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One of the year's surprise hits in limited release, Matt Tyrnauer's documentary hails the end of an era: the 45-year reign of Valentino Garavani atop the House of Valentino. Perhaps best known to non-fashionistas for designing a wardrobe for the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy, the 75-year-old couturier hews to the elegant interplay of line and motion, expressing his distaste for dresses that show a woman's ankles when she walks. Having weathered the industry's shifting focus from singular design to brand-name licensing, Valentino now faces the prospect of corporate supervision, and the bottom line simply isn't in his sketchbook. Tyrnauer, a Vanity Fair correspondent, follows the legendary designer through preparations for his spectacular 2007 celebration gala, for which nothing less than gowned models suspended in mid-air before the Coliseum will do. Comparisons to the elegiac ballroom setpiece that concludes Visconti's The Leopard are not inapt. For all the movie's celebrity cameos, its most elusive, compelling figures remain the master and his longtime lover, partner and business strategist, Giancarlo Giametti, whose clear-eyed devotion surpasses even the director’s. Asked by an interviewer to supply one word to describe living his life in another man's shadow, Giametti replies with a wry smile, "Happiness."
Mondays-Sundays. Starts: June 5. Continues through June 11, 2009
Mondays-Sundays. Starts: June 5. Continues through June 11, 2009
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