Worst Documentary of the Year

I just watched the worst documentary in the world, "About Face."  It is, ostensibly, about aging models in the fashion industry.  It is, however, I think, about the ineptness of the "filmmakers" who produced this junk.  They had a concept to be sure, which seems to have been this: let's get a bunch of old models together for a photo shoot.  We'll interview them about what it is like to have been a model and then to get old, and--voila!--we'll have a film.

Didn't work out.

The reason is simple: lack of talent.  The list of skills they lacked is long.  They could not interview.  They could not shoot.  They could not edit.  They had no sense of story.  No spine.  Nothing.

I will never get that time back.

But worse than that is how terrible the aging models came off.  They were all like old transvestites.   The spoke in the sing-song tones aging drag queens.  That is not a bad thing if that is what you are, perhaps.  But they all seemed to be having some out of body experience in that dramatic, "I've got something to say" voice emotes importance but carries none.

I know, I know, you will call me a very bad man.  Or, if you are uber-hip in a very cliched way--a misogynist.  But I have friends who had to be closet gays in the 1950s, and believe me, they are interesting and fun (my experiences with trannies, though, have not been so good).  But these models seemed copies of a copy.  Either that, or, if they rejected the modeling life and went away, they seemed like Anita Bryant denouncing homosexuality.  Either way, it was awful.

But I do not believe it was the aging models' fault.  The fault lies solely with the producers and director of this hideous film.

Why I watched it all might be a mystery to you, but in truth, my television has no "off" button.  No, of course that is not it.  I was enamored with the still photos of models from the fifties and early sixties that they used as b-roll occasionally.  That and I loved looking at the setup they had in the large studio in which they were shooting.  Oo-la-la.  Somebody, PLEASE, get me into such digs.  I DO have studio envy.  I would even shoot a girl in a dress, perhaps.  Perhaps.

If you can't help yourself, and you watch it (and blame yourself now if you do), note the contrast between Isabella Rossellini and Jerry Hall.  Ms. Rossellini is so very, very real, so very smart, so very much someone with whom you would like to have dinner (O.K., if you can imagine the inflections in this, you know I just did everything about which I was complaining).  She is the exception.  Listening to Jerry Hall, you have to have serious wonder about the life of Mick Jagger.

The other models fill the gambit between these two.

Should I make some exception for the African-American models who have social significance by breaking the race barrier.  O.K.  But either the film makers didn't give them room to sound more profound or. . . .

If you are in this awful documentary and you read this, I swear it is not you about whom I complain, and you should sue those inept bastards who have shown you in that light.  You have been exploited once again in a long life of exploitation (if you can call fame and fortune "exploitation").

My two favorite faces in the film (and yes, I am being this shallow) were Karen Bjornsen and Carmen Dell'Orefice (no, I didn't make that up) who I subsequently read lost everything in the Bernie Madoff scam (who can trust a man with a name like "made off"?).  They were the only two who admitted to having plastic surgery.

Alright.  Maybe I'm shallow. And now the confession.  I am like them.  Misogyny?  Forget it.  Lost youth weighs on me, apparently, like a shallow, aging model who won glory in her youth.  That's right.  You can live with it.  When I get my eyes done, you can kiss my ass.  The rest of it. . . well, we shall see.  But I don't want to hear about how women have to keep up this appearance of youth.  I am beaten down by it every day.  You hadn't guessed?  But of course you had.  Shallow. . . shallow. . . shallow.

I may have forced some of you to watch it now, I know.  I had that in mind, perhaps.  Misery loves company.  But don't say I didn't warn you.  If you have HBO, you can watch it On Demand.  Documentaries.  You'll be sorry.