Interview: "Dior and I" Director. Film and Fashion Are More Connected Than You'd Think

Jose here to bring you and interview as the new documentary Dior and I opens in select theaters.

In April 2012, Raf Simons was announced as the new creative director at Christian Dior, fashion experts all over the world were surprised that they’d chosen a minimalist Belgian designer who up to then had mostly been known for his menswear, and when his first couture collection debuted, the house of Dior was once again giving people something to talk about, as Simons sought to pay tribute to the man whose “New Look” revolutionized fashion in the twentieth century. What few people knew was the behind-the-scenes drama that had the introverted Simons become the hero at the center of a thriller which had him try to deliver a couture collection in two months, as opposed to the six most designers are given to work with.

In his provocative documentary Dior and I, director Frédéric Tcheng gives us access to this exclusive world in which art and commerce are at constant odds with each other. Tcheng has amassed an admirable nonfiction filmography comprised of some of the greatest fashion films in recent years, he co-produced and edited the Oscar short-listed Valentino: The Last Emperor and co-directed the delicious Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, but as he explained during our chat in New York City, he’s not interested in being “a fashion filmmaker”, but instead wants to tell compelling stories that transcend into the universal.

THE INTERVIEW

JOSE: Something that never becomes clear in the film is why he would agree to do the collection in eight weeks? Did you ask him about this?

FRÉDÉRIC TCHENG: (Laughs) I think the timing just happened to be that way, I’m not sure what was actually said at the meetings when they were negotiating his arrival, so I can’t speak for that. What I gather is that Dior wanted him to start with couture as a statement, not ready to wear, but couture, which happens only twice a year. Everyone was waiting for Dior to announce a new designer, and it took them almost a year to do it, so I don’t know what happened in those meeting rooms.

This time element gave you the tools to make a thriller! [More...]

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In the Link Room

A very quick roundup to begin a Netflixy day (Daredevil anyone). Speaking of... Hi, Sissy!

Sissy Spacek photographed by Christian McDonald

Interview Todd Field (In the Bedroom) interviews Sissy Spacek on Bloodline etc...
NPR talks to Brad Bird on Tomorrowland. And yes, he is finally working on Incredibles 2 (very early writing stages) for which we will eschew our normal eye rolls at animated sequel news and instead cheer wildly.
Tracking Board Logans Run remake still a slight possibility. This time with female lead?
i09 posits that Practical Magic w/ Bullock & Kidman as witch sisters is a perfect movie 
Antagony & Ecstasy film criticism for a good cause: Tim takes on the daunting task of reviewing Vertigo aka "the greatest movie ever made" as part of his cancer charity drive -- he's raised over $2000 already!
Vanity Fair on Ryan Gosling as a director
Pajiba says "eff it... reboot everything" including Cybill. Hee!
Pajiba should you grow a Mad Men moustache? A handy guide 

Today's Watch ICYMI
It gives a whole new meaning to "instant watch"

Kristen Stewart's Cloudy birthday weekend

Your weekly reminder that Julianne Moore won an Oscar. It's still true and still amazing.Tim here. It's a good weekend to be Kristen Stewart: today is the actress's 25th birthday, and tomorrow begins the limited U.S. release of Clouds of Sils Maria, which has won her the best reviews of her 15-year career. It's the natural endpoint of a very good 12 months for Stewart, which saw the premiere of three movies (Camp X-Ray, Sils Maria, Still Alice) that found her proving herself to all the hostile critics that were ready to write off her entire career as an asterisk following her starring role in the Twilight movies.

Having been one of those critics – part of the fun of The Twilight Saga while it was ongoing was having an annual opportunity to trot out my list of synonyms for "catatonic" in describing Stewart's performances – I am happy to have been thus defeated. What she's doing in Sils Maria isn't just giving a solid performance and holding her own with a modestly complex part and proving that there's more to her than just gaping blandly at a sexy shiny vampire and a sexy jailbait werewolf. We just saw Stewart do that in Still Alice, where she did a fine job of keeping one corner of the movie nailed down as it hunted for anything interesting besides Julianne Moore's performance.

No, Stewart's performance in Sils Maria is an out-and-out revelation, the kind you tell your grandkids about. She's not just "fine" or "solid", she's the best thing in the movie – she steals the movie right out from Juliette Binoche, and that's simply Not Done.

More...

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Mad Men @ The Movies "Hey, Mildred Pierce!"

Please welcome new member of Team Experience, Lynn Lee (who you may remember from the Reader Spotlight and Furlough Guest Blog) here to continue our unofficial Joan Crawford week - Editor 

Lynn here, filling in for Nathaniel as Mad Men – and with it, Mad Men at the Movies – returns for the final seven episodes.  The show has had a good run but from a filmgoing perspective I'm sorry we won't get to see what Don would make of the weird and wonderful cornucopia of movies in the ’70s, from gritty crime sagas to paranoid conspiracy thrillers to, well, “Star Wars.” 

Curiously, the only obvious movie reference that popped up in tonight’s episode was to a movie from decades earlier – Mildred Pierce (1945), the half-soap, half-noir blockbuster that revived Joan Crawford’s flagging career and won her the only Oscar of her career.  Fittingly, the shout-out comes from Roger Sterling, our most senior character now that Bert Cooper is gone.  Even more fittingly, it’s delivered as slightly derisive banter wrapped around an order to an underling: Roger’s in a diner with Don and three ladies, all decked out in evening wear, and he wants the waitress to bring him the bill.

Hey, Mildred Pierce, can I get the check?”

It's not exactly a flattering sobriquet...

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Women's Pictures - Jane Campion's An Angel at my Table

With her 1990 film An Angel at my Table, Jane Campion solidified a pattern for herself. Her films would be about extraordinary women in stifling circumstances. Whether it is mental institutions, marital institutions, family, or society, Campion’s heroines have to overcome great difficulties in order to live truly as themselves. An Angel at my Table, based on the autobiographies of New Zealand author Janet Frame, stands out as the only film of Campion’s early body of work that could be comfortably called a biopic. But to dismiss An Angel at my Table as just another biopic would be to ignore the unusual film Campion has made about an unusual woman.

Janet Frame’s life was as strange as any of the twenty works she wrote. She spent her childhood poor but happy in rural New Zealand, grew into an awkward woman whose anxiety was mistaken for mental illness, spent eight years in a mental institution, was freed when her writing was published, and went on to become a New Zealand icon. Campion cast three actresses to play Frame as she matured: Karen Fergusson, Alexia Keogh, and finally the incredible Kerry Fox. The three actresses are unified by a shock of red, unruly hair, and an awkward physicality that show someone more comfortable in her imagination than in the world.

An Angel at my Table is shot in a straightforward style far removed from the canted camera angles and wide angle lenses of Sweetie. The practical reason for this was the film's humble beginnings as a TV miniseries. However, beyond practicality, this less showy camera blocking lends itself to grounding Janet Frame’s story in reality. Frame’s impoverished but happy upbringing, her nightmarish eight year detention in a mental institution, and her subsequent successful writing career are shown in mostly medium or long shots, with Janet at the visually at the center. Typically subjects are set off-center in a shot, because symmetrical framing looks odd to the audience’s eye. Placing Janet at the center of the frame visually sets Janet apart - reacting to, but separate from, the world around her.

Janet Frame's colorful inner life after the jump.

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