, despite its thorny ethical history, was a formative film for me on a personal and creative level.” About the Invisible Beauty: “And music! Music was very important, and composer Marc Anthony Thompson did a great job capturing the vibe we wanted.”
Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. His specialty is fashion. He co-directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, and his award-winning directorial debut, Dior and I, premiered at Tribeca in 2014. Halston, with CNN Films and Amazon Studios as executive producers, premiered at Sundance in 2019.
The producer of Invisible Beauty, Lisa Cortés directed another Sundance 2023 film, Little Richard: I Am Everything. After its critical success there, being nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in U.S. Documentary Competition (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni won) and being picked up by Magnolia for U.S. and international distribution, Cortés entered into a first-look development agreement with the Museum of the City of New York, where she will hone documentary IP based on the museum’s exhibitions. She plans for projects on food, social justice, music, and more. The first being made under the deal is a docuseries based on Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off, an exhibition inviting bakers from every borough to design New York City-inspired gingerbread creations.
Invisible Beauty invites comparison with Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project as both are autobiographical docs about notably important Black women. Bethann is an activist forever aiming to reach objectives and Niki is a poet, looking inward, exposing herself and making changes in the awareness around her. Bethann on the other hand, as she states it, always held her hand close to her chest and rarely let her emotional have free rein.
They make a good pairing though if I were to have to choose one, I would choose Invisible Beauty. The film ranges broadly from the outer world of fashion itself to Bethann’s part in it and to her inner reflections whereas the Nikki Giovanni doc mostly shows her speaking to others. Moreover, and on a strictly personal level, I would rather be in Bethann’s company. Bethann is a positive, strong nurturing woman. Nikki’s inner pain and anger often seem to vent in the doc and I think I would feel uncomfortable in her company. In fact I don’t think she would like me much either. Bethann’s fortitude sets the tone of Invisible Beauty and it is fortitude and love that will propel us forever forward.
FashionMoviesDocumentaryBlack WomenFilm Festivals...
- 2/11/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
New York City’s annual Doc NYC festival kicks off this week, including a full-to-bursting slate of some of this year’s most remarkable documentaries. If you’ve been looking to beef up on your documentary consumption, Doc NYC is the perfect chance to check out a wide variety of some of the year’s best fact-based features. Ahead, we pick out 14 of our most anticipated films from the fest, including some awards contenders, a handful of buzzy debuts, and a number of festival favorites. Take a look and start filling up your schedule now.
Doc NYC runs November 9 – 16 in New York City.
“EuroTrump”
Donald Trump may seem like a sui generis figure, a one-of-a-kind monster who was forged in a perfect storm of racism, tweets, and chaos, but history suggests that he’s really just a new breed of an old type. You don’t even have to look...
Doc NYC runs November 9 – 16 in New York City.
“EuroTrump”
Donald Trump may seem like a sui generis figure, a one-of-a-kind monster who was forged in a perfect storm of racism, tweets, and chaos, but history suggests that he’s really just a new breed of an old type. You don’t even have to look...
- 11/7/2017
- by Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich, Jude Dry, Anne Thompson, Chris O'Falt, Michael Nordine and Jenna Marotta
- Indiewire
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
What single person could, when a documentary about their life is made, see as wide a net cast for interview subjects as to include names like art dealer Larry Gagosian and actor Robert De Niro? This person would undoubtedly be at the height of their respective field, and a voice in that field whose repercussions are still being felt to this day. And thankfully, folllowing up her personal 2011 film, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, director Lisa Immordino Vreeland has found that subject for her newest feature.
Entitled Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Vreeland tells the tale of the titular art world icon. A child of wealthy immigrant parents, Guggenheim (yes, part of that Guggenheim lineage) inherited a great fortune from her family, only to use it in part to help her float through the greatest artistic movements of the twentieth century. Close friends with and critical champion of legendary...
Entitled Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Vreeland tells the tale of the titular art world icon. A child of wealthy immigrant parents, Guggenheim (yes, part of that Guggenheim lineage) inherited a great fortune from her family, only to use it in part to help her float through the greatest artistic movements of the twentieth century. Close friends with and critical champion of legendary...
- 11/14/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Following "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," which chronicled the life of the famed fashion director of Harper's Bazaar, filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland is back with another illuminating documentary about singular creativity and passion in the art world, this time focusing on one of the most famous art patrons. "Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is an intimate portrait of the woman whose passion for art and life helped to create one of the most immense and respected art collections in the world. Guggenheim's undying support for fledgling artists like Jackson Pollack gave rise to some of the most important American artists and artworks of the 20th century. Read More: Meet the 2015 Tribeca Filmmaker #37: Profile of the Ultimate Art Patron in 'Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict' Indiewire sat down with the Vreeland to discuss Guggenheim's legacy, her dark past and her love for the finer (and sexier) things of life.
- 11/6/2015
- by Aubrey Page
- Indiewire
Samuel Goldwyn Films has obtained worldwide distribution rights to Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt’s four-year project "Havana Motor Club." The film is a timely documentary that explores not just the exciting world of underground car racing, but also a nation amidst political change as seen through the eyes of the racing community. The film is described by Samuel Goldwyn Films as both "a pulse-pounding film about underground drag racers in Cuba and their pursuit to hold the first official car race since the 1959 Revolution" and "a personal, character-driven story about Cuba's vibrant community." Perlmutt previously co-directed the documentary "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," about the prolific Harpers Bazaar editor. The film was also released by Samuel Goldwyn Films. "Havana Motor Club" had its world premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. The film is planned to be released in 2016. Read More: Samuel Goldwyn Films...
- 11/3/2015
- by J. Carlos Menjivar
- Indiewire
In May we will see almost 60 titles leave Netflix, but nearly 60 titles are being added. One of the big warnings I will heed is that you’ve got until May 5 to watch Skyfall, so get on that. The Netflix original Grace & Frankie makes its debut on May 8 and stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston.
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, The Boxtrolls, and Fruitvale Station are just some of the great titles heading your way next month. Check out the full list of new movies and TV shows coming to Netflix.
Available May 1
Beyond Clueless (2014)
Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013)
Legally Blonde (2001)
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)
Longmire: Season 3
No No: A Dockumentary (2014)
Shameless: Series 10
The Last Waltz (1978)
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)
Underclassman (2015)
Witnesses: Season 1
Available May 2
Lalaloopsy: Festival of Sugary Sweets (2015)
LeapFrog Letter Factory Adventures: Amazing Word Explorers (2015)
Available May 3
Anita (2013)
D.L. Hughley...
Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, The Boxtrolls, and Fruitvale Station are just some of the great titles heading your way next month. Check out the full list of new movies and TV shows coming to Netflix.
Available May 1
Beyond Clueless (2014)
Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013)
Legally Blonde (2001)
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003)
Longmire: Season 3
No No: A Dockumentary (2014)
Shameless: Series 10
The Last Waltz (1978)
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (2005)
Underclassman (2015)
Witnesses: Season 1
Available May 2
Lalaloopsy: Festival of Sugary Sweets (2015)
LeapFrog Letter Factory Adventures: Amazing Word Explorers (2015)
Available May 3
Anita (2013)
D.L. Hughley...
- 4/22/2015
- by Graham McMorrow
- City of Films
Want to watch that amazing train chase sequence from "Skyfall" one more time? Get to streaming the 2012 James Bond film before May 5, because it's one of the many films leaving Netflix's queue. How about the original "RoboCop"? You have until May 1 to comply, er, stream it. And if you want to catch up on Audrey Hepburn classics "Funny Face" and "Sabrina," those will also be leaving soon, as well as "Romancing the Stone" and its sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile."
Here's a complete list of the movies that Netflix is pulling from your streaming list. And, just so you're not left empty-handed, here's a list of what's new on Netflix in May 2015. (All titles and dates provided by Netflix and subject to change.)
Leaving May 1
"6 Bullets" (2012)
"12 Dogs of Christmas: Great Puppy Rescue" (2012)
"A Knight's Tale" (2001)
"The Accused" (1988)
"Airplane!" (1980)
"Airplane II: The Sequel" (1982)
"All I Want for Christmas" (1991)
"Along Came Polly...
Here's a complete list of the movies that Netflix is pulling from your streaming list. And, just so you're not left empty-handed, here's a list of what's new on Netflix in May 2015. (All titles and dates provided by Netflix and subject to change.)
Leaving May 1
"6 Bullets" (2012)
"12 Dogs of Christmas: Great Puppy Rescue" (2012)
"A Knight's Tale" (2001)
"The Accused" (1988)
"Airplane!" (1980)
"Airplane II: The Sequel" (1982)
"All I Want for Christmas" (1991)
"Along Came Polly...
- 4/22/2015
- by Sharon Knolle
- Moviefone
Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s feature debut, 2011’s Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, examined the life and legacy of the legendary fashion photographer. The filmmaker was the granddaughter-in-law of her subject, and the film established Vreeland’s acumen in reconstructing the life stories of complex, powerful women. That applies to her new subject, Peggy Guggenheim, from whose candid memoirs the subtitle Art Addict was drawn. Almost as well known for her numerous relationships, sexual and otherwise, with many of the key creative figures of her time, Guggenheim’s story is reconsidered in this documentary. The film premiered last night at the Tribeca Film Festival; […]...
- 4/21/2015
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s feature debut, 2011’s Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, examined the life and legacy of the legendary fashion photographer. The filmmaker was the granddaughter-in-law of her subject, and the film established Vreeland’s acumen in reconstructing the life stories of complex, powerful women. That applies to her new subject, Peggy Guggenheim, from whose candid memoirs the subtitle Art Addict was drawn. Almost as well known for her numerous relationships, sexual and otherwise, with many of the key creative figures of her time, Guggenheim’s story is reconsidered in this documentary. The film premiered last night at the Tribeca Film Festival; […]...
- 4/21/2015
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Read More: Meet the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival Filmmakers Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, co-directer of 2011 fashion doc "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," is back with "Havana Motor Club," an exciting film about drag racers in Cuba. As this underground community of racers prepare for their first sanctioned race in Cuba since 1960, the drama and the motors heat up. "Havana Motor Club" offers a look inside an exclusive and competitive world teaming with ingenuity and promise. What's your film about in 140 characters or less? Change is racing down Havana’s streets, where Cuba's top underground drag racers prep for the first official car race since the Revolution. Now what's it Really about? "Havana Motor Club" tells a personal, character-driven story about Cuba's vibrant community of underground drag racers and their quest to hold Cuba's first official car race since shortly after the 1959 Revolution. It tackles how Cuba’s recent reforms — the...
- 4/17/2015
- by Anya Jaremko-Greenwold
- Indiewire
Indiewire's Spingboard column profiles up-and-comers in independent film, deserving of your attention. Read More: Review: Tired of Fashion Docs? 'Dior and I' Is a Different StoryFashion documentaries are very much in vogue, with the likes of "The September Issue" and "Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf" striking a chord with arthouse audiences craving a peek into the couture world that most aren't privy to. Frédéric Tcheng has built his name working on such projects; he co-directed 2011's "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," which profiles the influential fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar, after co-producing, co-editing and co-shooting 2008's popular "Valentino: The Last Emperor." But while those two films are very much about the industry they depict, they probe deeper than most fashion documentaries to emphasize the human touch that goes into the making of the garments. "Dior and I," the first project...
- 4/10/2015
- by Nigel M Smith
- Indiewire
Recently, fashion documentaries have been very much in vogue. It may seem that another is perhaps unnecessary. But Frédéric Tcheng, who worked on both "Valentino: The Last Emperor," and "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel," has made another terrific fashion doc with "Dior and I." Here, Tcheng acts less like a fly on the wall at the House of Dior and more like a silkworm creating the threads. So intimate is his camera that the viewer can feel the fabric of the dresses being made with a special technique called imprimé chaîne (printing the thread before weaving) for newly-minted Dior creative director Raf Simons' first haute couture show. The film chronicles the painstaking eight-week process leading up to the final runway show. Tcheng takes time to introduce the premières (seamstresses who manage the work) at the atelier (workshop). He deftly shows how Raf and his right hand man, Pieter Mulier,...
- 4/7/2015
- by Gary M. Kramer
- Indiewire
The fashion house documentary has been snapped up in Russia, Iraly and Benelux among other territories.
UK outfit Dogwoof has revealed a string of international sales deals for Dior and I by Frederic Tcheng, the co-director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.
The latest set of deals include Benelux (Imagine); German-speaking Europe (Nfp); Italy (Wanted); Russia (Documentary Centre); Scandinavia and Baltics (NonStop Ent); France (Dissidenz) and a world in-flight deal excluding Us, UK and Australia.
The deals were brokered by Ana Vicente on behalf of Dogwoof and further sales deals are expected to be finalised at the European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin. Vincente said there were “only a few markets left to be sold”.
Previous deals have been agreed in Australia & Nz (Madman), Japan (Open Sesame/Alcine), Taiwan (Sky Dig), Hong Kong (Edko), France and Spain (Canal+) where the film has been scheduled to release along with UK (Dogwoof) in March 2015.
Dior and I brings...
UK outfit Dogwoof has revealed a string of international sales deals for Dior and I by Frederic Tcheng, the co-director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.
The latest set of deals include Benelux (Imagine); German-speaking Europe (Nfp); Italy (Wanted); Russia (Documentary Centre); Scandinavia and Baltics (NonStop Ent); France (Dissidenz) and a world in-flight deal excluding Us, UK and Australia.
The deals were brokered by Ana Vicente on behalf of Dogwoof and further sales deals are expected to be finalised at the European Film Market (Efm) in Berlin. Vincente said there were “only a few markets left to be sold”.
Previous deals have been agreed in Australia & Nz (Madman), Japan (Open Sesame/Alcine), Taiwan (Sky Dig), Hong Kong (Edko), France and Spain (Canal+) where the film has been scheduled to release along with UK (Dogwoof) in March 2015.
Dior and I brings...
- 2/4/2015
- by [email protected] (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
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
Frédéric Tcheng’s House of Dior documentary Dior And I has been acquired by The Orchard, which has taken North American rights and will get a theatrical release next year. The Tribeca Film Festival debut marks Tcheng’s third fashion pic following Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, which he co-wrote and co-directed, and Valentino: The Last Emperor, which he co-produced.
Dior and I takes a behind the scenes look at the two-month making of Raf Simons’ debut haute couture collection as he makes his first splash as Creative Director of Christian Dior Couture. It’s described as “a whirlwind of creativity, stress, determination and triumph.” The Orchard’s Danielle Digiacomo negotiated the deal with Josh Braun of Submarine.
Dior and I takes a behind the scenes look at the two-month making of Raf Simons’ debut haute couture collection as he makes his first splash as Creative Director of Christian Dior Couture. It’s described as “a whirlwind of creativity, stress, determination and triumph.” The Orchard’s Danielle Digiacomo negotiated the deal with Josh Braun of Submarine.
- 10/23/2014
- by Jen Yamato
- Deadline
Distributor will hold further talks about the doc with buyers in Toronto.
UK-based sales agent Dogwoof has secured sales of Dior and I by Frédéric Tcheng, co-director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.
All rights deals were closed in Japan (Open Sesame, Alcine, Bunkamura); Australia and New Zealand (Madman); Hong Kong (Edko); and Taiwan (Sky Dig Entertainment).
Deals were brokered by Ana Vicente at Dogwoof and further talks are being held at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) with buyers from France, Benelux, and Italy amongst others.
Open Sesame’s Kaho Nakane said a spring release of the film is planned in Japan, where “Dior is one of the most popular and prestigious brands”.
The documentary follows Raf Simons as the newly appointed creative director for the legendary fashion house, and his creation and unveiling of the prestigious Dior Haute Couture Collection. The film promises an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the atelier and the...
UK-based sales agent Dogwoof has secured sales of Dior and I by Frédéric Tcheng, co-director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.
All rights deals were closed in Japan (Open Sesame, Alcine, Bunkamura); Australia and New Zealand (Madman); Hong Kong (Edko); and Taiwan (Sky Dig Entertainment).
Deals were brokered by Ana Vicente at Dogwoof and further talks are being held at the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept 4-14) with buyers from France, Benelux, and Italy amongst others.
Open Sesame’s Kaho Nakane said a spring release of the film is planned in Japan, where “Dior is one of the most popular and prestigious brands”.
The documentary follows Raf Simons as the newly appointed creative director for the legendary fashion house, and his creation and unveiling of the prestigious Dior Haute Couture Collection. The film promises an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the atelier and the...
- 9/4/2014
- by [email protected] (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Entertainment One Films (eOne) will release Frédéric Tcheng's fashion documentary "Dior and I" in North America, it was announced today. The film, which world premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, is set to open in theaters later this year. Tcheng, who previously worked on the fashion films "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel" and "Valentino: The Last Emperor," here profiles the House of Christian Dior. Read More: Tired of Fashion Docs? 'Dior and I' is a Different Story "'Dior and I' takes the audience behind the curtain of one of the world’s most venerated fashion houses, and offers a captivating, intimate glimpse into one of its brightest minds," said Dylan Wiley, eOne Films Us Senior Vice President and General Manager. "Tcheng’s vivid film captures the twists and turns of the artistic process in a poignant, beautiful way, and we are proud to share it with moviegoers.
- 5/17/2014
- by Nigel M Smith
- Indiewire
The latest title to join the fashion film genre is Dior and I, the documentary that enters the House of Christian Dior as the brand's new artistic director Raf Simons created his first collection for the fall/winter 2013 season. After co-producing 2008's Valentino: The Last Emperor and directing 2011's Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, filmmaker Frederic Tcheng found himself focusing not only focusing on Simons, seamstresses and show attendees, but also Christian Dior himself. Christian Dior's Fall/Winter 2013 Haute Couture: Raf Simons Debuts First Collection for Fashion House "I found myself trying to push the boundaries of how
read more...
read more...
- 4/18/2014
- by Ashley Lee
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Dior And I: "It has to be a little mysterious and enigmatic."
Frédéric Tcheng, co-producer and co-editor of the fashion documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor and co-director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, brings his beautifully evocative Dior And I (Dior Et Moi) to the Tribeca Film Festival where it will have its World Premiere. The haute couture ateliers of the House of Dior in Paris are haunted by the spirit of the founder, Christian Dior, who, in 1947, revolutionised the world of fashion with the "New Look". Enter Raf Simons, the Belgian designer, often mis-labeled "minimalist" who came from furniture design, to menswear, to Jil Sander.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Cinema is always about haunting, about the past coming back. In your film especially, you have the past haunting the present on many levels in Dior and I.
55 years later, Christian Dior's portraits still loom in every corridor.
Frédéric Tcheng, co-producer and co-editor of the fashion documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor and co-director of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, brings his beautifully evocative Dior And I (Dior Et Moi) to the Tribeca Film Festival where it will have its World Premiere. The haute couture ateliers of the House of Dior in Paris are haunted by the spirit of the founder, Christian Dior, who, in 1947, revolutionised the world of fashion with the "New Look". Enter Raf Simons, the Belgian designer, often mis-labeled "minimalist" who came from furniture design, to menswear, to Jil Sander.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Cinema is always about haunting, about the past coming back. In your film especially, you have the past haunting the present on many levels in Dior and I.
55 years later, Christian Dior's portraits still loom in every corridor.
- 4/12/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Ballet 422, directed by Jody Lee Lipes, Guillaume Nicloux's The Kidnapping Of Michel Houellebecq (L'enlèvement de Michel Houellebecq), Lucky Them by Megan Griffiths, Roman Polanski's Venus In Fur (La Vénus À La Fourrure), and Frédéric Tcheng's Dior And I are some of the early bird highlights in the 13th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival, April 16 to 27.
What do Christian Dior, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Houellebecq, Jeff Koons, H.P. Lovecraft, Emmanuelle Seigner with Mathieu Amalric, Toni Collette, Thomas Hayden Church, Justin Peck, and a rare creature from the Galapagos Islands have in common? They will make you laugh and cry, change your style and improve your outlook on life, and may remind you of a combination of Marlene Dietrich and Judy Holliday.
Dior And I
Dior And I
Frédéric Tcheng, co-producer and co-editor of the fashion documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor and co-director of...
What do Christian Dior, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Houellebecq, Jeff Koons, H.P. Lovecraft, Emmanuelle Seigner with Mathieu Amalric, Toni Collette, Thomas Hayden Church, Justin Peck, and a rare creature from the Galapagos Islands have in common? They will make you laugh and cry, change your style and improve your outlook on life, and may remind you of a combination of Marlene Dietrich and Judy Holliday.
Dior And I
Dior And I
Frédéric Tcheng, co-producer and co-editor of the fashion documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor and co-director of...
- 4/2/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The 13th Tribeca Film Festival has announced half its slate for next month’s New York celebration, which runs April 16-27. Culled from more than 6,000 submissions, Tribeca 2014 includes 55 world premieres, 37 first-time filmmakers, and 22 female directors. “Variously inspired by individual interests and experience and driven by an intense sensibility of style, the array of new filmmaking voices in this year’s competition is especially impressive and I think memorable,” said Frederic Boyer, Tribeca’s artistic director. “The range of American subcultures and international genres represented here are both eclectic and wide reaching.”
On April 17, Gabriel will open the World Narrative competition,...
On April 17, Gabriel will open the World Narrative competition,...
- 3/4/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
★★★☆☆Just as Miranda Priestly admonishes her assistant Andy at the end of The Devil Wears Prada (2006), it seems that everybody does indeed want "to be like us". However, if you can't afford the lifestyle of a fashion mag editor, the next best thing it seems is to live it vicariously through films like Matthew Miele's Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's (2013). Films such as Lagerfeld Confidential (2007) have lain bare the lives of the people who clothe the elite (in that case Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld), whilst The September Issue (2009) and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011) have shown us where dreams come from.
- 12/6/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Kevin Macdonald, Marcel Ophuls, Fred Wiseman and Claude Lanzmann are among the top directors attending the 26th International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) (Nov 20 - Dec 1).The festival opens this evening (Nov 20) with the world premiere of Talal Derki’s Return To Homs, a feature doc that centres on young revolutionaries in Western Syria. The film, being talked up by festival insiders as a potential Oscar contender, was co-financed by Idfa through the Idfa B
Kevin Macdonald, Marcel Ophuls, Fred Wiseman and Claude Lanzmann are among the top directors attending the 26th International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) (Nov 20 - Dec 1).
The festival opens this evening (Nov 20) with the world premiere of Talal Derki’s Return To Homs, a feature doc that centres on young revolutionaries in Western Syria. The film, being talked up by festival insiders as a potential Oscar contender, was co-financed by Idfa through the Idfa Bertha Fund.
Before the film, Idfa’s Living...
Kevin Macdonald, Marcel Ophuls, Fred Wiseman and Claude Lanzmann are among the top directors attending the 26th International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) (Nov 20 - Dec 1).
The festival opens this evening (Nov 20) with the world premiere of Talal Derki’s Return To Homs, a feature doc that centres on young revolutionaries in Western Syria. The film, being talked up by festival insiders as a potential Oscar contender, was co-financed by Idfa through the Idfa Bertha Fund.
Before the film, Idfa’s Living...
- 11/20/2013
- by [email protected] (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Idfa’s international co-finance and production market will run Nov 25-27 in Amsterdam.
During the Idfa Forum, filmmakers and producers will present documentary projects to commissioning editors from international television stations and other providers of finance, with the aim of completing the finance for their documentary projects.
In total, 50 projects have been selected for the upcoming Idfa Forum, including the latest projects by Femke and Ilse van Velzen, Eva Mulvad and Marcus Vetter.
The Idfa 2013 screening program includes 18 documentaries presented as projects at previous editions of the Idfa Forum.
The 50 projects selected for the Idfa Forum 2013 will be pitched in various different settings: the central pitches in the Compagnietheater’s main hall; the round table pitches in the small hall; and one-on-one discussions with potential financiers.
For the second year in succession, the Idfa Forum includes the Work in Progress Screening category, aimed at stimulating sales and distribution.
While most of the projects at the Idfa Forum...
During the Idfa Forum, filmmakers and producers will present documentary projects to commissioning editors from international television stations and other providers of finance, with the aim of completing the finance for their documentary projects.
In total, 50 projects have been selected for the upcoming Idfa Forum, including the latest projects by Femke and Ilse van Velzen, Eva Mulvad and Marcus Vetter.
The Idfa 2013 screening program includes 18 documentaries presented as projects at previous editions of the Idfa Forum.
The 50 projects selected for the Idfa Forum 2013 will be pitched in various different settings: the central pitches in the Compagnietheater’s main hall; the round table pitches in the small hall; and one-on-one discussions with potential financiers.
For the second year in succession, the Idfa Forum includes the Work in Progress Screening category, aimed at stimulating sales and distribution.
While most of the projects at the Idfa Forum...
- 10/22/2013
- by [email protected] (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Dakota Group and Submarine Entertainment will produce a documentary about influential art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim. The film will be directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, who directed last year’s look at another cultural icon “Diana Vreeland: the Eye Has to Travel.” Principal photography began in June. The film will look at Guggenheim’s championship of a number of legendary modern artisits such as Marcel Duchamp, Vasil Kandinsky, Willem de Kooning, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock. It will include interviews with some of the men and women who knew her such as journalist Calvin Tomkins, novelist Edmund White, philanthropist Eli Broad,...
- 9/13/2013
- by Brent Lang
- The Wrap
We've seen an explosion in fashion world documentaries over the past years with "The September Issue," "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel," "Bill Cunningham New York," "In Vogue: The Editor's Eye" and so much more all casting various perspectives on an industry that has seen haute couture fall right into the mainstream. But fashion photography, and even contemporary advertising, wouldn't be the same without the contributions of Bert Stern, and it's the central premise of "Bert Stern: The Original Mad Man." While the now 83-year-old undoubtedly has his own insights and perceptions on where fashion has gone and where it is going, as he says in the documentary, he's reached a "dead end" and needs "something to do," and that feeling of listlessness pervades director Shannah Laumeister's effort despite her best intentions. The curious thing is, Laumeister is actually Stern's (much younger) partner, and if anyone would seem capable of opening him up,...
- 4/3/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
If there is such a thing as the truth of style, Diana Vreeland is the pope of the concept.
On Friday, March 15, at New York's French Institute Alliance Française as part of their Fashion Talks 2013 series, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, director of the documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, spoke about the style icon's discovery of Lauren Bacall, and looked at her early influence on the careers of Twiggy, Penelope Tree, and Anjelica Huston in startling images shot by the 20th century's most distinguished photographers, such as Richard Avedon and David Bailey.
Immordino Vreeland gave context to some of Vreeland's famous quotes: "The best thing about London is Paris," should be seen in combination with her close friendship to Coco Chanel, who was at her fittings. "Three fittings for a nightgown - and I'm not that deformed," she quipped.
Lifelong ties to France and the fascinating details...
On Friday, March 15, at New York's French Institute Alliance Française as part of their Fashion Talks 2013 series, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, director of the documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, spoke about the style icon's discovery of Lauren Bacall, and looked at her early influence on the careers of Twiggy, Penelope Tree, and Anjelica Huston in startling images shot by the 20th century's most distinguished photographers, such as Richard Avedon and David Bailey.
Immordino Vreeland gave context to some of Vreeland's famous quotes: "The best thing about London is Paris," should be seen in combination with her close friendship to Coco Chanel, who was at her fittings. "Three fittings for a nightgown - and I'm not that deformed," she quipped.
Lifelong ties to France and the fascinating details...
- 3/18/2013
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
For most people, the world of high fashion is as alien as another planet would be, populated by creatures for whom function and practicality hold no value. So few have the ability to modify their wardrobe based on the trends of a season or even a single event that a name like Diana Vreeland is more likely to register as an industry figure than a historical one, but as Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel makes clear, that probably would have bothered her. The documentary reveals many facets of the one-time editor of Harper's Bazaar, but her desire to make her work egalitarian in its appeal might make the most lasting impression.
Read more...
Read more...
- 2/15/2013
- by Anders Nelson
- JustPressPlay.net
By Barbara Snitzer of Le Movie Snob
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, while not as exacting and elegant as its subject, is still a worthwhile documentary that will hopefully ensure Ms Vreeland’s accomplishments are remembered well into the twenty-first century and beyond any name recognition for Anna Wintour.
Diana Vreeland was not the first woman to hold the position of fashion editor of a major magazine, but she was, as the photographer Richard Avedon said in her obituary “She was and remains the only genius fashion editor.”
Her relentless pursuit of all things beautiful I believe was motivated by her self-admitted lack of physical beauty. Beauty was her religion, and she wanted to share her knowledge and joy of discovery with everyone. This is why her pictorials were not merely a showcase for designers’ clothes; equally important were the locations and the non-traditional models she promoted. The...
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, while not as exacting and elegant as its subject, is still a worthwhile documentary that will hopefully ensure Ms Vreeland’s accomplishments are remembered well into the twenty-first century and beyond any name recognition for Anna Wintour.
Diana Vreeland was not the first woman to hold the position of fashion editor of a major magazine, but she was, as the photographer Richard Avedon said in her obituary “She was and remains the only genius fashion editor.”
Her relentless pursuit of all things beautiful I believe was motivated by her self-admitted lack of physical beauty. Beauty was her religion, and she wanted to share her knowledge and joy of discovery with everyone. This is why her pictorials were not merely a showcase for designers’ clothes; equally important were the locations and the non-traditional models she promoted. The...
- 1/29/2013
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Ben Affleck's "Argo" continues its ascendance to Oscar glory. Adding to its treasure-trove of trophies was the big win at the Dorian Awards given by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association (Galeca).
In the acting categories, Daniel Day-Lewis won Film Performance of the Year -- Actor for "Lincoln" and Anne Hathaway was given the Female Performance of the Year award for her memorable performance as Fantine in Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables."
The complete list of Dorian Award winners is below. A celebratory toast will be held Sunday, February 17 in Los Angeles.
For more information, please visit: galeca.com and https://www.facebook.com/galecadorianawards
Here are the winners (in bold); for winners/nominees of other award-giving bodies, click here:
Film Of The Year
*** Argo (Warner Bros.)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight)
Keep the Lights On (Music Box)
Les Miserables (Universal)
Lincoln (DreamWorks/Touchstone)
Moonrise Kingdom...
In the acting categories, Daniel Day-Lewis won Film Performance of the Year -- Actor for "Lincoln" and Anne Hathaway was given the Female Performance of the Year award for her memorable performance as Fantine in Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables."
The complete list of Dorian Award winners is below. A celebratory toast will be held Sunday, February 17 in Los Angeles.
For more information, please visit: galeca.com and https://www.facebook.com/galecadorianawards
Here are the winners (in bold); for winners/nominees of other award-giving bodies, click here:
Film Of The Year
*** Argo (Warner Bros.)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight)
Keep the Lights On (Music Box)
Les Miserables (Universal)
Lincoln (DreamWorks/Touchstone)
Moonrise Kingdom...
- 1/17/2013
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association (Galeca), of which I'm a proud voting member, have announced the Dorian Award nominees for 2012's best in film and television across 20 categories.
In the film category, "Argo," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Keep the Lights On," "Les Miserables," "Lincoln," and "Moonrise Kingdom" are competing for the Best Picture title.
Winners of the Dorian Awards will be announced on Wednesday, January 16.
Here are the nominees; for winners/nominees of other award-giving bodies, click here:
Film Of The Year
Argo (Warner Bros.)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight)
Keep the Lights On (Music Box)
Les Miserables (Universal)
Lincoln (DreamWorks/Touchstone)
Moonrise Kingdom (Focus)
Film Performance Of The Year - Actor
Alan Cumming / Any Day Now (Music Box)
Bradley Cooper / Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein)
Daniel Day-Lewis / Lincoln (DreamWorks/Touchstone)
Hugh Jackman / Les Miserables (Universal)
Joaquin Phoenix / The Master (Weinstein)
John Hawkes / The Sessions (Fox...
In the film category, "Argo," "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Keep the Lights On," "Les Miserables," "Lincoln," and "Moonrise Kingdom" are competing for the Best Picture title.
Winners of the Dorian Awards will be announced on Wednesday, January 16.
Here are the nominees; for winners/nominees of other award-giving bodies, click here:
Film Of The Year
Argo (Warner Bros.)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight)
Keep the Lights On (Music Box)
Les Miserables (Universal)
Lincoln (DreamWorks/Touchstone)
Moonrise Kingdom (Focus)
Film Performance Of The Year - Actor
Alan Cumming / Any Day Now (Music Box)
Bradley Cooper / Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein)
Daniel Day-Lewis / Lincoln (DreamWorks/Touchstone)
Hugh Jackman / Les Miserables (Universal)
Joaquin Phoenix / The Master (Weinstein)
John Hawkes / The Sessions (Fox...
- 1/9/2013
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Chicago – The short list for Academy Award contenders in the Best Documentary category have been announced. 15 potential nominees were selected with the utilization of new rules spearheaded by Academy Governor Michael Moore. Each entry was required to have screened for at least one week in Los Angeles and New York, and had to be reviewed by at least one newspaper.
Making the cut this year is Alison Klayman’s inspiring profile of the titular Chinese artist, “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” Lee Hirsch’s Weinstein-distributed doc, “Bully,” Jeff Orlowski’s chilling account of global warming, “Chasing Ice,” Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s timely exploration of Detroit’s manufacturing collapse, “Detropia,” Rory Kennedy’s intimate ode to her mother, “Ethel,” Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s look at a Palestinian farmer’s nonviolent resistance, “5 Broken Cameras,” Dror Moreh’s discussions with the former heads of Israel’s Secret Service agency, “The Gatekeepers,...
Making the cut this year is Alison Klayman’s inspiring profile of the titular Chinese artist, “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” Lee Hirsch’s Weinstein-distributed doc, “Bully,” Jeff Orlowski’s chilling account of global warming, “Chasing Ice,” Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s timely exploration of Detroit’s manufacturing collapse, “Detropia,” Rory Kennedy’s intimate ode to her mother, “Ethel,” Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s look at a Palestinian farmer’s nonviolent resistance, “5 Broken Cameras,” Dror Moreh’s discussions with the former heads of Israel’s Secret Service agency, “The Gatekeepers,...
- 12/5/2012
- by [email protected] (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The new James Bond film was by far the biggest film at the Australian box office this weekend.
The Sam Mendes-directed Skyfall took a massive $12.304m across 580 screens.
At $21,215 for screen average, the film, distributed by Sony Pictures is one of the biggest screen averages for a major opening picture in 2012.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt2 added another $4.489m in its second week at the box office, across 613 screens for a $7,325 screen average to be the second highest grossing film of the weekend.
Elsewhere, in limited new releases, the National Theatre Live: Timon of Athens made $48,731 across 25 screens while 2 Days in New York, directed and starring Julie Delpy, and distributed by Hopscotch/eOne across 23 screens made $36,670.
A documentary about a former fashion editor, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel took $15,397 across seven screens for a $2,200 screen average.
Of Australian films at the box office, Housos Vs Authority,...
The Sam Mendes-directed Skyfall took a massive $12.304m across 580 screens.
At $21,215 for screen average, the film, distributed by Sony Pictures is one of the biggest screen averages for a major opening picture in 2012.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt2 added another $4.489m in its second week at the box office, across 613 screens for a $7,325 screen average to be the second highest grossing film of the weekend.
Elsewhere, in limited new releases, the National Theatre Live: Timon of Athens made $48,731 across 25 screens while 2 Days in New York, directed and starring Julie Delpy, and distributed by Hopscotch/eOne across 23 screens made $36,670.
A documentary about a former fashion editor, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel took $15,397 across seven screens for a $2,200 screen average.
Of Australian films at the box office, Housos Vs Authority,...
- 11/26/2012
- by Colin Delaney
- Encore Magazine
Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival | Bradford Animation Festival | Bath Film Festival | William Klein
Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival
Before Cinecity came along 10 years ago, this most movie-friendly of cities didn't have a regular festival to call its own. The void has been decisively filled ever since, thankfully, and this year's anniversary event springs up in venues across the city, including the Pavilion and The Basement, which becomes a pop-up cinema showing music films. There's the expected roster of new international cinema, such as The Hunt, but off the beaten track are artists, films, live music, and a celebration of the late Brighton-based film-maker Jeff Keen.
Various venues, Thu to 2 Dec
Bradford Animation Festival
Animation might reach the parts live-action can't, but it doesn't always reach the audiences it could. So it's only through events like this you'll even find out what you're missing. Led by the feature-length Crulic, which uses...
Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival
Before Cinecity came along 10 years ago, this most movie-friendly of cities didn't have a regular festival to call its own. The void has been decisively filled ever since, thankfully, and this year's anniversary event springs up in venues across the city, including the Pavilion and The Basement, which becomes a pop-up cinema showing music films. There's the expected roster of new international cinema, such as The Hunt, but off the beaten track are artists, films, live music, and a celebration of the late Brighton-based film-maker Jeff Keen.
Various venues, Thu to 2 Dec
Bradford Animation Festival
Animation might reach the parts live-action can't, but it doesn't always reach the audiences it could. So it's only through events like this you'll even find out what you're missing. Led by the feature-length Crulic, which uses...
- 11/10/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ There was never any in-between with Diana Vreeland, the legendary fashion editor of American Harper's Bazaar and later of American Vogue - people either loved her or hated her. The same goes for the documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011), written and directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Brent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng. Some just won't understand all the fuss about a woman frequently dismissive of those who didn't meet her exacting standards. Equally, those who revere Vreeland as the supreme 'High Priestess of Fashion' may well love every morsel of this acidic and gossipy cocktail.
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- 10/30/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
"Anna Wintour does very well with Vogue, but she has a huge business head. Diana Vreeland didn't really concentrate so much on that side of things... "
Lisa Vreeland is remembering her unique family matriarch, the legendary figure who sat on a throne of great influence at Harpers Bazaar and Vogue for more than three decades in total, and changed the way we perceive fashion magazines.
With Diana Vreeland, the words 'fashion icon' and 'style-setter' are, for once, not misplaced
Wintour may have been the inspiration for Devil Wears Prada-type impersonations but, long before her, it was Vreeland who broke the mould.
Now she is remembered in a fittingly chic, dramatically creative documentary - 'Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel' - charting her time at the magazines, as well as her abrupt departure from Vogue, and her later incarnation as curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art...
Lisa Vreeland is remembering her unique family matriarch, the legendary figure who sat on a throne of great influence at Harpers Bazaar and Vogue for more than three decades in total, and changed the way we perceive fashion magazines.
With Diana Vreeland, the words 'fashion icon' and 'style-setter' are, for once, not misplaced
Wintour may have been the inspiration for Devil Wears Prada-type impersonations but, long before her, it was Vreeland who broke the mould.
Now she is remembered in a fittingly chic, dramatically creative documentary - 'Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel' - charting her time at the magazines, as well as her abrupt departure from Vogue, and her later incarnation as curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art...
- 10/29/2012
- by Caroline Frost
- Huffington Post
For someone who was the editor-in-chief of Vogue for nearly a decade, it’s amazing how well Diana (dee-yahhh-na) Vreeland lived out the philosophy that the best things in life are free. In Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, a dazzling fashion documentary directed and produced by her granddaughter-in-law, Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Diana’s legacy is shown to have more to do with imagination, personality and a bit of lunacy than with anything sold on her pages....
- 10/1/2012
- Pastemagazine.com
Chicago – Biography documentaries often are the most creative of that film genre. Over the past few years some notable general releases have included “The Kid Stays in the Picture” (2002) and the George Harrison treatment by Martin Scorsese. Add “Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel” to that list – bio docs that present a life in style and substance.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Diana Vreeland was a fashion influencer in the hotbed of New York City for over 30 years. She worked as a columnist and designer for Harper’s Bazaar Magazine in the mid 20th century, but came into her own in 1962 as the editor-in-chief for Vogue Magazine, and during nine tumultuous years she led the charge during one of the greatest fashion movements of the last 50 years. This documentary, subtitled “The Eye Has to Travel” attempts to get behind the icon, to a sense of her personhood. Using archival footage, illustrative film clips...
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Diana Vreeland was a fashion influencer in the hotbed of New York City for over 30 years. She worked as a columnist and designer for Harper’s Bazaar Magazine in the mid 20th century, but came into her own in 1962 as the editor-in-chief for Vogue Magazine, and during nine tumultuous years she led the charge during one of the greatest fashion movements of the last 50 years. This documentary, subtitled “The Eye Has to Travel” attempts to get behind the icon, to a sense of her personhood. Using archival footage, illustrative film clips...
- 9/29/2012
- by [email protected] (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
There could be two home runs at the box office this weekend, as both "Looper" and "Pitch Perfect" score highly with critics. "Looper" delivers the sci-fi thrills and "Pitch Perfect" is both ridiculous and thoroughly enjoyable. There's also a handful of documentaries, plus "Won't Back Down," "Headshot" and "Hotel Transylvania" arriving in theaters. Check out details, reviews and trailers below: "Looper" TriStar, Us | Dir: Rian Johnson Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano | Critical Consensus on "Looper" | 91% Fresh | Time: "A fanciful film with the patina of hyper-realism, Looper is well served by actors who behave not as if they were dropped carelessly into the future but spent their whole desperate lives there." | Toh Interviews Blunt | Toh Review. "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel" Samuel Goldwyn Films, Us | Dir: Lisa...
- 9/27/2012
- by Sophia Savage
- Thompson on Hollywood
This weekly column is intended to provide reviews of nearly every new indie release (and in certain cases studio films). Specific release dates and locations follow each review. Reviews This Week "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel" "Looper" "The Other Dream Team" "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" "The Waiting Room" "Won't Back Down" "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel" Finally, something that can begin to capture, if never quite contain, the genius of one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century. In this documentary, it takes a barrage of images from Diana Vreeland's heyday as the editor-in-chief of Vogue to even begin to capture the "rhythm, madness and surprise" that defined Vreeland's perfect taste. Though the portrait is supported by worshipful testimonials from aged beauties like Ali McGraw and Veruschka, these never take...
- 9/27/2012
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
This story first appeared in the Oct. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Anjelica Huston, Lauren Hutton and many famous faces turn up in the new fashion doc Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, about the late Harper's Bazaar and Vogue editrix. Photos: Diana Vreeland: Her Life in Pictures But there are two MIAs: Vogue editor Anna Wintour and contributor Andre Leon Talley, who worked for Vreeland at the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute early in his career. "Vogue hasn't touched the movie," says director Lisa Immordino Vreeland. Video: Lisa Immordino Vreeland on 'Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has
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- 9/27/2012
- by Merle Ginsberg
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
But takings weren't just modest for this charming animation as a batch of medium-sized movies all competed for attention
The winner
It was the unsung hero the previous weekend, knocked into second place thanks to The Sweeney having its tally inflated by two days of preview takings, and now it's enjoying its moment in the spotlight: ParaNorman is the UK's top box-office hit.
The stop-motion animation does so, however, with a relatively lacklustre number: £1.22m. Only three films so far this year have topped the chart with lower weekend takings. ParaNorman fell just 12% from the previous weekend, the smallest dip of any title in the top 10. It was the only picture in the market to clear £1m.
The chasing pack
Not exactly untypically for this point in the film calendar, there's a large number of medium-sized movies vying for cinemagoers' attention, but little in the way of breakout hits. Only...
The winner
It was the unsung hero the previous weekend, knocked into second place thanks to The Sweeney having its tally inflated by two days of preview takings, and now it's enjoying its moment in the spotlight: ParaNorman is the UK's top box-office hit.
The stop-motion animation does so, however, with a relatively lacklustre number: £1.22m. Only three films so far this year have topped the chart with lower weekend takings. ParaNorman fell just 12% from the previous weekend, the smallest dip of any title in the top 10. It was the only picture in the market to clear £1m.
The chasing pack
Not exactly untypically for this point in the film calendar, there's a large number of medium-sized movies vying for cinemagoers' attention, but little in the way of breakout hits. Only...
- 9/25/2012
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
The first-time director on bringing the life of her relative Diana Vreeland, 20th-century fashion superstar, to the big screen
It was while researching a film on her husband's grandmother that Lisa Immordino Vreeland came across the older woman's diaries, held in the New York Public Library.
"At certain periods, she was talking about the need to stand out," Immordino Vreeland recalls. "She would write, aged 12: 'I need to be original.' She knew she had to do something special."
The strong-minded adolescent grew up to fulfil her childhood ambitions. Diana Vreeland went on to become one of the 20th-century's most influential style icons. As the editor in chief of Vogue for much of the 1960s, she reinvigorated the fashion world by celebrating uniqueness rather than generic beauty. She was one of the first to feature musicians on her pages and made the careers of photographers such as David Bailey and Richard Avedon,...
It was while researching a film on her husband's grandmother that Lisa Immordino Vreeland came across the older woman's diaries, held in the New York Public Library.
"At certain periods, she was talking about the need to stand out," Immordino Vreeland recalls. "She would write, aged 12: 'I need to be original.' She knew she had to do something special."
The strong-minded adolescent grew up to fulfil her childhood ambitions. Diana Vreeland went on to become one of the 20th-century's most influential style icons. As the editor in chief of Vogue for much of the 1960s, she reinvigorated the fashion world by celebrating uniqueness rather than generic beauty. She was one of the first to feature musicians on her pages and made the careers of photographers such as David Bailey and Richard Avedon,...
- 9/22/2012
- by Elizabeth Day
- The Guardian - Film News
Killing Them Softly (18)
(Andrew Dominik, 2012, Us) Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini. 97 mins
With a cast like that, no prizes for guessing this is a gangster movie. But despite the well-trodden ground, it finds its own patch thanks to an up-to-date landscape of economic hardship and all-round criminal incompetence. Thus, Pitt's suave assassin breezes into town to clean up a mess, but only gets caught in a bigger one. It's tough, violent stuff, but with a certain sleazy finesse.
Savages (15)
(Oliver Stone, 2012, Us) Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively. 130 mins
Stone gives up the politics and returns to crime, with a violent thriller involving two pot-growing California dudes and their run-in with a Mexican drug cartel.
Hysteria (15)
(Tanya Wexler, 2011, UK/Fra/Ger/Lux) Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, 99 mins
The invention of the vibrator and the phenomenon of women's "hysteria" are viewed with jaunty decorum but some political savvy in this Victorian romcom.
(Andrew Dominik, 2012, Us) Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini. 97 mins
With a cast like that, no prizes for guessing this is a gangster movie. But despite the well-trodden ground, it finds its own patch thanks to an up-to-date landscape of economic hardship and all-round criminal incompetence. Thus, Pitt's suave assassin breezes into town to clean up a mess, but only gets caught in a bigger one. It's tough, violent stuff, but with a certain sleazy finesse.
Savages (15)
(Oliver Stone, 2012, Us) Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively. 130 mins
Stone gives up the politics and returns to crime, with a violent thriller involving two pot-growing California dudes and their run-in with a Mexican drug cartel.
Hysteria (15)
(Tanya Wexler, 2011, UK/Fra/Ger/Lux) Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, 99 mins
The invention of the vibrator and the phenomenon of women's "hysteria" are viewed with jaunty decorum but some political savvy in this Victorian romcom.
- 9/21/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
It’s Friday, so you know what that means – another round-up of what films are hitting cinemas this weekend; and this week there’s a wide selection of films to choose from at the box-office…
Nationwide Releases Now Is Good
Tessa is seventeen and passionate about life. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, she determines to use every moment, compiling a catalogue of what a normal teenager would experience, including losing her virginity and taking drugs. With the help of her friend Zoey, she sets the list in motion. While her family deals with fear and grief, each in their own way, Tessa explores a whole new world. Falling in love with Adam, her new neighbour, wasn’t on the list, but it proves to be the most exhilarating experience of them all. Now Is Good Review
Savages
Laguna Beach entrepreneurs Ben (Johnson), a peaceful and charitable Buddhist, and his closest...
Nationwide Releases Now Is Good
Tessa is seventeen and passionate about life. Diagnosed with a terminal illness, she determines to use every moment, compiling a catalogue of what a normal teenager would experience, including losing her virginity and taking drugs. With the help of her friend Zoey, she sets the list in motion. While her family deals with fear and grief, each in their own way, Tessa explores a whole new world. Falling in love with Adam, her new neighbour, wasn’t on the list, but it proves to be the most exhilarating experience of them all. Now Is Good Review
Savages
Laguna Beach entrepreneurs Ben (Johnson), a peaceful and charitable Buddhist, and his closest...
- 9/21/2012
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, an exhilarating and inspiring documentary about the life and times of the infamous socialite-turned-fashion magazine editor, hits theaters today. The Hollywood Reporter talked with the film’s producer/director Lisa Immordino Vreeland, who grew up mesmerized by the iconic editor’s work in Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue and ended up marrying her grandson. Although she never met Vreeland, who died in 1989, she initially began research for a book about her by the same name. After she found so much material suited for a film, she ended up producing and directing one, as well as
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- 9/21/2012
- by Elizabeth Snead
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A new documentary celebrates the charismatic fashion editor who once high-kicked with the Tiller Girls and sold underwear to Wallis Simpson. Find out more with our quick catchup guide
With a documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, in cinemas this week, the former American Vogue and Harper's Bazaar editor – all rouged cheeks, supersized earrings and fashion bon mots – is about to be discovered by a whole new generation. For a cheat sheet, here's five things you need to know about her now.
She loved flaws
Vreeland wasn't into a rarefied untouchable beauty – she wanted to celebrate what made people unique. Barbra Streisand's nose was seen up close and personal on American Vogue, Penelope Tree's alien-like look was championed, so was Twiggy's skinny frame. From John Lennon to Jackie Kennedy, she wanted personality. Her motto could have been "it takes all sorts".
It wasn't just about the magazines...
With a documentary, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, in cinemas this week, the former American Vogue and Harper's Bazaar editor – all rouged cheeks, supersized earrings and fashion bon mots – is about to be discovered by a whole new generation. For a cheat sheet, here's five things you need to know about her now.
She loved flaws
Vreeland wasn't into a rarefied untouchable beauty – she wanted to celebrate what made people unique. Barbra Streisand's nose was seen up close and personal on American Vogue, Penelope Tree's alien-like look was championed, so was Twiggy's skinny frame. From John Lennon to Jackie Kennedy, she wanted personality. Her motto could have been "it takes all sorts".
It wasn't just about the magazines...
- 9/21/2012
- by Lauren Cochrane
- The Guardian - Film News
Directors: Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt, Frédéric Tcheng
“Without it (style), you’re nobody”. The Eye Has to Travel is full of these; little morsels of, depending how you look at them, perceptive genius or narcissistic fluff. Every line worth remembering comes from the mouth of Diana Vreeland herself. Vreeland died in 1989 so these are taken from archive footage or transcription for her autobiography (her accent sounds like a cross between Audrey and Katherine Hepburn). These quotes may read as boorish, but such is the zest and charm of Vreeland, in context they sum up a woman who dedicated herself to the eradication of banality.
The most influential fashion editor of all time, Diana Vreeland arrived in the world, specifically Paris, in 1903 during La Belle Époque and never truly let go. She departed France for America with her family, sampling the jazz and dancing of 1920s Harlem in her teens...
“Without it (style), you’re nobody”. The Eye Has to Travel is full of these; little morsels of, depending how you look at them, perceptive genius or narcissistic fluff. Every line worth remembering comes from the mouth of Diana Vreeland herself. Vreeland died in 1989 so these are taken from archive footage or transcription for her autobiography (her accent sounds like a cross between Audrey and Katherine Hepburn). These quotes may read as boorish, but such is the zest and charm of Vreeland, in context they sum up a woman who dedicated herself to the eradication of banality.
The most influential fashion editor of all time, Diana Vreeland arrived in the world, specifically Paris, in 1903 during La Belle Époque and never truly let go. She departed France for America with her family, sampling the jazz and dancing of 1920s Harlem in her teens...
- 9/21/2012
- by Chris Laverty
- Clothes on Film
★★★★☆ Unless you're a fashion aficionado, chances are you'll have never heard of Diana Vreeland, the former editor of Vogue and irresistibly charismatic subject of Lisa Immordino Vreeland's (her grandson's partner) doc Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011). Her tale is so fantastical you'd be forgiven for thinking the majority of her life was a work of fiction, but the lady (the odd exaggeration for effect aside) was very much the genuine article.
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- 9/20/2012
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
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