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Hosted by TheWrap editor-in-chief and CEO Sharon Waxman and the first-of-its-kind coffee table book’s executive editor, Stefano Tonchi, the invite-only rooftop fête attracted luminaries from across Los Angeles in a bustling, shoulder-to-shoulder atmosphere.

The event, which was coproduced with Frieze Los Angeles in the lead-up to the annual art fair’s opening night on Thursday, beautifully toasted contributing “TheWrapBook” artists including Richard Phillips, Guy Stanley Philoche, Catherine Opie, Salomon Huerta, Fawn Rogers, Aryo Toh Djojo, Theodore Boyer, Marilyn Minter, Konstantin Kakanias, Laurie Simmons, Marco Walker, Jeffrey Gibson, Francois Berthoud, Stefan Ruiz and Kendall Bessent.

Guided by the vision of Tonchi and Waxman, “TheWrapBook” chronicles a year in cinema through artful collaborations between fine artists and Hollywood’s leading talent. 

Timed for release ahead of the Academy Awards on March 10 and Frieze L.A. Feb. 29–March 3, “TheWrapBook” features an exciting cross-section of artists, filmmakers and writers, including filmmaker Martin Scorsese, works by Phillips and Opie and essays by feminist author Salamishah Tillet and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas.

Catch all of the fun from the launch event in TheWrap’s exclusive photo gallery right here.

Kris Bowers & Sharon Waxman, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Michaela Dosamantes, Andrew Wren & Jeff Vespa, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jamie Clayton, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Christopher Williams & Shannon Cavanagh, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Andrew Matarazzo, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jeff Vespa & Edward Menicheschi, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Michaela Dosamantes & Sharon Waxman, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jonathan Frydman & Maïa Morgensztern, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Claire Uhar & Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Joe Zee, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Stefano Tonchi, Andrea Franchini & Marco Walker, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Alex Prager & Simon Dargan, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Elizabeth Fiore & Christina Krause, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Stacey Weitz, Andrew Weitz & Alex Von Bargen, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Cameron Porsandeh, Nabilah Jiwani & Mitchell Waxman, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Andrew Wren, Michaela Dosamantes, Jeff Vespa, Michael Slenske & Theodore Boyer, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Daniella Villegas, Michaela Dosamantes, Stefano Tonchi & Sami Hayek, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Gordon Veneklasen, Adrien Pia, Cynthia Wornham, Ann Philbin, Kevin Croxford, Pedro Corvo, & Santiago Pazos, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Humberto Petit, Mr. Sarah, Gregory Alexander & Andrea Franchini, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Steve Pond, Kris Bowers & Briana Nicole Henry, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Claude Memmi, Michael Kosasky, Aaron Jarboe, Shannon Barrero-Watkins, Carmen Rivera, Laura Ehrhardt & Thadd Williams, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Stefano Tonchi, Sharon Waxman, Victoria Brynner & Catherine Opie, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Oganes Akopyan, Michael Kosasky & Claude Memmi, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Bobby Hoppey, Kenneth Ye, Claire Uhar, Yvonne Randolph & Nicole Landau, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Guest, Daniela Villegas, Sami Hayek & Sayuri Tanabe, TheWrapbook Launch Party 2024

Shinique Smith, Jeff Vespa, Frances Pennington & Madeleine Hulstrom, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Arthur Greenwood, Ana Morales, Lorena Cisneros & Salomón Huerta, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Salomón Huerta, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Kristen Schadt, Shannon Cavanagh & Alex Von Bargen, TheWrapbook Launch Party 2024

Alessandra Codinha & Jason Janego, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

David Maupin & Shinique Smith, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jenn Perlman, Kenny Y & Bobby Hoppey, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Victoria Brynner & Gino Sullivan, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Sharon Waxman & Kareem Daniel, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Catherine Opie, David Maupin, Alex Prager & Simon Dargan, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Lynne Segall & Alex Von Bargen, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Fawn Rogers & guests, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Sharon Waxman, Alex Von Bargen, Debra Downing & Molly Downing, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Kenny Y & Yvonne Randolph, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Kedric Francis, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Arthur Greenwood, Ana Morales & Lorena Cisneros, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

The post ‘TheWrapBook’ Launch Party: Art, Fashion and Film Worlds Collide at Frieze LA | Exclusive Photos appeared first on TheWrap.

We invited some of the art world’s most talented to create portraits of some of Hollywood’s most fabulous. Delving deep beyond the oft-photographed visages, these artists bring to their subjects a unique depth of perception. Their art goes places a headshot could only dream of

MARGOT (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: MARGOT ROBBIE

RYAN (2024) 

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: RYAN GOSLING

Richard Phillips 

Artist Richard Phillips debuted his first celebrity portraits at the apotheosis of the paparazzi era. And there were no doubt some sent to capture the opening of his 2010 exhibition at White Cube gallery in London. The show’s title, “Most Wanted,” simultaneously distilled the sentiment of that moment while prophesying its swift downfall with the dominance of the camera phone. A frozen slice of the 2000s celebrity fanaticism, the exhibition marked an important body of work for an artist who’d achieved his pop cultural consciousness via sallies into the entertainment arena: a cameo on Gossip Girl, a guest spot on Jeffrey Deitch’s early reality show, Artstar. 

It was a continuation of the question that first propelled Phillips to fame: Where is the place for careful, labor-intensive painting in a culture with an insatiable hunger for and an ever-steady supply of images? Phillips had started off this inquiry by painting images of the pornography of his youth–which was now infinitely available via the internet. If Andy Warhol was interested in disconnecting the person and the emotion from the image, then Phillips’ goal was to restore those connections. He wanted to create paintings that held all the desire and obsession that the advertisement wants to mask. He wanted to bring the human back into focus and showcase the absurd pressure put on top of these individuals to be idols. 

For TheWrapBook, Phillips returned to this iconic series to catalog the actors behind this year’s most impressive performances. Executed more than a decade after the originals, they read differently. In our self-taped age of “candid” photography, the red carpet imagery feels formal, perhaps even uncomfortably (a register Phillips like to occupy). Rather than darkly humored, they feel nostalgic, like us, and that is the most startling thing of all. —Kat Herriman

CILLIAN (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: CILLIAN MURPHY

EMILY (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL

ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: EMILY BLUNT

BRADLEY (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL

ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: BRADLEY COOPER

CAREY (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL

ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: CAREY MULLIGAN

BARRY (SALTBURN)

(2024) CASEIN AND FLASHE ON DYED CANVAS

SUBJECT: BARRY KEOGHAN

Theodore Boyer

When Theodore Boyer moved to Los Angeles from New York a decade ago, his painting practice was steeped in abstraction that invoked everything from ancient archaeological sites and JPL satellite trajectories to GPS mapping systems. But after the pandemic forced everyone indoors, the Seal Beach-born artist returned to his first love: figurative painting, which he’s shown everywhere from Istanbul’s Sevil Dolmaci Gallery to Praz-Delavallade in Los Angeles. “My paintings are allegorical and deal with the unconscious mind, they’re about where your psyche attaches to the tangible, and that’s how I approached these films,” says Boyer, who painted Rosamund Pike and Barry Keoghan from Saltburn. “When painting these actors I was sort of putting myself in their shoes, entering the psyche of the characters and recontextualizing them within my psychedelic milieu.”—Michael Slenske

ROSAMUND & BARRY (SALTBURN)

(2024) CASEIN AND FLASHE ON DYED CANVAS

SUBJECT: ROSAMUND PIKE, BARRY KEOGHAN

GIVE US OUR FLOWERS (2024)

MIXED MEDIUM WORKS ON PAPER

SUBJECT: COLMAN DOMINGO

Guy Stanley Philoche

Haitian-born modern artist Guy Stanley Philoche immigrated to Connecticut when he was 3 years old. As the middle child of three boys and coming from a family of sports enthusiasts whose passion he didn’t share, Philoche turned to art as his calling. While remaining close to his Haitian roots, he now lives in New York City. For the past 15 years, Philoche has been attracting international attention with his work and his impressive roster of solo shows. As an artist, Guy’s palette is strong and sophisticated. His layering technique has created a body of work so richly textured that one can hardly hold back from reaching out and touching them. Here, Guy turned his eye to Colman Domingo in Rustin. “My work exists because these people exist in me,” he says. “As an artist, it is important to listen to their stories. The intention is to celebrate and give people recognition, love and respect every day. Too often we wait to honor people when they are gone. We should be saluting and toasting the people in our lives today and give them their flowers on this side, while we can. The paintings are appreciation and giving flowers now to incredible people.” —Claire Uhar

UNTITLED (2024)

OIL AND BLOOD ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: LEONARDO DICAPRIO, LILY GLADSTONE

Fawn Rogers

Raised in the wilds of Medford, Oregon, Fawn Rogers has utilized photography, painting, film and sculpture to explore everything from her Cherokee heritage to the dichotomous nature of human life in the heart of the Anthropocene. The L.A.- based multimedia artist’s work has been shown internationally at Galerie Marguo in Paris, Nicodim Gallery and Lauren Powell Projects in Los Angeles and Hong Kong’s K11 Musea. “My ancestors on both sides of my family—my mother is Cherokee, my father is Jewish—have been victims of genocide,” says Rogers. “So I took this opportunity to paint the leads in Killers of the Flower Moon—in blood and oil—because the story is about genocide, greed, power and blood for oil. Native Americans are by far the most underrepresented people, and this speaks to the atrocities still happening in America and all over the world today.” —Michael Slenske

NORA AND HAE (2024)

ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: TEO YOO

NORA AND HAE (2024)

ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: GRETA LEE

Aryo Toh Djojo

“My work is steeped in ufology and reincarnation—my next show touches on the idea of a past life or where we came from within the spiritual realm— so it was serendipitous that I was asked to paint Greta Lee and Teo Yoo,” says Aryo Toh Djojo of his portraits capturing the Past Lives stars. The Indonesian-American artist’s dreamy airbrushed paintings investigate Southern California architecture, car culture, Hollywood celebrity, vacant David Lynchian landscapes and extraterrestrial encounters and have been the subject of several solo shows in recent years at Stems Gallery in Paris, Sow & Tailor in Los Angeles and Perrotin Tokyo. He’s also exhibiting new work in L.A. as part of Wilding Cran Gallery’s 10th anniversary show. As with all of his other paintings, you’ll find a UFO floating in the background of these portraits. “Maybe this is the characters watching themselves,” adds Toh Djojo. “From a past life.” —Michael Slenske

UNTITLED (2024)

OIL ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: MARK RUFFALO

Salomon Huerta

Born in Tijuana, Salomon Huerta grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East L.A. before earning his MFA at UCLA. His paintings—from portraits of models and rock stars and the backs of anonymous heads made with palettes invoking fashion magazines to psychological still lifes depicting his father’s revolver next to afternoon snacks brought to him as a child—have been exhibited at the Smithsonian and the Whitney Biennial and reside in the permanent collections of LACMA and MOCA. For the inaugural issue of TheWrapBook, the artist painted Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo from Poor Things and “looked to Frida Kahlo’s surrealist paintings as a guide,” says Huerta, who is currently exhibiting a suite of his fantasy poolscapes at Harper’s Chelsea in Manhattan. “The painting of Mark was more of a collaboration with the book, but for Emma, I used Frida’s self-portrait with her monkeys.” —Michael Slenske

UNTITLED (2024)

OIL ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: EMMA STONE

The post Artists by Artists appeared first on TheWrap.

_{Natalie Wears White Pear Diamond (28.71 Carats) Earrings with White Baguette Diamonds Set in White Gold by Graff and Top by Fendi. Julianne Wears White Pear, Marquise and Round Diamond (42.34 Carats) Flower Earrings Set in White Gold by Graff, Julianne Wears Dress by Cdlm.}

In May December, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman embody psychologically complex and manipulative characters entwined in a cerebral game of cat-and-mouse. To pull it off, they found in each other simple honesty and trust

By Missy Schwartz

Photography by Marilyn Minter

There was no time for rehearsal. The 23-day shooting schedule barely allowed for the actors to get to know one another, much less exchange copious notes about their process. But when Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman arrived on the Savannah, Georgia, set of May December in 2022, they slid easily into their characters. They are, of course, consummate pros with nearly 60 years combined experience and a Best Actress Academy Award each. And they had director Todd Haynes’ assured distillation of how he saw this movie (written by Samy Burch) taking shape. 

As reference points for May December—Haynes’ fifth film with Moore and first with Portman—he shared a list of more than 20 movies that included Ingmar Bergman (Winter Light, Persona, Autumn Sonata), Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard), Mike Nichols (The Graduate), John Schlesinger (Sunday Bloody Sunday) and Robert Altman (Three Women). “We were watching all the same things, so that really put us in the same place,” said Portman, who is also one of May December’s producers. “Todd is such an extraordinary conductor. He communicated his inspiration and his vision so well.”

Portman stars as Elizabeth, a TV actress who has been cast in a movie to play Gracie (Moore), a Mary Kay Letourneau-inspired figure whose sexual relationship with a seventh-grader when she was 36 landed her in prison. To study this perplexing ex-con with an iron will and a closet full of frilly dresses, Elizabeth insinuates herself into the ostensible domestic bliss that Gracie has built with the now-adult Joe (Charles Melton) and their three teenage children. Her presence has a destabilizing effect: The two women lock into a subtle power play that forces all three main characters to look at who they really are—sometimes quite literally: A series of visually daring scenes plays with mirrors and doubling. Whether the characters accept what they see in those reflections is another matter. At its core, May December is a deft exploration of human beings’ willingness to lie to themselves.

On a late November afternoon in downtown Manhattan, Portman and Moore sat side by side in the airy studio of artist Marilyn Minter, who had just photographed them for TheWrapBook. Relaxed and upbeat (despite, in Moore’s case, a cold), they talked about their first, but probably not last, cinematic collaboration.

May December is the first time you’ve worked together, but you knew each other’s work, and Julianne, you and Todd have a long history. How was it, putting all these pieces together?

Portman: Well, I’ve admired Julie forever. I worship her work, and I’ve always dreamed of working with her. It was so exciting and scary to encounter someone you admire so much because there’s always a chance they can’t live up to the pedestal. But she was so extraordinary as an actress and so brilliant to watch. Luckily I got to in-character study what she was doing. And she is also so generous and kind. I felt like an interloper in this club that she and Todd have. When we all got together, I was like, Oh my God, am I going to be the odd one out? And they both immediately put their arms around me and Charles and all the rest of our cast. 

“It was very intimate. It’s a moment of real closeness and seduction, which is also a power move, right?”

Julianne Moore

Moore: But that’s what Natalie’s vibe was too. You don’t know what someone’s process is going to be like or what their affect or attitude is going to be on set, but she was really easy and open and present and supportive. She was so much a colleague. For a relationship in a film where the characters are so combative and vying for dominance, it was a very easy, completely nondominant relationship. I hate antagonism. It shuts me down. I’d rather leave.

Portman:  Save the drama for the screen.

Moore:  Yeah, exactly. 

The movie explores the idea of how we all perform to some degree every day. Natalie, you play an actress who isn’t quite at your skill level.

Portman:  (Laughs) Thank you!

She is a performer by trade, but she’s also acting throughout the film, showing different sides of herself depending on who she’s talking to. How did you approach those different types of performing?

Portman:  It was, first of all, so beautifully written by Samy Burch. Talking to Todd, one of the things that was most helpful was to make Elizabeth really down-to-earth when you meet her so that you trust her. It was tempting to come in in a stereotypically actressy way to a small town, but Todd pushed against that. And that was a key to it because even that’s performance, to be, like, “I’m just like one of you! I can hang at a barbecue!” (Laughs) So she’s almost a detective in this story to observe Gracie and Joe…and you go with her. And then that unravels.

Right. We think she’s our proxy, but that shifts. Julianne, your character is not an actress, but she certainly performs.  

Moore:  Talk about somebody who’s performing gender. I would say she swallowed gender culture whole—that kind of performative femininity. Her narrative is a rescue narrative. Her prince came along, but he was 13 years old, so that means she’s got to elevate that prince to being a man and remain the princess. So she’s a little girl with an apron on pretending to be a mom. She does feel that she is naive, she does believe in fairy tales. She does believe in romance. The projection of that narrative and the reality of (her) transgression, they’re so far apart. That’s where that emotional volatility comes from that Samy wrote so beautifully. In her private moments, she’s hysterical because it’s just too much. She’s built this whole story, and wait a minute. It’s not gonna hold anymore.

Where did the idea for Gracie’s lisp come from? Todd has commented on Mary Kay Letourneau having not a lisp but a “lazy tongue.” 

Moore:  Yeah, there was (archival) stuff that I looked at, but I was also thinking clinically about what I could do physically that Natalie would be able to imitate. We still have associations with baby-talk or lisping as being very childlike. So I called Todd and…we were both very unsure, frankly. But I liked it because it was an outward manifestation of her story. When someone says to you over and over again, “See me this way,” I think it’s interesting.

Speaking of Elizabeth’s imitation of Gracie and the theme of duality, several stunning scenes use mirrors. There is one in the clothing store, where you sit next to each other, chatting and sizing each other up as you look at your reflections. And Gracie is reflected twice. Was shooting that as complicated as it looked?  

“I felt like an interloper in this club that she and Todd have. When we all got together, I was like, Oh my God, am I going to be the odd one out?”

Natalie Portman

Portman: Just to piggyback off of what Julie was saying, that was a real gift to have these very identifiable traits that I could mimic because it was very scary going into that without rehearsals. It’s the acting I admire most that Julie does because it’s so fearless and, like, extreme choices. (Both laugh) Todd and I were living for the mirror scene in the dressing room when she says, (lisping) “Precisely.” It’s so amazing. And it’s so human—it’s real and felt. And then the mirror stuff was technically very complicated. You were looking at marks in the lens, so you have to absorb the artifice of what you’re doing, and then look at marks for yourself, each other, and Gracie’s daughter (Elizabeth Yu). But the beautiful thing was that it was so much about performance and identity and reflection and how it affects our identity. That reflection is performance and these two women mirror each other in ways that attract and repel.

Moore: It was technically really challenging because it all had to be one take. 

And then there is the scene in front of a bathroom mirror, where Gracie does Elizabeth’s makeup. Natalie, your character is much more vulnerable here, especially when Julianne smooths your hair. 

Portman: That scene was most surprising to me in the writing, that it revealed itself in ways when we said it that I never got reading it or preparing for it. I understood things in the silence when it was happening.

Moore:  It was very intimate. It’s a moment of real closeness and seduction, which is also a power move, right? 

Portman: It was so wild, too, because a great director, whose name I won’t say, once said to me, “All American drama is about the father-son relationship.”

Moore: Oh my god. (Groans)

Portman: And I asked, “What about the mother-daughter?” And that was one of the things that revealed itself in that scene. It was all about these women’s experiences with their mothers. Even for an actress, who’s used to having someone put makeup on her, there is a memory of a mother (in that intimacy). Both of them are sharing their mother’s stories.

Moore:  Like, who are you? Who did your mother tell you to be? You say your mother was a scientist and I say my mother was beautiful.

Portman: It was really affecting; it was so deceptive on the page. “What was your mother like?” “Beautiful.” It was the most tragic line. You could tell where these callous, manipulative women’s origins were and where their hearts were broken.

The tone of May December is masterful. Amid the tension and drama, there are moments of dark comedy, like your “hot dog” line, Julianne. (During the barbecue, the camera zooms in on Gracie and Marcelo Zarvos’ unnerving piano score kicks in just as she opens the fridge and says, “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs.”) It lands so perfectly. How hard was it walking that tonal razor’s edge while you were shooting?

Moore: Tone is one of the most important things. Whenever I start a job, I’m like, Oh, please, let’s all be in the same movie. It takes a great director to establish that and the kind of people that Todd draws around him, the sensibilities, I think everybody understood the inherent drama and that these are funny lines. “Hot dog” is just funny. I mean, if you say “hot dog,” it’s gonna get a laugh. And it’s the zoom and the music. It’s that deliberate sense of doom. Right away, the audience goes, Oh, wait. What? This feels off. Why do I feel uncomfortable? Why does it feel dangerous? I always love that feeling in movies. What is truly dangerous? Is a monster dangerous? Not really. But when it’s behavior that’s dangerous, I think that puts us on edge because I don’t trust that person. I don’t know if they’re telling the truth. They’ve crossed a boundary and I know it’s going to happen again. I think with all of them, they feel like truly dangerous people! (Laughs)

Throughout the movie, Elizabeth absorbs Gracie’s mannerisms. Near the end, Natalie, you deliver a monologue to the camera as Gracie, reciting one of her old love letters to Joe. Not to ask a head

exploder, but you’re an actress playing an actress who is imitating a woman, played in real life by another actress. That’s a lot of layers to navigate.

Moore: Tone is one of the most important things. Whenever I start a job, I’m like, Oh, please, let’s all be in the same movie. It takes a great director to establish that and the kind of people that Todd draws around him, the sensibilities, I think everybody understood the inherent drama and that these are funny lines. “Hot dog” is just funny. I mean, if you say “hot dog,” it’s gonna get a laugh. And it’s the zoom and the music. It’s that deliberate sense of doom. Right away, the audience goes, Oh, wait. What? This feels off. Why do I feel uncomfortable? Why does it feel dangerous? I always love that feeling in movies. What is truly dangerous? Is a monster dangerous? Not really. But when it’s behavior that’s dangerous, I think that puts us on edge because I don’t trust that person. I don’t know if they’re telling the truth. They’ve crossed a boundary and I know it’s going to happen again. I think with all of them, they feel like truly dangerous people! (Laughs)

Throughout the movie, Elizabeth absorbs Gracie’s mannerisms. Near the end, Natalie, you deliver a monologue to the camera as Gracie, reciting one of her old love letters to Joe. Not to ask a head exploder, but you’re an actress playing an actress who is imitating a woman, played in real life by another actress. That’s a lot of layers to navigate.

Portman: (Laughs) All of us are performing in so many ways. Women, like Julie was saying, have a particular feminized way of performance: how we present ourselves, how we want other people to see us physically, how we want other people to see us behaviorally, the emotions we are allowed to show or not. And of course, actresses are the (perfect) example of that because we’re performing on top of all the feminine performance. And in that scene, that’s something that we talked about, Todd and I. For someone who’s always performing, what if their most true is when they’re literally performing? What if the most honest they ever are and the most free they are is from the artifice? The mask can free you the same way that at a mask party, people would go wild. There’s freedom in the mask.

Credits

Photographer Marilyn Minter

Fashion Editor Celia Azoulay

Production Anabella Cassanova And Sage Price For Vacation Theory

Photography Assistants Bill Miller, Johan Olander, Genevieve Lowe, Marianna Paragallo, Dulce Lamarca

Fashion Assistant Amber Rose Smith

Natalie’s Makeup Lisa Storey

Natalie’s Hair Mara Roszak

Julianne’s Makeup Hung Vanngo

Julianne’s Hair Orlando Pita.

Marilyn Minter

The incomparable visual artist Marilyn Minter is known for provocative and visually arresting works that explore themes of sexuality, beauty and the female form. She has enjoyed solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. and internationally. Her work is in the collections of museums worldwide, including MOCA, MOMA, the Tate, the Guggenheim, the Whitney and more. We’re thrilled to have her original pieces featuring May December stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman on our pages.

The post Deception Perception appeared first on TheWrap.

Setting the Scenes

In 2023, you could go just about anywhere you ever wanted to at the movies: the rural American Midwest of the 1920s; a Lisbon-originating luxury sailing vessel making port calls in Marseilles and Alexandria; the hallowed nether regions of Carnegie Hall and through the Leonard Bernstein estate; and even a dreamy parallel universe in which a pink-outfitted, Mattel-branded icon can accomplish anything…until emotions get a little too real. It’s all thanks to talented production designers whose vision can make the imaginary real and the real, well, beyond imagination. Here’s a look at some of the most memorable cinematic tableaus of 2023 as interpreted by artist Konstantin Kakanias

Poor Things

Oscar-nominated production designers James Price and Shona Heath re-created an oceanliner on a soundstage in Budapest to convey the otherworldly feel of Yorgos Lanthimos’ globe-trotting tale of a re-animated young woman (Emma Stone) and her quest for independence.

Maestro

This drawing room provides the setting for Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre’s (Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan) emotional blowout as they navigate their marriage. And yes, the production team led by designer Kevin Thompson even threw in a Thanksgiving Day parade Snoopy for levity.

Barbie

Gliding into her dream car, Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) world is dictated by one visual dictum: Pink and lots of it. So much that Academy Award-nominated production designer Sarah Greenwood said that they cleaned out the inventory of a specific blend of flourescent pink paint.

Priscilla

Production designer Tamara Deverell brought Graceland back to life on a Toronto soundstage in only 30 days and on a very small budget, delving deep into the colors that defined Elvis Presley’s ethos: lots of creams, whites, blues and golds.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Veteran production designer Jack Fisk just earned his third career Oscar nomination for Martin Scorsese’s visually captivating Osage drama. His team turned to the rich, troubled history of the Osage Nation as well as to period photographs, county records and classic Westerns to re-create this harrowing time in 1920s Oklahoma. Here, owls serve as specters of death, a belief rooted in Osage tradition.

KONSTANTINE KAKANIAS

When we invited artist Konstantin Kakanias, we knew the results would be delightful, as you can see in “Scene Setters,” in which he reimagines the work of the production designers responsible for Poor Things, Priscilla, Maestro and more. The L.A. artist’s work has been exhibited worldwide and graced the pages of The New York Times and Vogue, and he has collaborated with Christian Dior, Cartier and Christian Louboutin among others.

The post Setting the Scenes appeared first on TheWrap.

Dressing The Part

Six celebrated costume designers weave their unique brand of enchantment into some of the year’s most fashion-forward films

Artwork by François Berthoud

By Ingrid Schmidt

Priscilla

What a banner year 2023 was for wardrobe at the box office. The simultaneous release of Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s fantasy adventure Barbie spawned a viral “Barbenheimer” as fans hit theaters wearing disparate looks inspired by tweedy physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and the iconic doll (Margot Robbie). Other sartorial standouts include Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Beaulieu Presley in Sofia Coppola’s biographical drama Priscilla, Emma Stone as woman-child hybrid Bella Baxter in Yorgos Lanthimos’ mad comedy Poor Things and the oil-rich Native American Osage women in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Robbie’s meticulously assembled Barbie looks contrast with Stone’s jumbled Victorian-influenced outfits in Poor Things, yet both dress codes underline independence and fuel fashion fantasies. “Barbies dress for the occasion and for themselves and their friends and because dressing up is creative and fun, not because they are trying to fulfill someone else’s idea of what they should look like,” says Oscar-winning British costume designer Jacqueline Durran, adding that a strict palette of colors in micro combinations was her secret to creating impact within Technicolor Barbie Land. Durran pulled archival Chanel pieces to supplement Robbie’s wardrobe, including skirt suits and jewelry from Karl Lagerfeld’s spring 1995 collection, and the French fashion house specially designed a ski suit for Ryan Gosling’s Ken.

Killers of the Flower Moon

While Alasdair Gray’s novel Poor Things was set in the 1880s, British costume designer Holly Waddington chose 1890s leg-of-mutton sleeves as Baxter’s signature style. “They were like massive balloons that were empowering, so they fit with the story that she takes a huge amount of space wearing these sleeves,” says Waddington. “Transposed with highly textured fabrics that evoke the feeling of living, breathing organisms, they push forward the idea of her being quite creature-like.” Discordant dressing captures Baxter’s childlike instincts “to never follow sartorial rules and disassemble because children seem to quite like being nude,” says Waddington, pointing to underpinnings (bustles, petticoats, chemisettes) worn outright as apparel. Surprisingly, she reveals that Mark Ruffalo’s Duncan Wedderburn—not Baxter—wears a corset, along with padding on his chest and rear, to mimic an “exaggerated, pompous posture with the puffed-out chest and slightly upended bottom inspired by satirical cartoons of men in 1890s newspapers.”

Baxter’s look evolves from innocence to assuredness, as does Spaeny’s midcentury wardrobe as she progresses from age 14 to 27 in Priscilla. Costume designer Stacey Battat utilizes crinolines to create “a fuller, more childlike silhouette” on Spaeny’s petite frame. The silhouette shifts to slim skirts, while flats advance to heels and dusty pastels morph into brights as the film progresses. Battat calls out the Immaculate Conception High School uniform in “an otherworldly color” of seafoam green, based on an original sent from Memphis, as a favorite design. In the mix are Anna Sui dresses, E.las sweaters by Colin McNair and a wedding dress designed by Chanel’s creative director Virginie Viard, inspired by a swatch of archival lace.

Statement hats are a pivotal piece for both J. Robert Oppenheimer and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. “Oppenheimer is an empowered leader at that moment in time in Los Alamos,” says Emmy-winning costume designer Ellen Mirojnick. “He walks out, puts on the hat, picks up the pipe. It was very purposeful. He knew that presentation was important. His hat had a pork pie crown and a wider circular, cowboy-type brim that we recreated out of a natural dyed felt from South America. Another signature was the leather belt with the sterling silver engraved turquoise buckle that he wore continually throughout his New Mexican time.”

Barbie

Despite the five-decade timespan of the film, Oppenheimer’s distinctive suiting silhouette never wavers. “Because of his physique, he lost weight easily, so everything looked a little voluminous on him, which created a style by happenstance,” says Mirojnick, noting that gray flannel was his go-to outside of Los Alamos, with a mix of texture-rich tweeds, worsteds and cavalry twills in New Mexico, all anchored by blue shirting.

Oscar-winning costume designer Janty Yates teamed with costume designer and military history expert David Crossman for Napoleon, set in the early 18th century. “Joaquin [Phoenix] is vegan, so nothing could be made in leather or wool,” says Yates. “His five styles of hats were made of tree bark fabric from Africa by our milliner in Rome. We used moleskin for the jackets, waistcoats and britches. The boots were vegan leather.” Crossman adds that Phoenix kept some of the hats that were “made to dimensions found in the Mus.e de l’Arm.e in Paris,” as well as his green Chasseur colonel’s uniform. Crossman crafted nearly 4,000 military uniforms for Prussians, Russians, Austrians, British, Cossacks, Egyptians and a 20-year span of French army uniforms using antique originals as models and produced in mass by Hero Collection in Poland. “An extraordinary amount of work went into copying Jacques-Louis David’s painting “The Coronation of Napoleon” as completely as we possibly could,” says Yates. “The trains were extremely long and heavy, all hand-embroidered in gold bullion with detail verbatim.”

Napoleon

For Killers of the Flower Moon, set in 1920s Oklahoma, costume designer Jacqueline West brought on Osage wardrobe consultant Julie O’Keefe and collaborated with Pendleton Woolen Mills to reproduce 500 blankets. “Pendleton had archives of the actual blankets and color palettes sold to the Osage in the ‘20s at trading posts in Pawhuska and Fairfax (Oklahoma),” says West. “They even recreated the original labels. Julie calls them “the mink coats of the Osage,” as they were very expensive in their day. She knew all the nuances you can’t find in research, of how the blanket is worn in different situations—whether you fold the fringe in or out, how you hold it, when to wear it as a shawl. That subtlety meant a lot to Lily (Gladstone, as Mollie Burkhart).”

In the wedding scene, the women wear elaborate Regency-style military coats and top hats (a tradition originating as gifts from President Thomas Jefferson’s generals to tribal council members in the 1800s, according to West) customized with silk ribbon appliqu., dyed feathers and traditional silver pins—reconstituted peace-treaty medals also worn at the neckline to symbolize marital status. West handcrafted twisted chokers out of Czechoslovakian glass beads. Native American artisan William “Kugee” Supernaw of Tulsa created the silver jewelry and pins, and 400 pairs of Osage moccasins were handcrafted. “Altogether, we made about 4,000 costumes,” says West.

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

The post Dressing The Part appeared first on TheWrap.

Artist Marco Walker has created a portfolio of images where his nostalgia for postmodern iconography and his memories of Hollywood are the stage for the winning accessories and best clothes of the season

Hilary Rhoda wears earrings by SORDO, coat by BRUNELLO CUCINELLI, sweater by THE ELDER STATESMAN, tights by WOLFORD and shoes by JIMMY CHOO

Hilary wears sunglasses by JACQUES MARIE MAGE, earrings and silver cuff available at PAUMÉ LOS ANGELES, knit top and skirt by BOTTEGA VENETA, organic oval and silver rock bangles by DINOSAUR DESIGNS, boots by JIMMY CHOO.

K.i.s.s.i.n.g red lipstick by CHARLOTTE TILBURY.

Hilary wears earrings and necklace by TIFFANY & CO., swim top, skirt and towel by HERMÈS, shoes by JIMMY CHOO. sunglasses on towel by JACQUES MARIE MAGE.

Red shoe by PRADA

Hilary wears earrings by SORDO, vest by ISABEL MARANT, pink swimsuit by ARAKS, blue swimsuit, bag and bracelets by CHANEL, rock bangles and silver rock bangle by DINOSAUR DESIGNS, shoes by NIKE.

Sunglasses by JACQUES MARIE MAGE.

Hilary wears earrings by ISABEL MARANT, jacket by CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE, sweater by THE ELDER STATESMAN, pants by ISABEL MARANT, shoes by JIMMY CHOO.

Mule by VERSACE

Hilary wears earrings, necklace, scarf, bodysuit, belt, gloves, cuffs, skirt and shoes are all SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO.

Small Ghiera bag LORO PIANA.

Credits

FASHION EDITOR AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR: MICHAELA DOSAMANTES

MODEL: HILARY RHODA AT IMG

PRODUCTION: ANABELLA CASSANOVA AND SAGE PRICE FOR VACATION THEORY

MAKEUP ARTIST WENDY MARTINEZ

HAIR STYLIST JOERI ROUFFA AT THE WALL GROUP

CASTING BY KEGAN WEBB

PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS: DENIS FAGUNDES AND NICK MORA

PRODUCTION DESIGNER/FABRICATORS: KATHRYN REDIGER AND EILEEN SETON WITH BUDDY SYSTEM LA

MARKET EDITOR: DANIEL VICTORIA GLEASON

FASHION ASSISTANT: RACHEL POLLEN

INTERN: HANNAH LOEWEN

LOCATION ROUGHOUT RANCH, NEWBERRY SPRINGS, CA

SPECIAL THANKS TO AMBER SCHWARZ, ZOE WALKER, LEAH SILVERSTEIN AT IMG.

MARCO WALKER

An image maker working within the boundaries of photography, collage, alternative print methods and immersive photographic installations. His unique style as an artist has attracted projects that span from luxury fashion houses such as Saint Laurent to installations at off-beat art festivals to gallery shows in London and New York.

The post Cinemascapes appeared first on TheWrap.

Found in Translation

Talent agent Thao Nguyen’s whole world is art, both at home with her personal collection and at CAA where she cultivates artists in pop culture

by Eli Diner

Photography by Fabian Martinez

The first thing you notice when you arrive at CAA agent Thao Nguyen’s Brentwood  home are the polka dots. Peppering the facade of a paragon of Southern California ranch-style modernism—all sharp lines and right angles—the dots are conspicuously circular. “My daughter is a huge Kusama fan,” she says, and the dots, which originally went up as Halloween decorations inspired by the artist, were a hit with the neighbors, who (together with her daughter) lobbied to leave them in place. The story, as she tells it, seems to capture—at a very local level—something of  the way Nguyen works with artists: shifting contexts and cultivating new audiences.  

Nguyen has been with CAA for 23 years, and in that time she has found herself increasingly operating at the nexus of art and entertainment, building pathways between these worlds and creating opportunities for artists to disseminate their work beyond the confines of  galleries and museums. “My goal is to democratize  art,” she says. “I’m not interested in playing with ideas that only reach the top one percent. That’s just not interesting to me. Where I sit at the agency, we play in pop culture. That’s just part of our DNA. So, how can I work with very specific artists to translate their ideas into pop culture?” 

The first step in this translation process, it seems, is recognizing the artists who she thinks can make the leap from fine art to Hollywood. Nguyen has built a client roster at CAA that includes Martine Syms, Khalil Joseph, Alex Prager and Ref ik Anadol. “Every one of them is open to new ways of working,” she says. “They are cultural innovators. They’re not confined by certain rules.” 

The next step is convincing Hollywood to let the artists in. Nguyen says that’s the exciting part. “My job is to help create the context to realize their ideas.” 

That contextualizing is well underway. Prager, the Los Angeles artist known for her cinematic photography and iconic short films, will begin shooting her first feature in March, an AI thriller called DreamQuil. Syms, a critically lauded artist who works across disciplines, connected with Nguyen when Syms was searching for distribution for her independently produced first feature, The African Desperate (2022). She is now at work on an adaptation of an undisclosed novel. 

Nguyen’s most ambitious work of translation has been the project of developing Joseph’s video  installation BLKNWS into a feature film. Shown in numerous venues, including the 2018 Venice Biennale and the 2020 “Made in L.A.” exhibition, BLKNWS is a conceptual news program comprising a highly edited and constantly changing montage of depictions of Black  life—hardly  an obvious candidate for a Hollywood adaptation. “BLKNWS has always been fascinating to me,” she says. “There have been many iterations of it, but it has always been somewhat ephemeral. More people need to see it. It’s game-changing.” It was five years ago that she first  proposed turning the multichannel  video  collage  into  a  wide-release  movie. Joseph was game, and a year ago it was announced that Participant and A24 had signed on to produce.  “They understood the vision, and you have to hand it to them,” Nguyen says. “It’s not a normal movie, and it’s not a normal process. I have to commend them for being open to taking this creative risk.” 

Of course, a key piece of the translator’s task is ensuring the integrity of the message, something Nguyen is sensitive to. “Artists are so singular in the way that they think and the way  that they work,” she says. “So how can I preserve that as much as possible when I’m working with their ideas and translating that in a new way, on a new platform?” 

As you’d expect from someone who works so closely with art, Nguyen chooses to live surrounded by it as well. The house covered in Kusama-inspired Halloween polka dots where she lives with her husband, architect Andreas Krainer, and their two daughters, is home as well to a collection she began assembling 15 years ago. She tells me there is no theme, no guiding  principles. “For me,” she says, “art is about emotion. I buy what I like. Period.” If nothing else, the collection leans in the direction of Los Angeles: a Larry Bell glass cube, a scrawled text painting from Raymond Pettibon, a psychedelic James Welling photograph of Philip Johnson’s Glass House, as well as works by Jonas Wood, Elad Lassry, Thomas Houseago and Tristan Unrau. More than anything, there is an unfussiness and intimacy about it all, which is reflected in the personal connections and relationships that undergird some of the work. A place of  prominence is given to Nuestra Victoria (Our Victory) (2022) a pink-hued painting depicting Mexico City’s landmark Angel of Independence created by young Mexican painter Julieta Gil, whom Nguyen had become friends with when the latter was doing her MFA at UCLA. The very human scale of the house adds to the effect. Built in 1951, it was designed and occupied by Kenneth Anderson, who had studied under Mies van der Rohe. After Anderson, another architect moved in, Frederick E. Emmons, who opened a firm with A. Quincy Jones. Now the  third architect to live there, Krainer contributed one more addition in keeping with the style of  his predecessors. 

“ Artists are so singular in the way they think and work. So how can I preserve that when I’m working with their ideasand translating that in a new way, on a new platform?”

Outside sits a Nathan Mabry sculpture, Weeping Figure (Déja Vu) (2011). It’s a totemic form in patinaed metal that reworks Jacques Lipchitz’s high-modernist Figure (1926–30). When Nguyen and Krainer were married, it was the only thing listed on their registry.

The post Found in Translation appeared first on TheWrap.

Be Careful What You Write,

It Can Break Your Heart

Thirty-five years ago, a Hollywood screenwriter discovered that a film he wrote about a Hungarian war criminal, Music Box, was reflected in the real-life story about his own flesh and blood. Today, as the Israel-Gaza war rages on, it reignites deep reflection on the past and leaves his heart breaking yet again for the violence of our time

By Joe Eszterhas

I was born in Hungary in 1944 but grew up in British and American refugee camps in Austria after World War II. I came to the United States when I was seven years old with my mother, Mária, and my father, Istvan, a Hungarian novelist. 

As I grew up in America, my father became the most important person in my life. He was the editor of a small Hungarian-language newspaper, the Catholic Hungarians’ Sunday. My mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and I had always understood that she was a victim of the war and the refugee camps where women sold themselves to American soldiers for Hershey bars to feed their starving children. 

I was a loner, a bullied refugee kid with a big chip on my shoulder and a bad temper. I got into serious trouble in the back alleys of Cleveland, Ohio. I ran with a gang of other poor kids with chips on their shoulders and zip guns in their pockets. We rolled drunks, broke into grocery stores, stole cars, and got into brass knuckle fights. When I was 13, I hit an older kid, who had bullied me, in the back of the head with a baseball bat. He almost died. I almost went to jail. 

The fact that I didn’t was thanks to my father, a cerebral little man with a bad limp from childhood scarlet fever. 

He convinced me to stay out of the back alleys and instead…to read. He taught me to never judge a man by his race, color or religion but only by his character. To judge all people with humanity and compassion. 

I watched him as he yelled, red-faced, at Hungarians in his office for saying horrible things about Jews. “You can’t say these things in my office—you can’t say these things in America! What you’re saying is wrong!” He was most often yelling at the priests and monks who ran the paper. 

I admired my father for the way he stood up against what he believed was wrong. By letting me see him in action as I played with toy soldiers on the linoleum floor in his office, my father took the big chip off my shoulder. He convinced me that, in America, anything was possible, that you didn’t need connections like you did in Hungary. In America, the streets were paved with gold if you worked hard enough. He convinced me that if I did that, I could not only be a writer like he was but that I could be a rich and successful American writer. 

So I read and read and read…and finally stayed out of the back alleys, away from the cheap Thunderbird wine and the dangers there. And after a while, shakily and with trepidation, I started to write. I became the editor of my high school newspaper, and I found myself, a refugee kid, picked for a local radio station’s High School Hall of Fame. 

I worked hard and got a scholarship to college. I became the editor of my college newspaper, and in my senior year, I won the William Randolph Hearst Foundation’s national award as the Outstanding College Journalist in America. And the refugee kid went to the White House and got a medal from Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. It was the first time I’d been on an airplane. A Hearst limousine met me at the airport and took me to a gigantic suite at the Mayflower Hotel. I was awed. 

I became a reporter for two newspapers and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I went to a national magazine (Rolling Stone) and wrote a story there that turned into a book that turned into a finalist for the National Book Award. 

My father bragged about me to all of his friends, and I became a major celebrity in Cleveland’s Hungarian community. And, after my book was read by a studio executive, I started writing screenplays. 

I had a couple of hits—Flashdance and Jagged Edge—and I asked my father to join me at Hollywood premieres where we walked the red carpet together, almost arm in arm, and I saw my father smile like I’d never seen him smile before. He was glorying in my success, glorying in his son, “Jozsi Eszterhas, the great American writer.” 

I had taken my father’s advice about judging people only by their character—not their religion, not their skin color—and I was active in human rights and social justice and civil rights causes, both as a writer and personally. 

I had lunch with the Reverend Martin Luther King. I had a shotgun stuck in my belly by a white racist cop in Neshoba County, Mississippi. I was busted while marching in Selma, Alabama, and spent a night in jail. I drank cognac with Huey Newton at his bar in Oakland. I did interviews with Allen Ginsberg and described how senselessly he was arrested and abused by a homophobic white cop. Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city, was my friend, and I helped write his speeches. I did fundraisers with the Anti-Defamation League. I visited Dachau and then went to Israel, a magical place I came to love. 

“I always wanted to see the Holy Land,” my father said. “I envy you the trip, Jozsi.” I asked him to join me, but he said he wasn’t in good enough health to come. 

In Jerusalem, I spent four days at Yad Vashem, the world’s most famous Holocaust museum, where I read as much about the Holocaust in Hungary as I could. 

After my days at Yad Vashem, I wrote a screenplay about the Holocaust in Hungary, focused on a war criminal who’d been hiding in the United States for years. I called it Sins of the Fathers. 

Producer Irwin Winkler and director Costa Gavras and I had done a film—Betrayed—about right-wing racism and anti-Semitism in America. When I showed them my script, they both said they wanted to be involved, though Costa had a new title: Music Box. 

I sent the script to my father, and after he read it he said, “I’ve never been more proud of you, Jozsi, than I am at this moment.” I glowed with his praise. It took me back to those days when he raged at the Hungarians for their anti-Semitism. 

Two years after Music Box was released, my father called me. He was very upset. He told me that he had received a letter from the American Justice Department officially informing him that he was the target of an investigation relative to war crimes he had allegedly committed in Hungary during the Second World War. He sounded like he was crying. “This not true, Jozsi,” he said weakly, “It not me that do this. They make big, big mistake.” 

I was thunderstruck. I was completely bewildered. What a horrible mistake! It occurred to me that it was exactly the line of dialogue in Music Box where the American daughter (Jessica Lange) is defending her Hungarian war criminal father who has been hiding in America and her father says, “It not me. They make mistake.” 

I flew back to Cleveland and hired the best attorney in town, an old and good friend of mine, Jerry Messerman, a Jewish man who had lost relatives in the Holocaust. 

Two weeks later, the hearing began in Messerman’s conference room. Two of the stars of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations—Neal Sher and Eli Rosenbaum—were there, leading a six-member team. 

As they presented the allegations and their evidence, it quickly became apparent that my father was…in serious trouble. The charges were deadly, and so was their evidence. I felt my heart skipping beats and my face flushing as I heard what the Justice Department people were saying. 

My beloved father had written a book—Nemzet Politika—that called Jews “parasites” (Hitler’s favorite word for Jews) and called for “the iron fist of the law” to be used in their “total eradication.” The Justice Department had translated the book from Hungarian to English so we could see the full horror of what was in it. 

My beloved father had been in charge of book burnings of all Jewish writers. My beloved father and mother had lived in an apartment that had been forcibly taken from its Jewish occupants. 

My father had been in charge of burning incriminating government documents at the very end of the war as Russian liberating troops approached Budapest. 

My beloved father had been a key figure in the Hungarian government’s prime ministry, an avowed German Nazi puppet government called the Arrow Cross. 

My attorney and I froze as the OSI unreeled their charges, and my father kept shaking his head and saying, “No, no, no, no, no,” to each charge. Messerman and I were both staring, unblinking, at the conference room table. I noticed too, that the Hungarian woman presenting much of the evidence—Judit Schulmann —had such loathing for my father that she was unable to even look at him as she spoke. 

The deadliest existential question was this: How many Hungarian Jews had been killed or brutalized because of the vicious and inciting things in my father’s book and the many horribly anti-Semitic articles that he had written for various Hungarian publications—copies of which were now spread across the table? It was a vast and numbing display of evidence. 

I realized that what they were saying was that my father could be accused of having been an accomplice to the murders of untold numbers of Jewish people. 

As a final gesture, Schulmann put on the table a photo I.D. which showed that my late mother—my devout Catholic mother who had died holding my hand—had been a card-carrying member of Hungary’s Nazi party, the Nylas. 

The OSI also revealed that after the war was over, my father, mother and I had fled to a Nazi camp called Perg for high-ranking friends and allies of Hitler’s German Nazis. My father had always told me that the camp we had fled to was Mauthausen, a concentration camp. Very much to the contrary, we were Hungarian Nazi VIPs, seeking German haven at Perg. 

When the hearings were over, I had difficulty looking at the man who had been the most important person in my life and without whom I couldn’t have achieved any of the things I did—my beloved father. I went to a bar and had a lot to drink. And the following day, Messerman and I went to another bar and I had even more to drink. 

The third day I went to my father’s house and asked him questions: “How could you have done all these things?” 

He said, “I did it all for you, Jozsi. Everybody in Hungary was an anti-Semite. I did it to get ahead in Hungarian society.” 

I knew it was bullshit. He had written the book and most of those articles long before I was born, many, many years before he had even met my mother. 

I asked him if he regretted the things he had done. 

He said, almost casually, “Of course, Jozsi, of course.” 

I said, “How could you, a writer, organize book burnings?” 

He said, “They ordered me to do that. I didn’t want to.” 

More bullshit. It was the Adolf Eichmann defense: Just taking orders. 

“How could you live in a place that you knew had been taken from Jews who were shipped off to Auschwitz?” 

He said, “We didn’t know that the apartment had been requisitioned from Jews—and we didn’t know anything about Auschwitz, either.” 

We said nothing to each other for a long time and then my father said, “Why are you so cold to me?” 

I stared at him and was able to say nothing. 

My father said, “You hate me now, Jozsi!”

I said, “I hate the things you did, Pop.”

We sat there and he said, “I love you, Jozsi, but you hate me now.” I sat there a long moment, shook my head and left. 

The Justice Department didn’t deport him and didn’t file any charges and some said they didn’t because he was 85 years old, but also because they knew that the publicity could hurt my career and they thought it would be unfair to do that. My father had even lied on his visa application to the United States, saying that he was a “printer.” It seemed to me that they had enough evidence just based on the falsity of the visa application to deport him. But they didn’t. 

What has haunted me for years is this: Did he tell me all those things about not judging a man by his race or religion but by his character to give himself the best alibi possible? A son who stood for all the things that he didn’t? Or did he truly have regrets and wanted to raise a son exactly the opposite of himself? I will grapple with that question until the day I die. 

There was a more elemental question that I was dealing with: What made me write a “fictional” film about a Hungarian war criminal hiding in America? My father, I knew now, had been doing that all of his adult life. And now it was left to me and to my old friend Messerman to defend him like Jessica Lange defended her father in my film. 

So what made me write this story? I had a friend who was a psychologist who said that I must have seen or heard something when I was a child and that I was afraid to confront what I had seen and heard, so I wrote a film about it… in order to confront it. I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what made me write Sins of the Fathers. Even the title is suspicious. It is another question that I will grapple with forever. 

I didn’t see or speak to my father for a long time. I didn’t take his phone calls or call him. Once he even called the Malibu police department to do a wellness check because he hadn’t heard from me. And I knew what hurt him the most: I didn’t let him see or talk to his grandchildren—exactly what Jessica Lange had done to her fictional father in Music Box. 

My father became more feeble, suffering several strokes. I paid for nursing care at his home, and when he needed to go to a nursing home, I paid for that, too. But when he was dying and I got a phone call from his Hungarian nursing home that he was calling my name and asking for me…I didn’t go to be there at his bedside as he died. 

There are moments these many years later that I deeply regret that, and other moments that I’m proud of myself for not going. 

I went to his funeral, and when I went back to Hungary some years after he died, I took his driver’s license and put it on his father’s grave. It was my way of returning my father to Hungary. 

After his death, I spent a lot of time reading about the Holocaust. I had some insatiable need—maybe penance for my father’s sins—to do that. Writer Elie Wiesel, the world’s most famous Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize Laureate, became my favorite writer, and I was determined to read all of his books. He wrote more than 40 of them, but I’m well on my way to reading them all. 

Elie Wiesel was a Hungarian Jew who spoke fluent Hungarian and whose words are like bullets to my heart. Hungarian gendarmes beat Elie, his mother and father, his two older sisters and his little eight-year-old sister—with truncheons and sticks as they forced them onto the cattle car that took them to Auschwitz. 

Their Hungarian neighbors stood laughing and pointing and yelling “Look at the stinking Jews!” as the gendarmes stripped his mother and sisters naked in the train station square and violated them with their bloody fingers looking for the jewels that they believed all Jews hid in their body parts. 

In the final weeks of the war when the Russians were liberating Hungary, the Hungarians rounded up the Jews who hadn’t been taken to Auschwitz and, because they were out of ammunition, strangled them and drowned them in the Danube. 

When I read Elie Wiesel’s account of these events, I felt deeply ashamed of having been born Hungarian. I was happy that I had completely lost my boyhood Hungarian accent. 

On October 7 of last year, Never Again became Once Again. Butcherings. Slaughterings. Beheadings. Rapes. The Chosen People are once again chosen for unfathomable torture and unbelievable horror. I watched it endlessly on television and online for days. I felt hollowed out and enraged and angry at God. 

I bought a Star of David dog tag and wore it as the carnage continued. One night I fell asleep in front of the television and I dreamed that I was in the tunnels with the IDF and with the Irgun and with the Haganah. I had a gun and a battle helmet. We were crawling through pitch-black netherworld tunnels with monstrous hobgoblins flashing across the tunnel walls: Hitler and Mengele and Himmler and Goebbels and the rest of their hellish, murderous accomplices … and trailing behind them all was a little man with a limp … the Hungarian novelist … the editor of the Catholic Hungarians’ Sunday newspaper … just another war criminal … my once-beloved father. 

He said one word: “Jozsi!” And I startled awake. 

I sat there for a very long time and then I went up to my library where I keep all of my Elie Wiesel books and picked one without even looking at what it was. I just felt a desperate need to hear Elie’s voice. 

I opened the book, looked at the page, and Elie spoke directly to me without the usual poetry in his words: 

“Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not.” 

Thank you, Elie Wiesel. 

I kept reading for a while, and Elie said something else that has become a personal coda to me. He wrote: “I believe in God–in spite of God! I believe in Mankind–in spite of Mankind! I believe in the Future–in spite of the Past!”

I would add a few words to that. It is a lesson that I’ve learned since my once-beloved war criminal father’s death: 

I believe in love, in spite of love. 

I can’t watch Music Box anymore … but I never take my Star of David dog tag off, not even at night. Be careful what you write, I tell young screenwriters. Be very, very careful. What you write can break your heart. ⠁

JOE ESZTERHAS

Joe Eszterhas was born in Hungary and grew up in refugee camps in Austria and Germany and in Cleveland, Ohio. He has written eight books, including two New York Times Top Ten bestsellers, but he is perhaps best known as the screenwriter of 19 films, including Flashdance and Basic Instinct. His essay chronicles how, after penning Music Box about a Nazi war criminal living in the United States, he discovered he had unknowingly written about his cherished father.

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In a rare exclusive interview, YSL creative director Anthony Vaccarello tell how his love for cinema has shaped his career in fashion and how collaborating with Almodóvar, Cronenberg, Audiard and Sorrentino is his dream come true

by Pamela Golbin

Artwork by Edward Givis

I WANTED TO WORK WITH DIRECTORS WHO FORMED MY PERSONAL VISION. THEY NEVER FAIL TO OPEN MY MIND, AND THE SINGULAR, RADICAL VISION THEY BRING TO CINEMA HAS MADE ME THE PERSON I AM TODAY.

In France, the house of Saint Laurent is a cultural institution. Since joining in 2016, the Italo-Belgian artistic director Anthony Vaccarello has steered the brand to new heights, keeping the house current while staying true to himself. He welcomes us to his left-bank Parisian office in a 17th-century hotel particulier, to speak about his attraction for cinema, fashion, his love of the Los Angeles way of life and his latest undertaking, Saint Laurent Productions. Their initial project, Jean-Luc Godard’s Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, has just received an award from the National Society of Film Critics for best experimental film. Saint Laurent Productions’ first endeavor, Pedro Almodóvar’s Strange Way of Life, was shortlisted for the Oscars. And this year alone, they will release films directed by David Cronenberg, Jacques Audiard and Paolo Sorrentino.

Pamela Golbin: You look calm and serene.

Anthony Vaccarello: It’s just a façade. (Laughs) It’s been rather intense lately. There’s a lot going on. But, it really is great. It’s much better this way.

In 2023, you launched Saint Laurent Productions, a full-fledged production company making the house of Saint Laurent the first luxury brand to count films among its activities. At first, this may seem surprising, but it’s a coherent continuation of the projects you set in motion from the start.

When I first arrived at Saint Laurent, I worked with the filmmaker Gaspar Noé and with Bret Easton Ellis, who is more of a writer but who is very linked to cinema. Up until now, it was always about small projects, and I felt I needed to take it to the next level. I wanted to be taken seriously and not just seen as producing fashion films but to tell real stories and collaborate with directors that I admire. Last year, our first film to come out was with Pedro Almodóvar even though I had already begun a collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard, which remained unfinished.

Indeed, he passed away during COVID.

Yes, the film remained in a project stage, but one that I found very beautiful. The trailer was made of collages of his very personal notes. He sent me regular text messages with phrases I didn’t understand, but which were his way of communicating what he wanted to do. I thought it would be nice to release it as it is. It is more interesting than most of the films being made today.

For your first completed project, Strange Way of Life, you worked with Pedro Almodóvar. His film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival last year and was shortlisted for an Oscar. How was the experience?

Almodóvar is a very warm person, someone gentle who has a very strong vision but who is also accessible. So, it was quite easy to discuss costumes with him. It happened naturally with lots of back and forth between Paris and Madrid. Strange Way of Life is the Western he always wanted to make. The central story revolves around the love between two men, which, from the start, we wanted to be very different from Brokeback Mountain.

You made the costumes.

Yes, but that’s not what interests me the most. I did it because it makes sense.

From Cristóbal Balenciaga, a series inspired by the life and legacy of the Spanish couturier, to the historical drama The New Look centering around Christian Dior and Coco Chanel and the more contemporary documentary High & Low – John Galliano, there are a multitude of fashion films that will be premiering in the coming months. It’s a very different space that you’re creating with Saint Laurent Productions. Your future releases include films by David Cronenberg, Jacques Audiard and Paolo Sorrentino.

Yes, from the start I didn’t want our productions to be fashion focused. The films are not to promote Saint Laurent but to support the work of an artist. I don’t want it to be commercial. We don’t need that. We already know what Saint Laurent stands for. And, I think of Saint Laurent’s very personal way of working when he designed the costumes for Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour and how his style comes through without it being commercial.

How do you select the directors you want to work with?

At the moment, my choices are very selfish and personal. In the future, we’ll need to open up to a younger generation, but for now, I especially wanted to work with and put the spotlight on the directors who formed my personal vision. They never fail to open my mind and, in a way, the singular, radical vision they bring to cinema has made me the person I am today.

What have you learned from collaborations with filmmakers?

I haven’t had time to think about what it has meant to me yet. It has brought me a lot of personal satisfaction, a lot of pride. But interacting with these geniuses inspires me to produce films in a certain way. For the moment, I’m not up to it, but it certainly makes me want to create films of my own.

In the past, I did many videos. I learned a lot from Gaspar Noé, especially about the slowness of filming, about the rhythm. I prefer when things go quickly like fashion shows, but it’s true that cinema is very, very slow. With Jacques Audiard, I was fascinated to see that he could do a 10-second scene 50 times with something different in the scene each time.

We can make a similar observation when watching you work on the construction of a jacket, for example.

That’s what it’s all about, ultimately being able to edit down to the essential. This is what I like more and more in my work. It’s to edit as much as possible. If you alter a millimeter here and a millimeter there, it completely changes the silhouette. Yes, in that sense, it is similar to Audiard’s process.

When I think about it, Saint Laurent’s designs in the 1990s should have been more edited. Helmut Lang was coming onto the scene and there was a whole new young generation of designers. He stuck to what he was familiar with, which he did very, very well, but perhaps he missed the shift to something more modern. It is important for me that the house stays current and that we deliver a clear message after each fashion show.

Are you more patient now?

Oh, not at all. But that’s the good thing about my job. We don’t have time to be too contemplative. We must move forward. I like that.

What does cinema mean to you?

For me, cinema has always been an escape. I grew up in Belgium, where it was always very, very gray. Cinema took me somewhere else, out of my everyday life. It was more like a dreamscape. When I was at art school, I became very interested in independent cinema and watched the likes of Almodóvar and Rainer Fassbinder.

Is there a film by Fassbinder that influenced you particularly?

All his films left an impression on me, especially The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant which features an all-female cast. It’s about resilient women facing complicated situations. I like it when there are strong female characters. In Brussels, I was lucky that at the time there were film libraries geared towards independent cinema. There wasn’t the blockbuster movie side so prevalent today. The neighborhood theaters showed many of the older movies so it was easy for me to see them.

Saint Laurent often spoke about a Marlene Dietrich photo which influenced him when he designed his “Le Smoking” tuxedo suit for women. Is there a decisive moment for you linked to cinema?

I was very touched by the end scene of Fassbinder’s Bitter Tears when the heroine, Petra, played by Margit Carstensen, is slouched over on the thick white carpet wearing a green dress with a red flower bow around her neck. It’s very Guy Bourdin. That image has been a great source of inspiration for me at Saint Laurent.

There is also Mamma Roma by Pasolini. I can still see Anna Magnani, wearing her nuisettes, so Italian in their design, which also reminds me of my family origins, as both of my parents are Sicilian. I have always felt a duality in my approach between the slightly colder side of German cinema and the exuberant and strong Italian women.

A duality found in your razor-sharp yet sensuous silhouettes.

They say it’s sexy. I don’t know what that means, but I am drawn to women who have the power to be sexy and decide their destiny. They are never submissive or waiting for someone, on the contrary.

I think of Saint Laurent who always said that it was all about attitude.

Yes, it’s super important to me.

In your process, you start a collection almost like a film script.

Yes, I always start with an image, a look, an allure. I imagine what my heroine does, where she goes, who she loves, what she thinks. And for the last couple of years, it has helped me to construct my silhouettes and the storyline of the collection. I don’t create for a static woman. My heroine is always on the move.

Are you more captivated by a photograph or a moving image?

A photo freezes the moment. Video allows you to tell something else, to go further and to hold the viewer longer. We have more time to convey a message.

How do you describe working with photographer Jürgen Teller?

He is my Helmut Newton, but I can understand the relationship Yves Saint Laurent may have had with Helmut Newton at the time. Newton twisted this very glamorous and very feminine side that Saint Laurent had. Jürgen is more anchored in reality making his images much more contemporary.

For me, Helmut spent more time creating an image that also corresponded to his era. Jürgen is more in the present moment and is interested in the raw side of things. He says “it works” or “it doesn’t work.” In the end, we end up shooting less. We don’t make the models pose for hours. It’s more of a portrait in a moment.

In both cases, there is empowerment that is given to the sitter whether they’re clothed or not.

Yes, we don’t see them as naked. I think of Charlotte Rampling on the piano, for example.

Do you imagine a narrative for your fashion shows?

I spend a lot of time thinking about the show, its beginning, middle and end. What music corresponds to which part? What lighting goes with which girl? I like creating this story that ultimately lasts, what, seven or eight minutes? More than clothes, what’s important is to create an emotion. I like it when people cry. It happens sometimes after a fashion show and it makes me happy because they feel like they have touched something that is beyond a piece of clothing. I like to play with memories, with emotions. I’m quite nostalgic. When a moment ends, I tell myself that it is something that will never come back. I feel as if I could have done more or better, that I could have taken better advantage of the situation. My problem is I don’t often think about enjoying the moment and time goes by so quickly.

Where do you watch your films? Are you more of a movie theatergoer or a home cinema enthusiast?

Definitely, home cinema.

Do you prefer black-and-white or color movies?

Color.

Are you more of a Fellini La Dolce Vita fan or an Antonioni Blow-Up admirer?

Blow-Up.

Do you sing along to Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or contemplate Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt?

I can’t choose because The Umbrellas of Cherbourg reminds me of my mother and it makes me cry every time. And Contempt is simply perfect. So, both.

You spend a lot of time in Los Angeles.

Yes, I’m there quite often. What I like about Los Angeles is the flight, the distance, being completely disconnected. The weather, the way of living, the possibility to be with my family and be very isolated. You have to know the city, and I was lucky to have been introduced by people who were born there. It’s a quality of life that suits me. Living with a natural rhythm, getting up when the sun rises and going to bed when it sets allows me to be more relaxed. When we return to Paris, my son always asks, “Where is the sun?” (Laughs)

This year alone, Saint Laurent Productions is presenting three film projects that have been selected for the Cannes Film Festival. How does it feel to see your name on the roster: “Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello presents”?

It was moving when I first saw it last year in Cannes. For Almodóvar’s Strange Way of Life, my name appeared just after Pedro Almodóvar. It’s like a childhood dream come true. It makes me believe that anything is achievable. It’s great to say to yourself that it’s possible to do what you want at a very demanding level.

Once you have realized your dream, what happens next?

It’s complicated because just being here is already a dream. Saint Laurent, for me, is the most beautiful house, the Holy Grail of houses. What can top that? The only thing you can do is to start something completely different. Ever since I was little, everything has happened to me organically and naturally. I’ve never had any career plans. We need to renew ourselves constantly and create new things, not stay locked in. We need to aspire to new dreams that I don’t necessarily have yet.

To future dreams then.

PAMELA GOLBIN

French curator and fashion historian Pamela Golbin is celebrated for her contributions to the world of art and design. She sat down for a rare interview with Yves Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello to talk about his passion for cinema and YSL’s bold collaborations with some of cinema’s giants.

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