Still from "The Conformist"

I'm shaking with excitement at the thought that William Klein's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant "Qui êtes vous Polly Magoo ?" is finally availble on DVD. Well almost. The film is probably the fashion photographer's most known film excursion starring a real 60's gem of a model, Dorothy McGowan as a charming American girl stranded in the wilderness of the Paris fashion scene. Films about the fashion world and about models often times get it completely wrong, but Klein's film in its satirical spirit gets it so absolutely right you would swear it is a documentary. "Qui êtes vous Polly Magoo ?" is part of the Eclipse Series (9 )- The Delirious Fictions of William Klein - Eclipse from Criterion (Criterion Collection) and can be pre-ordered right now at amazon.com. In the meantime here's a little taste of the iconic film via youtube.

Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, at a theater near you

TI usually breaks into the reference vault when picking flicks but the promise of Gus Van Sant's latest, "Paranoid Park", actually dragged me out to an actual theater for the screening. As critics have been underscoring, "Paranoid Park" makes for a beautiful bookend to Van Sant's first outing , "Mala Noche". Based on the "young adult" novel by Blake Nelson, the film centers on the emotional torment the lead character Alex suffers when he accidentally causes the death of a security guard. The impressionistic blur created by the mix of 35mm, Super-16 and videotape makes this film feel very much like an elegy to the state of suspension represented by adolescence. Gabe Nevis in the lead, btw shimmers with serious star quality. Found via Myspace in fact!

Still from Jean Luc Godard's Breathless

When I was in film school this kid in our film-group used to sketch "Godard Is God" in his notebook.

The Films Of Derek Jarman: Rubell Family Collection

Talk about a man at the right place at the right time. Derek Jarman (1942-1994) flew fast and furious in his career lensing 11 feature films and over 36 shorts. When punk exploded, changing the English cultural scene forever, Jarman was there with "Jubilee". When the New Queer Cinema bandwagon started to roll, he was right there with "Caravaggio". He continued to take his idiosyncratic point-of-view on historical subjects in the 90's wih "Edward II" "Wittgenstein". Nobody ever spoke more eloquently about the films of Derek Jarman than his close friend and frequent lead actress than Tilda Swinton. She said ina 2002 talk at the Edinburgh Film Festival:

"This is what I miss, there being no more Derek Jarman films: the mess, the vulgarity, the cant, the poetry, the edge, the pictures, Simon Fisher Turner’s music, the real faces, the intellectualism, the science, the bad temperedness, the good temperedness, the cheek, the standards, the anarchy, the gauchness, the romanticism, the classicism, the optimism, the activism, the challenge, the longeurs, the glee, the playfulness, the bumptiousness, the resistance, the wit, the fight, the colours, the grace, the passion, the goodness, the beauty...."

The Rubell Family Collection is staging the for films mentioned above over the next four Saturdays, starting Jan 18th. If in Miami please make the pilgrimage.

Still from Frederick Wiseman's Model: Note the very 80's make-up inspiration

Well, truth be told, I should say INTENDED Current Viewing. The man called "America's most important documentary filmaker", Frederick Wiseman, happened to have turned his lens on the modeling industry in the 80's and the film is now available on DVD. As soon as I get back to my apartment on Friday, I'm placing my order. I suspect it will be more about commercial modeling than ultra-high fashion, but I bet there will be editorial inspirations aplenty in all that archival footage! Think Inez and Vinoodh.

Still from Frederick Wiseman's Model: Doesn't this feel very Irina Lazraneau as shot by Inez and Vinoodh?

Christiane F: Directed by Ulrich Edel

Chloe Sevigny once commented that every single outfit the lead actress wore in in this cult German classic was perfection. Which doesn't mean Christiane F's looks were in anyway flamboyant or self-consciously quirky. What is perfect about this chronicle of a nice German girl's descent into the wilds of urban nightclubs, heroin addiction and prostitution is the exquisite lack of self-consciousness on the part of the young lead actress, Natja Brunkhorst. What she wears is super-normal, almost to the point of banal . But Christiane is too tall...with her too long arms and too long legs and so the poportions of what she wears are always off. Too small jackets, dangling vests...sweaters that never cover her wrists. There is a scene where she is running away (all knock knees of course) from the police in a German shopping mall with her new found posse of bad boys and girls. It's just her in a tiny satin baseball jacket, jeans and heels but as her lanky body bolts through the flourescent wasteland of that shopping mall she looks so much like the perfect Marc/Miu-Miu/Balenciaga/Calvin model that you realize where the appeal of the awkward gamine stems from for so many designers. And of course there is the spectre of Bowie hovering over the film making him seem iconic before he was actually an icon. This film is a must buy for every art school kid/fashion fanatic/model scout/emerging photographer. Wonder what ever became of Natja though?