The rise and fall of a fashion genius
We recognize the quality of a documentary by its ability to say something, everywhere, always and to everyone. This is what Kevin Macdonald, a British filmmaker who has been alternating feature-length documentaries and fiction since 1995, managed to do. To him we owe in particular, as far as fiction is concerned, what has been much noticed The last king of Scotland in 2006, The Eagle of the Ninth Legion in 2011 and Found guilty in 2021. On the documentary side, he specializes in the biographical register, establishing portraits of personalities such as Klaus Barbie in 2006 (My best enemy), Bob Marley and Whitney Houston (Marley in 2012 and Whitney in 2018). This year he is back with Ups and Downs – John Gallianoproduced in 2023.
In this expert documentary, fascinating from start to finish, the starting point is John Galliano’s landing point. In February 2011, a video appeared online in which the famous designer and then artistic director of Dior was seen engaged in a horrific act anti-Semitic and racist diatribeon the terrace of a Parisian bar. In a few days, what was considered the greatest designer of his time, the world of entertainment and the world of high fashion excommunicates him without hesitation.
From greatness to humility
How did it get there? While the industry immediately distanced itself from him, John Galliano still received some support from his closest friends, loyal collaborators, especially Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. Anti-Semitic? Maybe, it seems, but everyone is surprised. Alcoholic to the last degree? Of course, without hesitation. But isn’t there an element of reality in every “slip” conducted under the influence of alcohol? A formula returns during High and low : in vino veritas. But, as a psychoanalyst interviewed by Kevin Macdonald indicates, if “wine” can reveal the “truth”, it can also make you say anything…
Kevin Macdonald then looked at the journey of John Galliano, from his spectacular beginnings at Central Saint Martins University in London to this spectacular fall, falling from a throne he had achieved through inventiveness, creative genius and a unique determination task. In an insightful parallel, Kevin Macdonald regularly inserts footage from the film The Red Slippers by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a film about dance and creating until death. In a clearer parallel, it also integrates images of Napoleon by Abel Gance, establishing an aesthetic and moral comparison that the creator says he does not recognize.
However, he caused a sensation with his graduation collection in 1984 inspired by the French Revolution, and would later walk the runway wearing a bicorne. A universe and a madness, a spirit of conquest that obviously brings him closer to the megalomania, greatness and smallness of the French emperor.
An unsolvable mystery
This is the critical point of Ups and Downs – John Galliano : John Galliano doesn’t remember. He confuses the dates, talks about a single “incident” at the Perle bar in the Parisian Marais, when there were three of them. He remembers his shows, but it’s murky: at the end of each show, he locks himself away for several days and gets drunk until he loses consciousness.
Repeated periods of depression which he interrupts to obsessively return to sport and prepare the next collections. The greatest designer of his time, John Galliano refuses nothing that Dior asks of him. It’s not two collections a year, but thirty-two which creates, among high fashion and ready-to-wear collections, children’s collections, leather goods, shoes, etc.
If the documentary, with its music and its references to Napoleontakes some codes from fiction into his show, Kevin Macdonald wants to be objective. We therefore see part of the behind the scenes of the devouring world of high fashion, of its terrible artistic and commercial demands. Many former collaborators of John Galliano testify and provide different insights, opening different paths to try to understand how from the extraordinary of a creative mind we arrive at the ordinary evil of a banally sick mind.
Will John Galliano be able to work again, even though his apologies never seemed sincere? But could they be, since not even his unbearable insults seemed so? This mystery will never be clarified, since John Galliano himself, who wants to appear authentic in front of the camera, will never be able to explain his words.
High and lowtreatise on ambiguity
In both his documentaries and his fictional works, Kevin Macdonald demonstrates a fascination with personalities caught up in contradictions with extremely serious consequences. Of the African dictator in The last king of Scotland to the Guantánamo prisoner unjustly detained Found guiltythe director questions the truth of an existence. An inaccessible horizon, but one that strives to be drawn. Can we be both victims and perpetrators? A mass criminal and a liberator? Can we, like John Galliano, be one of the greatest artists of the 20th century and simply an idiot who succumbed to anti-Semitism and ordinary racism? The answer is yes.
As Kevin Macdonald indicated during a short question and answer session following the presentation of Ups and Downs – John Gallianohis first idea was to explore the notion of “erase culture“But, soon, his documentary became something else. So, instead of dwelling on the mechanisms of “cancellation”, Ups and Downs – John Galliano he is rather interested in the “question”, or rather in the opposite concept to “cancelling culture”: the separation between man and artist.
A film to eliminate the trap of “separation”
Ups and Downs – John Galliano responds to the – hypocritical – question of the separation between man and artist. No, this separation does not exist and has absolutely no basis. Giovanni Galliano, genius of beautyartist and employee of Dior who, almost single-handedly, brought high fashion out of its niche, gave birth to a new generation of designers and made millions of people dream while earning billions for this sector, he is also a man suffering from alcoholism and loneliness, whose intelligence is limited to his art, a stupid and unbearable individual in many ways. He is all of these things at the same time, and in perfectly equal ways.
As this masterful documentary shows, some forgave him, others did not. John Galliano apologized to some and failed to do so to others. Today, he still doesn’t know how to explain his words that have lost himapart from the alcohol and pills he drank. Eleven years after his ouster from Dior, in 2022, he is allowed to access the archives of the prestigious haute couture house and review his creations. His face distorted by years of excess and cosmetic surgery then contorts and tears cloud his frightened eyes. Like a child he embraces Fatima, his Parisian governess when he was at the top. His throat is tight, his voice is shaking and his hands are shaking, the words are struggling to come out.
John Galliano in the end appears as detestable as he is admirable, unforgivable and touching, brilliant and imbecile, human and non-human. We will think and judge what we want about the man and the extraordinary portrait Kevin Macdonald paints of him, but one thing is certain: that’s all the complexity of the human conditiontold in an important film.
Source: Cine Serie
Ray Ortiz is a journalist at Gossipify, known for his coverage of trending news and current events. He is committed to providing readers with accurate and unbiased reporting, and is respected for his ability to keep readers informed on the latest news and issues.
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