Prêt-à-Porter

Sonia Rykiel with Helena Christensen, Christie Turlington and director Robert Altman

  

PRÊT-À-PORTER                  B  
aka: Ready to Wear

USA  (133 mi)  1994  ‘Scope  d:  Robert Altman              Official site

You Irish bastard! You wouldn’t know what to do with your fucking country if we gave it back to you!        —Nina Scant (Tracy Ullman) 

Heavily maligned and perhaps the messiest and most sprawling film of Altman’s career, actually expanding upon his experimentation in A Wedding (1978) when he doubled the number of main characters used in Nashville (1975), from 24 to 48, while here there is an international cast of over 60, exceeded perhaps only in Gosford Park (2001) where there are over twenty five separate plots, creating a wildly satiric French farce, inept murder mystery, and operatic melodrama featuring the players behind the scenes of the haute couture French fashion industry in Paris, where backstabbing, spying, double-crossing, blackmail, sleeping with the enemy, and outright theft are among the events seen constantly spinning out of control.  Previously Altman satirized the military in MASH (1970), the music industry in Nashville (1975), political hypocrisy in both H.E.A.L.T.H. (1980) and TANNER ’88 (1988), the movie industry in The Player (1992), so here Altman uses the snobbish importance of the fashion industry as a cynical and somewhat absurd stand-in for the world of art and entertainment, including his own role as a filmmaker.  In 1992, Altman actually directed a new William Bolcom opera McTeague at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, based on the original 1899 Frank Norris novel by the same name, the source material behind Eric von Stroheim’s silent classic GREED (1923), initially intended to run 8 to 9 hours, but reduced to only two hours by the studio, a plight Altman himself is familiar with as he’s worked along the fringe of the Hollywood industry. Bolcom specifically requested Altman, as he’d seen him direct a production of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress” in the early 80’s at the University of Michigan where Bolcom teaches.  An operatic thread runs throughout this film, especially the way the highly decorative and experimentally alluring runway shows are presented, but as an expression of the artistic temperament behind the scenes, this is a rather exaggerated and grotesque portrait of the industry, though given the Altmanesque lambasting, thoroughly entertaining throughout.

What story there is, and there’s really not much of one, seems merely an excuse to assemble this international cast of characters, which is an interesting blend of fiction and reality, with literally dozens of cameo appearances of people playing themselves, where this feels like a large canvas with an infinite amount of interconnecting possibilities, continually moving characters on and off the screen, like a ringmaster of a circus who has to interact with the audience while he continuously gets various acts in and out of the Big Top.  Fashion is so much about a mixture of glamour and seduction, where the first half of the film accentuates how it’s little more than a playground for men’s fantasies, where Olivier de la Fontaine (Jean-Pierre Cassel) runs one of the most influential fashion houses until his unexpected death reveals he was despised within the industry, especially by his wife Isabella (Sophia Loren), though he was rumored to be having an affair with his sophisticated designer Simone (Anouk Aimée), while her arrogant and overly ambitious son Jack (Rupert Everett) feels it’s his place to step in and take over the business.  Isabella, however, wearing ever wider-brimmed hats, starts sitting in her deceased husband’s place on the runway, suddenly showing herself in public instead of the recluse she’s been for years.  There’s an amusing side story of Marcello Mastroianni sneaking around corners and assuming various disguises in search of Isabella, as the two have unfinished business from a notorious past, and while amusing, their scenes together never really gel.  As Jack is married to a gorgeous black supermodel, Dane (Georgianna Robertson), but seems to be sleeping with her sister Kiki (Tara Leon), male power is demonstrated by good looks and bedroom prowess.  While this power vacuum is being filled, there’s an interesting demand for the coolest and trendiest fashion photographer Milo (Stephen Rea), who wears dark glasses all the time and gives an understated, nearly numbing performance, allowing the three female fashion editors (Tracey Ullman, Sally Kellerman, and Linda Hunt) from Elle, Vogue, and Harper’s magazines (the three witches in Macbeth) to fight over his services, each of whom vies for an exclusive contract, so he ends up blackmailing all three.

By the second half of the movie, the women regain control, even by nefarious means, where the thread that holds everything together is the ditzy performance of Kim Basinger as Southern belle Kitty Potter, an utterly superficial American TV reporter from FAD-TV that continually pulls various designers, journalists, or other insiders in front of the cameras for fluff questions, where her charming and multilingual assistant Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni) barely utters a word, but always seems to find various subjects for the cameras.  Potter is an incessant force that may drive viewers crazy, as she certainly exemplifies the vacuousness of the industry.  The runway numbers are each exquisitely designed and presented, exuding a strength and confidence in the female body, where this is the only place the sex really sizzles, literally empowering the performers, which includes a healthy number of black female models.  When Jack undermines his own mother, secretly selling the business right from out underneath her to a millionaire Texas bootmaker (Lyle Lovett), as the fashion designer, Simone has her own thoroughly imaginative recourse, sending the models down the runway without a stitch of clothing, which is considered so avant garde, “so old, it’s true, so true, it’s new, the oldest new look, the newest old look:  the bare look,” that Kitty Potter no longer understands what fashion means anymore, handing the microphone over to Sophie who makes a brilliant on-the-fly assessment.  Along with The Player, this is another look at a culture obsessed with celebrity and narcissism, with dozens of other side stories and appearances, including Anouk Aimée and her classy assistant Pilar, Rossy de Palma from Almodóvar films, remain the class acts in the film, where Aimée makes a radiant and lifelike appearance while playing the most subversive role, while Lauren Bacall also makes a touted appearance as a colorblind American fashion designer.  German singer Ute Lemper plays an 8 and a half month pregnant supermodel that eventually turns eyes on the runway, where a running gag throughout the movie is guessing who got her pregnant.  While the film concludes with an affirmation of women’s choice, there is something especially liberating about having control over your own body, where it’s no accident that the older and more mature women have a huge impact in this film, countering the fashion industry’s love of youth, suggesting older women retain great beauty and composure, and certainly have more personality, even if the industry itself is too blind to recognize or appreciate it.  There are too many parallel similarities for Altman not to be talking about his own industry.

Dance with a Stranger

Ruth Ellis, barmaid, the last woman hanged in England, 1955

David Blakely, race car driver

 DANCE WITH A STRANGER              A-                

Great Britain  (102 mi)  1985  d:  Mike Newell

If you marry her, she’ll drive you down to her level as she’s incapable of rising to yours.  —Carole Findlater (Jane Bertish)

I keep hoping that you’ll change, but you never do.  —Ruth Ellis (Miranda Richardson)   

A blisteringly intense examination of class differences, where on July 13, 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be executed in England, hanged for what can only be considered a crime of passion, as she readily admitted her guilt, so this was never a case of guilt or innocence, where her public crucifixion in the press was largely due to the prevailing attitudes of the times which condemned and disapproved of her lower class circumstances.  Apparently, they couldn’t hang her fast enough, as the trial started June 20, 1955, and she was hanged July 13^th, a mere three weeks later.  Her real crime, according to the press and much of British society, was attempting to enter a higher class level of society for which she was considered unsuitable and deemed unfit.  Her controversial execution led to a tidal wave of public outrage which eventually led to the abolition of capital punishment.  Director Mike Newell was noted as a television director, where this stylishly powerful earlier period piece remains his best effort.  It marked the debut of British actress Miranda Richardson in the role of Ruth, a powerful presence as a Jean Harlow-style platinum blond who simply walks away with the picture, scintillating throughout, perhaps reminiscent of Fassbinder’s spellbinding portrayal of women in THE STATIONMASTER’S WIFE (BOLWEISER) (1977), THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1979), or LOLA (1981), each using a different lead actress, or the earlier Bette Davis rendition of the film OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934), a scathingly bleak and unpleasant slide into the lower depths of society.  The tough script by Shelagh Delaney, who won an Academy Award for A TASTE OF HONEY (1961), is a surprisingly gritty and complex psychological examination of her circumstances, feeling authentic throughout, without a false note, where Richardson’s uncompromising portrayal is a revelation, seemingly driven by primal forces, where her shrill tone of near manic hysteria is balanced by her beauty and sirenesque sensuality, definitely a man pleaser, where once she’s got her hands on you, she doesn’t easily let go.  The film explores the corrosive power of sexual attraction as possession, where you’d have to go to Ôshima’s IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (1976) to find a couple that goes to greater extremes.  Ruth Ellis is a Soho nightclub barmaid in London, where she’s part manager and lives with her 11-year old son Andy (Matthew Carroll) upstairs on relatively meager earnings.  She’s used to making the rounds, dancing with customers, and encouraging men to order plenty of overpriced drinks, where her familiarity with the opposite sex belies her cynical sense of cunning and manipulation, where men are objects to be used, not enjoyed.  

The club is frequented by London’s financially elite when they’re out slumming in Soho, looking for available girls, which is how Ruth meets David Blakely (Rupert Everett), a superficially shallow yet ridiculously handsome man who also happens to be an upper class playboy, a moody, self-absorbed alcoholic who envisions himself racing at LeMans, brought there by another race car aficionado, Desmond (Ian Holm).  While David’s drinking doesn’t exactly enhance his racing skills, his roving eye for the ladies is perhaps his real skill, as he already has a girlfriend (later his fiancé) that is more along the lines of the kind of girl you bring home to mother.  However, within moments of seeing each other, David instantly hits on Ruth, who is willing to overlook all the immediately recognizable, disreputable attributes, as despite his class arrogance and obvious drunkenness, the guy is easy on the eyes, thinking perhaps he can be her wild card out of poverty and lead her to a better life.  The two begin a scandalously torrid affair, where all his friends constantly remind him of his sense of privilege, where this girl simply doesn’t fit, making her the butt of all their jokes, which is why Ruth despises them all, and hates David when he doesn’t stick up for her.  But that’s not going to happen, as David is simply incapable of thinking about anyone other than himself, arriving at her door at all hours of the day or night expecting immediate attention, completely disregarding her son, or anything else for that matter.  Fast cars, booze, and women is all he cares about, but he’s hooked on Ruth, as she routinely drops everything to be with him, where their love/hate relationship, often exaggerated in movies, couldn’t be more believable, often parading other women in front of  her, constantly whining about the wretched state of their miserable lives, but going to bed together apparently solves everything.  During several of the arguments, where physical abuse gets involved, Desmond steps in, as he’s madly in love with her as well, but uses his deep pockets as a potent weapon, offering her whatever she needs, which is really manipulative code for that’s what he’d like her to provide him.  Nonetheless, as Ruth consistently leaves Andy alone, a heartbreakingly sad aspect of the picture, Desmond becomes a surrogate father figure, as there’s literally no one else filling the void.  

Richardson is simply astonishing in a gut-wrenching performance, while Everett plays an equally damaged soul. The movie becomes an ongoing display of character flaws, as both Ruth and David are viciously selfish individuals, where there’s little sympathy for either one, where David is used to just taking and getting whatever he wants, irrespective of the consequences, while Desmond is more of a socially repressed weakling, who never acts on impulse, but is all about manner and routine, believing what Ruth needs is some stability and consistency in her life, trying to provide a safe haven for Ruth and Andy, hoping to possess her, but Ruth quickly betrays him, perhaps best expressed in an exquisitely beautiful shot in the London fog, where horses are being led down the street by lamps lit by fire, where the scene is reminiscent of Jack the Ripper, as the two inseparable lovers retreat to a dark alleyway and have sex like dogs on the street, not even bothering with any hint of respectability.  These acts of desperation only grow worse, where out of considerable social pressure David spends time with a fiancé from his own social class and stops seeing Ruth, which literally drives her mad with jealousy.  She makes inappropriate appearances in his social circles with disastrous results, where in their eyes she is making a fool of herself, but in her eyes she is fighting to hold onto what’s hers.  Beautifully shot by Peter Hannan, where his overly saturated colors of the nearby countryside are a sumptuous relief from the claustrophobic and shadowy world in London, a near colorless existence filled with an air of melancholic bleakness, where Ruth can be seen singing the title song at the club without a hint of expression on her face, where she’s a lifeless imitation of the lively and confident woman that opened the film Dance with a Stranger - Miranda Richardson - YouTube (1:27).  Oblique angles often frame the shot, while mirrors are prominently featured, perhaps reflecting the interchanging role between them in the escalating psychological obsession, a pitiful degradation of the human spirit, where the performances of both appear tortuously tragic, often expressed by the harrowing saxophone lead from the moody period score of Richard Hartley, where Ruth is so damaged that the only kind of man she can respect is the kind that continually abuses her.  In a world of dangerous impulses, it’s the psychological imbalances that are continually left unattended, resulting in one of the most hauntingly cruel depictions of human tragedy.