she was a working girl north of england way, now she's hit the big time in the usa

I am currently so inspired by the swinging sixties fashions of the 1968 film Petulia, starring Julie Christie - fresh from her megastar-turning roles in Doctor Zhivago and Fahrenhit 451 - in the title role. Directed by Dick Lester (the kook genius behind both the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night and Help!), the film tells the story of a young San Franciscan socialite named Petulia who is unhappily married to an abusive man. At the start of the film, Christie's character announces, "My name's Petulia Danner. I've been married for six months and I haven't had an affair yet." Well, this fact quickly changes when Petulia becomes smitten with a doctor by the name of Archie Bollen, falling for him after she watched him treat an injured young boy. On their first formal evening together, Petulia tells him that they ought to get a hotel room and details for him her plans for their marriage. As luck would have it, Bollen has recently begun divorcing his wife and is able to begin a relationship with the beautiful Petulia as he seeks to sort out his now complicated relationships with his ex-wife (and her new boyfriend), his children, and friends. 

The film is a treat not just for it's fashions, but also for it's appearances by a Janis Joplin-led Big Brother & The Holding Co. and the Grateful Dead. Fourth down on the far left side of the collage is a photo of Petulia taken out of an apartment on a stretcher, and you can see members of the Dead as well as Janis among the hippie onlookers. 

I think this film is one of the most important films of the Swinging Sixties period in London - not just for its fashions (which are to die for - there were too many outfits for me to even include!) but for its daring plot, quirky take on romance and marriage, and it's cutting edge non-linear structure. 

Title: from "Honey Pie" (The Beatles)

if you wanted the moon i would try to make a start, but i would rather you let me give my heart, to sir with love

I love the swinging style of the 1967 film To Sir, With Love. Of course I adore Sidney Poitier, but surprisingly my attention wasn't stuck on him - it was on the fab fashions of Lulu, Judy Geeson, and co.

The film is basically about a group of rowdy, unruly high school students who are inspired to change their lives by their hep cat of a teacher, Mark Thackeray (played by Sidney, the king of all cool in my book). Could you imagine going in to school everyday in coordinated minis and teased hair? Only in my wildest dreams would I have the effort to do that everyday! 

The film is known for its uplifting storyline, which has inspired many other do-gooder teacher films in the passing decades, as well as the chart topping hit by Lulu inspired by the film.  

Title: from "To Sir, With Love" (Lulu)

do ya wanna touch, do ya wanna touch, do ya wanna touch me there?

One of the reasons I wish I was alive during the sixties was so that I could so many wonderful decade-centric films that are practically impossible to find nowadays. (Apparently modern movie studios think that we don’t want to see the cult classics of Swinging London. Bitter? Yes.)

Thanks to my university library and our impressive Film & Media Studies department, I’ve been able to watch hard-to-find classics like Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo?, Candy, and Wonderwall (even letting me writing a term research paper on Performance).  

Still, there is a laundry list of films I still haven’t seen: Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London and Reflections on Love (starring Jenny Boyd), and currently at the top of my list, The Touchables. I was so excited when I came across this post on the film on the fabby blog theredtelephone. She recommended watching the film on Youtube, which some saint out there had uploaded a while back. But of course, as luck would have it, the Youtube links are no longer working. I went on a mission through various not-so-legal routes to try to find the film, even contemplating/reasoning the risk of a virus on my computer in order to download a sketchy copy of it. I know, I am a shame to all other film students!

I am currently trying to patch together the film through various, disconnected clips online. From what I have gathered, the film explores sex and sexuality in the similarly taboo-meets-camp way of many other Swinging London movies. As for the plot: four ridiculously beautiful and stylish British dollies kidnap a rock star and 'torture' him with lovemaking. Suffice to say, the Touchables thrives more on visuals than content. 

The film, written by Donald Cammell, the genius behind Performance, and directed by Beatles' photographer Robert Freeman, stars a cast of lovelies including Monika Ringwald, Esther Anderson, Kathy Simmonds (who briefly dated George Harrison - you can read about it here), and Judy Huxtable. It has the gorgeously random film style of Wonderwall and Blowup, and the gorgeously mod darlings to act out in the scenery. 

The only readily-available part of the film is its soundtrack, downloadable on Amazon. It's great - full of swinging tunes and a great cover of Good Day Sunshine. 

Visuals gathered from: Martin Klasch, Listal, Mubi, Blue Sunshine, A Man Out of Time, Title: from "Do You Wanna Touch Me" (Joan Jett ... technically Gary Glitter, but I like Joan more) 

just a wild rambling rose, seeking mysteries untold, no regret for the path that i chose

Being back in the warm Texan weather reminds me that in a world outside of the snow-buried New York landscape, spring is fast approaching. And with spring comes my insatiable desire for beautiful, light, white dresses. A few weeks ago, my bloggy-friend JessM did a post on the dreamy, angelic style of the Lisbon sisters, whose 1970s style is so lustworthy. Thinking about beautiful seventies style, my mind travels to the 1975 Australian film, Picnic at Hanging Rock. The film tells the story of a group of schoolgirls who disappear on Valentine's Day in 1900 after being drawn to the mysterious rock formation Hanging Rock.

The ambiguous, unresolved story is matched by the dreamlike aura of the cinematography, which makes the film - in a phrase - hauntingly beautiful (or beautifully haunting, depending on how you view it). Peter Weir's direction reminds me a lot of the photography of David Hamilton, whose photographs always have a distinctive hazy ethereal beauty to them. The girls are outfitted in gorgeous turn-of-the-century fashions: long white dresses in lace and linen, wild flowers and cameo brooches, patterned parasols, leather lace-up boots, delicate corsetted waistlines, matched with fresh makeup-free faces and long flowing hair.

While Picnic is certainly a mystery film, it does not follow the norm in terms of horror/suspense films. There is no blood, no gore, no villain or hero - and the eeriness of the unexplained fate of the girls, matched with the dreams had by several characters as to their fates, makes this story much more affecting than the typical mystery films of today.

Title: from "Wildflowers" (Linda Ronstadt)

she’s well-acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane

The troubling thing about writing a retro-themed blog at times is that many of the actors and actresses that I admire are either dead, or even worse, still have that inevitable fate in front of them. For many of us, death comes much too soon; our lives are cut short before we can do all the things we wanted to do. All we can hope for is that we have experienced enough and truly lived enough in our lives to have no regrets when the final bell rings.
Such is the case with Maria Schneider, who passed away in Paris today at the age of 58. The actress is best-known for her role in Bernardo Bertolucci's film Last Tango in Paris.
Cast at the tender age of nineteen, Maria played opposite Marlon Brando as two steamy lovers about to part. The role in Tango brought her a lot of attention, but her acting merits warranted it - she does a terrific job in the film, balancing the emotional extremes of the film's narrative. Schneider struggled with the aftermath of her role in the controversial film, once saying, "I was too young to know better. Marlon later said that he felt manipulated, and he was Marlon Brando, so you can imagine how I felt. People thought I was like the girl in the movie, but that wasn't me."
As she looks down upon all of us this wintry night, I hope Maria doesn't mind my paying tribute to her great life, as the star of Last Tango in Paris.

Title: from "Happiness is a Warm Gun" (The Beatles)

to be loyal i'd even let love pass by, i'm a drifter, the man from tokyo

Tonight, I watched Tokyo Drifter (no relation to Tokyo Drift) - an interesting film from 1966 by Seijun Suzuki. Drifter is centered around young gangster Tetsu who decides to quit his criminal lifestyle. But in typical gangster film fashion, fellow mobsters won't let that happen - either Tetsu plays the game, or he's dead. The biggest mobster in Tokyo, Otsuka, threatens the honest business venture of Tetsu's reformed boss Kurata in order to pressure the duo back into their criminal ways. As a result, Tetsu decides to become a drifter - leaving Tokyo, Kurata, and his girlfriend, a nightclub singer named Chiharu, behind him. He is finally drawn back to Tokyo when he is betrayed someone who he trusted the most - and a true-to-form gangster ending plays out. He also inexplicably sings a lot throughout the movie. 
I love the highly stylized world that Tokyo Drifter exists in. Suzuki's production was a 'B' picture - and he fully relishes in this, indulging in the catchy, kitschy universe within the B-movie culture. Similar to 'Nevers' claim in Hiroshima mon amour of a city that never shuts off, Tokyo is presented as a frenzied, vibrant city chock full of gangsters and their girlfriends. Suzuki creates a Japan that belongs in a comic book of crime, similar to that of Godard's Made in USA. The opening scene of the film is a deeply contrasting black-and-white. And when I say contrast, I do mean contrast - the faces of the various gangsters are black as night, and the sky is so white it looks overexposed and is absent of any gradients. The opening scene provides an interesting association (or disassociation) with the vibrant colors of the rest of the film.
I loved the play of color in the film, as the color outfit or color setting that the scene was placed in took symbolic meaning to the storyline. The main character Tetsu wears suits that are light suit, light khaki, and white; as a man who has lived a lucky life (as he is referred to as "Tetsu of the charmed life"), his clothes remain pristine no matter the brutally violent situations he so often finds himself in. The final scene of the film - the emptied nightclub that turns from black to white once Tetsu enters the room - is an instance of such color symbolism. Surrounded by other gangsters wearing black suits, it is only Tetsu and Chiharu who are wearing clean white outfits to match the perfectly white nightclub (and the white donut-looking thing hanging above the piano), and it is no coincidence that they are the only ones who make it out alive, and they are the final characters (and dialogue exchange) that the viewer sees.
The violence is typical both of B movie features, as well as of the sixties. In a word, its unbelievable. But Tokyo Drifter uses that to its advantage. If Suzuki was able to achieve Tarantino-levels of blood and gore, we would feel sick to our stomachs at the number of people that Tetsu has killed. But since the kookiness of the film is so stressed, we are never quite sure when someone is dead (characters assumed to be dead later turn up alive, vice versa; Tetsu 'dies' in a scene but then begins to whistle casually on the floor). Because of that, the film is able to retain its lighthearted tone. 

Title: from "Tokyo Drifter" theme song

but love is never easy, it’s never silky smooth, there’s always something tempting in the wilderness of youth

I don't know how informative a post this will be because the film I am writing about is one that I haven't actually seen. I haven't built up the nerve to watch it, mainly because of the explicit sexual content (I get squirmish and immediately revert back to my fifth grade self). This film is Emmanuelle, a 1974 French erotica film that spawned over a dozen sequels and spurred on a movement in film that briefly made softcore chic.

The plot is simple enough to follow: Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel), the beautiful much-younger wife of French diplomat Jean, flies to Bangkok to be by her husband’s side. In typical, post-sexual revolution fashion, the couple is very tolerant of each other’s sexual whims and extramarital affairs are encouraged. In Bangkok, Emmanuelle embarks on a series of trysts with both men and women, adopting the same laissez faire attitude towards love that her fellow expats have. She allows herself to be guided in life by desire instead of logic and reason.

On strictly the level of the cinematic norms it shattered, Emmanuelle is a significant piece of film history. Now, I'm not advising you to run out and watch softcore film, but there are some merits to this film as a watershed moment in the redefinition of what cinema is capable of producing. The sexual content of Emmanuelle is less like a sleazy Van Wilder film than it is a test to see how far a film can push its boundaries. Instead of reworking the film to avoid an X-rating, the film embraced its tawdry reputation, creating a certain allure around the otherwise dreaded ‘X’.

The film was much more than a softcore movie – it was a worldwide smash that explored the psyche of the new sexual dynamic and promoted the modern female who had achieved liberation (sexual and otherwise). An estimated 300 million people went to the cinema to see Emmanuelle, with most of the audience was female.

The settings are lushly filmed in a soft focus lens, making everything resemble a sort of dreamlike state. The stills that I’ve seen of Emmanuelle are gorgeous – her bedroom is decorated with richly draped fabrics, heavy ornate furniture, and taxidermied leopards, while her dressing room is shown covered with vases of flowers and antique sculpted busts.

While the film can easily be written off as simply of the softcore porno variety, it has arguably done a lot to advance the way that sex, sexuality, and the feminine embracement and assertion of that sexuality is portrayed on screen. While I am probably part of the group that unfairly judges the film without ever having seen it (because I am forming an opinion that I shouldn’t see it before I’m actually well-informed enough to make that opinion), I do recognize its merits. How could Carrie Bradshaw and her City girls be embraced by audiences not just on HBO, but also on the silver screen (twice!) and now basic cable, becoming icons of the modern 21^st century woman, without Emmanuelle first paving the way? 

Title: from "Sweethearts Together" (The Rolling Stones)

the long and winding road, that leads to your door, will never disappear, i've seen that road before

Though I consider myself a bit of a movie nut, there is a wealth of cinemagraphic goodness that I haven’t experienced. One of the genres I really don’t even know where to start with is Italian neorealism. I was lucky in that one of my film professors in years past was also an Italian scholar, so we did get to experience the ‘greatest hits’ collection of neorealism. Besides being just a generally fabulous individual (she was six feet tall, stick thin, and intelligent beyond human comprehension), my professor worked to give of a taste of each director in the movement. I’ve seen the philosophical ‘trilogy’ by Roberto Rossellini – Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City); Paisà; and Germania, anno zero (Germany, year zero). I’ve seen works by Visconti, De Sica, and De Santis, but the director who I am most woefully unexperienced in is Federico Fellini (I don’t count Paisà, for which he was a writer for, as one of his films). 

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing La Strada – which is largely hailed as Fellini’s greatest film – in 35 mm. Apart from an unintended intermission halfway through the film (the film itself had snapped in two), finally experiencing Fellini’s world was nothing short of a delight.

For all those film buffs out there, let me state that I do realize that La Strada isn’t technically a neorealist film. Actually, upon its release, it caused a firestorm of criticism because it violated the neorealist ‘code’ – Fellini featured absurd hyper-characters, pulling his narrative out of the typical dire straits of the postwar working class that was a staple of neorealism. Instead of rooting his characters in the context of a certain time or place, Fellini’s story thrives on the utter rootlessness of his characters.

The title of the film translates into English as “The Road” – an apt title on many different levels. The film doesn’t only depict the tough life on ‘the road’ for this band of vagabonds – members of travelling circuses whose livelihoods are dependent upon how many different towns they can visit – but also the ‘road’ that the characters travel in a more metaphysical sense.

La Strada starts with the sale of the young, naïve Gelsomina (portrayed by Giulietta Masina, wife and muse to the director) to the slovenly brute Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a “travelling strongman” in need of a new female assistant after the death of his last girl – who, ironically, was also Gelsomina’s sister.

Masina plays Gelsomina to utter Chaplinesque tramp perfection. It is hinted that she is supposed to be mentally challenged, but Gelsomina comes off as more of an extremely unaware young woman who possesses the tendencies of a five-year-old. Zampano is a slobberish brute, a man who could make Stanley Kowalski seem fit to dine with the Queen. He operates on an entirely animalistic basis, acting only upon his desires (for food, drink, sex, or violence). Through it all, Gelsomina stays devoted to her master and a strange quasi-romance occurs. The story is further complicated by the introduction of Il Matto (The Fool, played by Richard Basehart), a man despised by Zampano for his superior performance skills and his teasing behavior.

La Strada as a film serves as not just a journey of narrative, but also of Fellini's direction away from the defined form of neorealism into what renowned critic Andre Bazin referred to as “neorealism of the person” (instead of say neorealism of a situation or event). 

As I mentioned above, Fellini’s greater message is served by the lack of ties to any community that his characters have. The story exists outside of time and space, which Millicent Marcus talks about at length in her piece, “Fellini’s La Strada”: "this is not a standard neorealist journey, [...] proved by the total absence of concrete spacial and temporal markers to root the story in history" (Marcus, 148). Fellini's characters don't need time and space because their very nature/ existence/ livelihood stems from their lack of ties anywhere. In this "rootlessness" that Marcus describes, the film becomes a study of the human condition rather than a portrait of lives affected by their surroundings; the film is a perfect example of this new neorealism that Bazin announces.

The success of La Strada is in this very fact - though the situations of circus performers may seem unrealistic and unrelatable, the problems of these people are all too familiar (as Fellini asserts, "There are more Zampanos in the world than bicycle thieves," which refers to the popular neorealist film The Bicycle Thief).

The plight of the human condition is transcendent, whereas historical reality, which is so stressed in typical neorealist vehicles, is not. By refocusing neorealism to be "neorealism of the person," the opportunity for the audience to connect is widened. Unlike Rossellini's 'trilogy' - where the audience would have to had experienced the atrocities of war to truly relate - the struggles that Gelsomina, Zampano, and Il Matto go through are significant and resonate within each of us to a certain extent. Regardless of what is happening in time and space, it's what they are feeling that makes La Strada such a powerful film for the viewer. 

Title: from "The Long and Winding Road" (The Beatles)

the exploding plastic inevitable

I can be a little dense at times, a little out of the loop. In this particular case, I was very out of the loop. The wonderful Smashingbird gave me the Plastic Joy Award. Only, she gave it to me in April. The Plastic Joy Award is a fun little thing where a blogger selects five or more characters from film or television who they would most like to bump uglies with. Well, I say better late than never, especially when it comes to things as fun to do as this! Without further ado, here are the five characters I would most love to love: 

Cary Grant as T.R. Devlin in Notorious

Cary Grant was always so smooth, so suave, so unnervingly elegant that it was almost too much to bear at times. There is no choice but to swoon over him. This is why I love him as the hardened, jaded government agent Devlin - he is the hero of the story, but he isn't an obviously likable guy. He falls in love with Ingrid Bergman's character, Alicia Huberman, the alcoholic daughter of a Nazi scientist, but is too hardened to admit his feelings to a woman of such ill-repute. Their kiss - which last for minutes but is broken up into shorter kisses in order to pass through the Hays Code - is absolutely delirious. There is a scene mid-way through the film where the two meet up at the horse races under the watchful eye of Alicia's new husband - when she begins to cry, he stares straight ahead and says emotionlessly "Dry your eyes, baby - it's out of character." I don't know why, but it kills me every time. 

Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire

I read somewhere that you should watch On the Waterfront if you want to fall in love with Brando, and A Streetcar Named Desire if you want to fall in lust. It's easy to see why - he wears skin-tight tee shirts half the time (and the other half of the time, he's shirtless!) While I'm not too fond of the brutish behavior, I love his rare moments of remorse and tenderness. When he screams "Stellaaaaa!" from the bottom of his neighbor's staircase, he begins to cry, thinking he has lost the love of his life, and then drops to the floor in self-disgust when she slowly walks down to him. I remember watching this scene in a high school English class about five times in a row (I guess I wasn't the only one who was done in by Stanley).  

Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show

I think this reveals something rather unsettling about my personality. I don't know what it is (his fishnet-clad gams, perhaps?) but I just find Dr. Frank-N-Furter to be really attractive. If in some other dimension, we do end up hooking up - at least I can pick his brain afterward about lingerie and makeup tips. 

Ed Westwick as Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl

Why? Because he's Chuck Bass. 

Though my father finds him to be absolutely smarmy, I adore Chuck Bass. He has shattered all different stereotypes (before GG, I think we all could confidently say we didn't know a man could wear so much purple and baby pink and be such a committed womanizer), all the while being the most loveable ass on the planet. He's the only character who can get away with simply uttering his name as an excuse for his behavior (and have it not be followed by "... and I'm an alcoholic / drug addict / bag of douche.") His voice - coupled with the fact that it was patterned after that of Carlton Banks - truly does me in. 

Sean Connery as Mark Rutland in Marnie

Yes, he found the woman who robbed his company to be alluring rather than troubled. Yes, he blackmailed that same woman (Tippi Hedren, as the title character) into marriage with threatening to expose her kleptomaniacal ways. Yes, he also rapes her on their honeymoon. But other than that, I think he's a dream. I don't know, I guess I just have a thing for emotionally-vacant, strange men ... at least when it comes to the fictional ones. 

Ted Neeley as Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar

I can't figure out if wanting to bone Jesus in this movie means that I'm going to hell .... or if it means I'm a really awesome Christian. It's a very fine line. Also, I'll refrain from making the same joke that one of my friends (who was atheist) made about him being 'well-hung on the cross'. Because yeah, that's crossing a line.

Here are the blogstars I award the same plastic joy to (but I encourage everyone to do it - it's quite fun!):

Lost Muse

Glamoretta

Musings & Inspiration

You've Got the Silver

Beatle Girls

Retro Active Critiques

make me want you, make me miss you, make me wonder where you are, then forget you

It is pretty much a universally accepted fact that Blow Up, the Michelangelo Antonioni film from 1966 about a London playboy photographer, is one of the defining films of the Swingin' Sixties. It's one of those fascinating films that is so captivating to watch that you are absolutely enthralled watching it, but only after the film is over do you realize that the film is about absolutely nothing. In short, Blow Up is about the life of the 'it' photographer of the Sixties, played by David Hemmings, who has the world - and quite literally the world's most beautiful women - at his feet. The cocky Cockney photographer was rumored to be based on David Bailey, who was known as much for the women he romanced (Jean Shrimpton, Catherine Deneuve, Penelope Tree) as the moments he photographed.
Hemmings' film alter ego is callous and superficial, only interested in things that are exciting and unattainable. He treats women like disposable pleasures not worthy of emotions, tossing out the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Birkin, and Veruschka as professionally as he does rolls of film that he's captured their images on.
The image of Hemmings straddling the supermodel Veruschka while snapping photos of the model, who is writhing around on the studio floor, has come to be the most iconic image of the film. I've always loved the scenes with Veruschka because I find her to be such a fascinating personality. In the film, she plays an exaggerated version of herself - a supermodel who is so consumed in the jet-set luxury of the fashion set. Hemmings finds Veruschka at a club later that night after their photo session, and when he questions her why she isn't in Paris, the drunk or drugged (we're never quite sure) supermodel cries, "we are in Paris!"
While her 'character' may not be entirely true to her character, Veruschka has stated that the film offers a startlingly accurate portrait of the fashion world during that era. "I was never so interested in fashion," Veruschka has said of her modeling career, "I was never interested to wear designer clothes. It was a big stage and you were used as accessories. I was the object of desire, like in Blow Up."

Title: from "She Lives in My Lap" (Outkast) 

don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone

I feel so terrible that I haven't already done this, but I feel like I must pay tribute to the late, great Blake Edwards. Blake died on December 15th of this year, which was also my birthday. I told you that my birthday is always terrible - this year being no different, as one of my favorite directors passed away on the day.
Blake Edwards began his career in the film industry in the 1940s as an actor. He was a great writer and soon shifted from acting to behind the screen, writing scripts for radio productions at Columbia Pictures. He was largely known for his successes in producing and directing films. Edwards was at the helm of so many great films: Operation Petticoat, the Cary Grant-Tony Curtis submarine romp, marking Edwards' turn as a big-budget director; The Great Race, starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood; Days of Wine and Roses, also starring Jack Lemmon, alongside Lee Remick as an unhappy alcoholic married couple; the Pink Panther films series with his good friend Peter Sellers. He was known for his comedic films, best perhaps are the Pink Panther films for they show off his penchant for slapstick comedic styles inspired by Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy. Perhaps my favorite films by Edwards are Victor/Victoria, and Breakfast at Tiffany's (quelle surprise, I know). Edwards lends a magical quality to his films, they seem so carefree and loosely flowing, yet each frame is so meticulously styled that any frame could be pulled and put into an editorial for a fashion magazine.
Victor/Victoria is one of several films that Blake made starring his wife of 41 years, Julie Andrews. The duo, whose marriage lasted from 1969 until his death, made films V/V, Darling Lili, 10, The Tamarind Seed, The Man Who Loved Women, among others, as well as had five children (two from Edwards' first marriage, the third child from Andrews' previous marriage, and the last two children were adopted).
Blake Edwards is an invaluable member of cinematic history; his work was recognized by the Academy in 2004 when he was awarded an Honorary Academy Award for his achievements. His work leaves an indelible mark on the film industry, and he will be missed terribly by family, friends, and fans worldwide.

James Garner and Julie Andrews in Victor/ Victoria

The closing shot of Breakfast at Tiffany's, with George Peppard, Audrey Hepburn and "Cat"

Tony Curtis puts the moves on Dina Merrill in Operation Petticoat

The gorgeous Claudia Cardinale in The Pink Panther

Title: from"Big Yellow Taxi"(Joni Mitchell)

qui qu'a vu coco

Coco Avant Chanel, with Audrey Tautou as the titular role

Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, where Anna Mouglalis portrays the fashion dynamo

I had the pleasure of watching Coco Avant Chanel (known as Coco Before Chanel here in the States) and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky back-to-back the other night. If you’re going to do an evening with Coco biopics, this is the order to do them in. Subject-wise, the stories overlapped for just three minutes. C Avant C ended after the death of Coco’s lifelong love Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel in an automobile accident in 1919. CC&IS picks up right after that – Capel is only in the film briefly, then the narrative jumps forward seven years to the aftermath of his death, where Chanel was described to be the only woman who could make grief look chic.

Not only do the films each examine different eras in the fashion titan’s life, but, through the narrative, two decidedly very different women emerge.

In Coco Avant Chanel, Audrey Tautou plays the young, feisty gamine Gabrielle Chanel, nicknamed ‘Coco’ by her lover after the song she sings with her sister in their cabaret act. Tautou’s Coco is a hardworking, strategic young woman who didn’t know quite what she wanted – except to move beyond the memories of her father’s abandonment of her at an orphanage during her early years and her job as a seamstress. She engages in an affair with a baron, Etienne Balsan, whose high-profile friends gives her an entrée into French society as well as a posh pad to stay at. Balsan never comes off in the film as having the deep desire for Coco that Boy Capel does, but it is obvious that he had deep affection for her.

While staying at Balsan’s mansion, Chanel continues her hobby of making hats, gifting them to various girl friends and mistresses who stop by the Balsan home. It is Boy Capel who encourages Coco to take her talent as a hat-maker beyond just a hobby – he believes that she could be a real force in the fashion world. His encouragement allowed Coco to pursue a career, and his leisurely style of dress – relaxed suits and jersey shirts – were greatly influential upon Chanel’s early masculine womenswear designs. As Coco the designer finds great success in Paris, tragedy strikes when Capel dies unexpectedly. The last images of Coco in the film are of a heartbroken woman, left without her love but with the thriving business that he inspired her to create.

In Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, Coco Chanel has already found success in the fashion world. When she invites Stravinsky and his family to stay with her at her country home, she is independently wealthy. She is not the romantic young girl with designs on becoming an actress like in Tautou’s depiction; the woman that Anna Mouglalis portrays is icy, beautiful, and self-assured almost to the point of callousness. When she embarks on an affair with Stravinsky, she denies herself the passion that previous film’s dynamic between Capel and Chanel (or even she and Balsan, for that matter). She wants what she wants – and, in that particular case, she wanted to be with the man who created such tremendous music that she admired. Never mind that Stravinsky’s wife, who is dying of consumption, and children are in the next room. The affair serves a greater creative purpose, the film seems to say – borne out of their illicit relationship is the creation of Chanel No. 5 and Stravinsky’s experimentation with freer form and Neoclassicism.

If Coco at the end of C Avant C had become hardened because of Capel’s death, the austerity that she possesses in CC&IS is unwavering. It is almost as though she is playing a game – she is an actress within her own world and she can never be off her cue. The poise that she maintains in this film is almost frightening. She seems unreal, like an unfinished character in a Fitzgerald novel; a femme fatale who was only given a short treatment. I finished the movie feeling (and understanding) less about the fashion great than when I started.

But maybe that’s the appeal - and the purpose. The Chanel brand has created a permanent air of mystery around itself – a certain French sophistication where only those in the know truly know. To deconstruct the woman at the helm of the brand would be to turn the Chanel world into something comprehendible to anyone who was willing to dedicate two hours of their life to a movie. Honestly, I can’t imagine anything worse than if a young university student like I felt like I could understand and relate to Coco Chanel. No, Coco was in a league all her own. 

you've got me wrapped around your little finger, if this is love, it's everything i hoped it would be

I was long ago seduced by the premise of An Education - the glamorous post-Beatnick, pre-Beatle world of early 1960s England where the rebellion of the decade's later years were just stirrings of restlessness. I finally was able to watch the film the other night, and I must say that I was not disappointed in the slightest.  As I'm sure a lot of other girls have, I identified so much with Jenny that it was almost frightening. There was a scene when Jenny tells her paramour David that when she gets to university, "I'm going to read what I want, and listen to what I want, and I'm going to look at paintings and watch French films, and I'm going to talk to people who know lots about lots." And I swear that I said the exact same thing to my friends almost two years ago.
I'm still much of the same person I was in high school - I still have an intense thirst for knowledge and experience, and a never-ending desire to get more than what I have (I believe it was best described in Vicky Cristina Barcelona as "chronic dissatisfaction"). I read books about famous figures because it offers me a chance to live vicariously through their exploits. Yes, maybe I'm not the one hooking up with Mick Jagger or hanging out in opium dens, but curled up in my own imagination I am almost there.
Like Jenny, I have an obsession with the French. My father is French so I excuse my preoccupation with New Wave cinema, and albums by Greco and Peyroux on that. I listen to French music a lot of the time - most of my friends don't quite understand it, but they've grown to like the kitschy tunes. I'm not to the point where I smoke Gauloises (merely on principle) and speak interchangeably with French and English, but I was known to speak a tad like Holly Golightly and pull out phrases like "quelle surprise" and "tres fou" and whatnot.  I've never been seduced so entirely as Jenny was by an older gentleman like David, but I have been seduced many-a-time by the idea of these men. The ones who know their Brioni from their Zegna, who want to educate you as well as out you up on a pedestal. It's really quite intoxicating to feel so inexperienced, and be loved for it as opposed to condescended by it.
An Education is a film that I will gladly add to my DVD collection - after all, it would be nice to visit a soulmate such as Jenny from time to time.

hills of forest green where the mountains touch the sky, a dream come true, I’ll live there ‘til I die, I’m asking you, to say my last goodbye, the love we knew ain’t worth another try

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau

A young Jane Asher

Francoise Hardy

Jane Asher, in a very David Bailey-esque shot

Sharon Tate

Charlotte Martin in a shot from the 1970s

Charlotte Martin

Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean

Sharon Tate

Sophia Loren

A young Elizabeth Taylor

Debbie Harry

Another shot of Charlotte Martin

Sophie Daumier

A shot from the gorgeously talented photographer Courtney Brooke

Katharine Hepburn

Marianne Faithfull

Paul McCartney and baby Mary

Mick Jagger

John Lennon, in the mid-1970s

Sal Mineo and Jill Haworth in Exodus