Reviews of This Is It, which was released today, are surprisingly unified, and follow an almost formulaic move from eulogy into gentle critique. Most marvel at Jackson's apparent health, his vitality and good humor. By all accounts, This Is It shows Jackson at his best; he is surprisingly springy at 50, and does not reveal in his voice or motion the coming tragedy. Viewers hoping for a glimpse into the causes behind Jackson's sudden death may well be disappointed, although there is a certain amount of pathos for the most schadenfreude-starved among us. As in life, critics oscillate between praising his talents and falling into the inevitable discussion of his strange physical appearance. But it seems that this friction, the weirdness of watching a dead man who exudes life, yet looks so totally spent, is part of what drives the film.

However, die-hard fans will find a lot to love in director Kenny Ortega's film, which, viewers are informed at the beginning, was never intended for public viewing. The clips were all shot for Jackson's personal use, to document the behind-the-scenes action as he prepared to launch his 50-concert series. While it may not exactly reveal the real MJ, there are moments that offer valuable insight into Jackson's technique. Hollywood insiders who were lucky enough to view the film Monday had good things to say about its contents. "It is the single most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen," wrote Elizabeth Taylor on Twitter. "It cements forever Michael's genius in every aspect of creativity." Jackson's brothers had even higher praise: "It was closure for me," said Marlon Jackson. "And it was a moment where I just felt his spirit inside of me. And that made me feel good."

USA Today

Even when just marking his movements, Jackson shows signs of the physical and vocal fluidity and sheer charisma that he retained. Watching him work with his band and backup singers and dancers, one senses the excitement and joy that talented performers can bring to the often grueling process of assembling a show.

Jackson's creative team and crew emerge as engaging personalities in rehearsal and interview segments that are surprisingly funny or moving. (Jackson himself reveals a sense of humor that mitigates his more eccentric traits.)

The Guardian

The big fear, though, was that fulsome homages to the man and his talent would smother This Is It in a coating of treacle; thankfully, Ortega limits it to the occasional sobbing outburst from the dancers or choreographers. We are instead offered genuinely interesting tidbits of Jackson's stagecraft, in the shape of intense discussion of cues, cherry-pickers and trapdoors – presumably to demonstrate how hands-on he was.

Yahoo

Even though Jackson's looks - with his weirdly delicate face and his stick-thin frame - still makes one squirm with discomfort, once he starts to perform, that discomfort gives way to amazement. At 50, Jackson was still an amazingly gifted dancer with moves that leave your mouth agape. Though we only see him do the moonwalk once, and just fleetingly, his stop-on-a-dime spins, deft footwork and body jerks recall the Jackson the world fell in love with 25 years earlier with "Thriller." And Jackson's voice still dazzles - even when he's trying to play it down.

Time

Ortega and Jackson had some Berkeley-size production numbers in mind. A version of "Smooth Criminal" interpolates Michael into antique movie clips with Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. "They Don't Care About Us" sends 1,100 CGI soldiers marching down a kind of Champs Elysees whose Arc de Triomphe is bent into an M for Michael. "Thriller" was to boast 3-D effects. And "Earth Song," the rainforest message number, has a dewy child (a girl, if you're wondering) facing down a bulldozer, which was then to motor toward the front of the stage, ready to devour the star. 'Save Michael, he seemed to be saying, and save the planet.

But the coolest moments show Jackson unadorned and unplugged. He sings "Human Nature" nearly a capella, blending vocal virtuosity and a choirboy's clarity; there's nothing false about his falsetto. His terpsichore leads viewers through how-the-hell-does-he-do-that? astonishment into a mute appreciation of Jackson's ability to channel Fred Astaire's nonchalant elegance and fit it to the percussive drive of R&B. He gives dancing class and sex.

Telegraph

The film (produced in association with the Michael Jackson Company) carries the dedication: "For the fans." Quite so: non-believers will find little of interest here. Would Jackson would have completed all 50 strenuous London shows had he lived? On this evidence, the jury's out.

AP

The film captures Jackson dressed with customary flamboyance, his fashion flourishes including military epaulets, sequins and gold-spangled pants.

Jackson backup dancer Misha Gabriel said the film is "such an honest and raw look at the creative process that at times it makes me think that maybe he wouldn't want people to see so much of the creative process before it was finalized. But I think that's the beauty of the film."

"It's Michael becoming great, perfecting his perfection, if that makes sense," said fellow dancer Nick Bass.

The Wrap

We say goodbye to both Michaels, now. We take all that weird but mostly sad baggage. And we dump it. We don't think about the cardiac arrest, the reports of propofol, lorazepam and midazolam (he went from creating chemistry to becoming it), and charges of homicide.

We dump it all, because death asks our forbearance. Death forces us to say goodbye to what was good. Watching Jackson in rehearsal, it's hardly a stretch. To watch him in this movie is to see — and yet never quite fully capture, and that's the mystique of it — what all the fuss has always been about.

L.A. Times

Jackson's total lack of engagement with the cameras adds to the unreal mood. He's always performing, but for the imagined masses, not for the filmgoer.

Not reaching those masses was the final tragedy of Jackson's life. Occasionally, he's shown offering creative direction to his collaborators, and the steel in his voice reveals how much the world he was creating onstage meant to him. Everything, really: enough to push himself to the edge of human endurance.

The film, which aired on PBS last night, stars Rocky Otoo, 17, who lives in the Bronx with her mother. Her mom works in a beauty supply store and is known as Auntie Yaa. Although Rocky's a stellar student who edited her school's newspaper, starred in its musical, played basketball and has a full college scholarship, her mother thinks she's insolent and insufficiently respectful. Rocky thinks her mother is old-world and doesn't understand her.


Her father, meanwhile, has returned to Ghana to take over the chiefdom of his community. Rocky looks forward to staying with him, because she feels her father understands her better.
However, she soon clashes with her father, too, and feels out of place. It takes her a while to begin to feel at home; when she does, she begins to understand her mother a little more.


Once home, Rocky starts at a picture-perfect college that's as white as they come. (Dickinson.) She's the first person in her family to go to college, and her parting with her mom is emotional. The culture clash between her mother and the well-intentioned college orientation woman is kind of painful.

And yes, Rocky's roommate is fascinated by her hair. Which she touches.


By the time Rocky comes home for vacation, she and her mother seem to have come to an understanding. In the two years since the film was made, Rocky has apparently thrived: she's become a women's and gender studies major, is an officer of the African American Society, on the step team, and a regular contributor to a campus feminist magazine. In other words: the kids are alright. The entire film, by the way, is now online.

Related: Bronx Princess [PBS]
Full Description [PBS]
Film Update [PBS]

The film, which opens today in New York and in other cities on September 11, follows Anna Wintour and the staff at Vogue during the eight months it took to construct the September 2007 issue, the largest magazine ever produced. It's believed that Wintour allowed director R.J. Cutler, who produced The War Room, such unprecedented access because she was trying to rehabilitate her image after The Devil Wears Prada or because her contract is up this year. Many reviews mention that Wintour comes off as cold and direct, but there aren't really any outrageous diva moments. However, creative director Grace Coddington emerges as the hero of the film.

Coddington is a red-haired former model from North Wales whose career was cut short by a car accident. She and Wintour started on the same day at Vogue, and she is now the only person who routinely stands up to her. Though some critics complained that the film's focus on their workplace conflicts isn't really all that dramatic since there was never a question as to whether or not the issue would be completed on time, most said it was entertaining. The film doesn't offer a scathing expose of Wintour, Vogue, or the fashion industry in general, but for those fascinated by how Wintour influences desigers' collections or why she decides to reconstruct Sienna Miller's cover shot in Photoshop, it's the most revealing portrait we're likely to see.

Below, check out what the critics are saying:

Variety

Some juicier behind-the-scenes drama and a more revealing examination of the creative process might have bulked up The September Issue,... But what remains is still a dishy and engrossing peek inside the fashion world's corridors of power — every bit as slickly packaged as the publication it seeks to uncover — that should rivet couture enthusiasts in endless trips down the cable runway... Like the hit movie version of The Devil Wears Prada, The September Issue often resorts to bubble-gum montages (edited by Azin Samari), hurling evening wear, headdresses and pop songs at the screen and inviting the viewer to get lost in the magnificent chicness of it all. The clothes are fab, to be sure. But a more rigorous, analytical approach would have offered more insight into Wintour's aesthetic criteria (about the only concrete thing we learn is that she likes fur and hates black) and reinforced her belief, shared early on, that fashion is more than just expensive fluff.

The Hollywood Reporter

Cutler navigates Vogue's predominantly feminine realm with aplomb, concentrating as much on the magazine's publishing process as the fashion angle. His observational approach captures a wealth of revealing moments between magazine staffers, designers, photographers and stylists, sometimes to the participants' palpable chagrin... The digital production clearly benefits from the format's mobility, as cinematographer Bob Richman seeks out subjects' most telling glances and gestures, then opens the frame to absorb the glamour and excitement of haute couture fashion shows and photo shoots. Editor Azin Samari stylishly distills hundreds of hours of footage into a vibrantly energetic narrative.

Time Out New York

The people on display here are neither lionized nor criticized. Cutler just lets them be, and so our interest lives or dies on how fascinating we find the world they belong to. Indeed, once you're hip to Wintour's approach (cruelly cold and distant in the office, benevolently cold and distant at home) she becomes a fairly monotonous presence. The doc's breakout star is Vogue creative director Grace Coddington, a former model whose plain appearance (the end result of a horrible car accident) and frumpy clothing belie her genius for fashion. She counters her boss every chance she can get and provides the film with a much-needed emotional center.

The Wall Street Journal

Despite the movie's use of bulletins, apparently to add a sense of urgency and suspense to the proceedings-three months until the close of the issue, six weeks, a month, a week, etc.-it's a completely false sense of urgency. None of the doings on-screen suggest a desperate race against the clock. A larger problem is that fashion is all about the moment-thismoment. The September Issue is old news, all the more so given the recent recession-driven transformation of the magazine landscape.
Because Ms. Wintour's lightest word is law-this keeps meetings brief and conversations briefer-and because the magazine's staff communicates in the shorthand of glances and gestures and seems experienced at heading trouble off at the pass, nothing much happens in The September Issue.

New York Post

R.J. Cutler's documentary never does catch Wintour lashing an assistant with her belt or any of the other dirty doings you know she gets up to when there isn't a camera in her face. But if a syllable could kill (and it can, can't it?), the movie would be the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of the stiletto-heeled and dagger-toothed... Wintour evidently consented to the film as counterpropaganda to the movie The Devil Wears Prada, which came out the year before, but that strategy is like curing a whiskey spree with a beer. The September Issue is milder, but its cast of husky-voiced women and shrill men still generate plenty of chuckles.

Time

Is it possible that Wintour isn't so much a sponge-squeezing killjoy as simply ... an editor? She names decisiveness as her greatest strength, and the movie shows her making good decisions, rapidly and repeatedly. The first picture Wintour vetoes from Coddington's treasured shoot is distractingly fussy and rococo. Grace mopes, but the magazine benefits. At the film's climax, Cutler plays up the drama of Coddington's refusal to allow an appealing but not-quite-model-standard image to be digitally nipped and tucked at Wintour's request. It's lively storytelling, except that Wintour's suggestion seems more like playful banter - an attempt to be charming for the documentary crew - than an edict.

NPR

Though most will visit R.J. Cutler's subtle, supple documentary hoping to peek beneath the formidable bangs of Vogueeditor Anna Wintour, they will be disappointed: This is a movie whose ambitions range wider than the contents of her guarded psyche... But a life dedicated to selling outrageously expensive clothing to averagely compensated women demands a personality programmed to repress, and the portrait that emerges is that of a brilliant and influential woman whose mind is as masked as her runway-show presence. We see no partner, no home life, no friends and no indication of her beliefs or worldview. Whenever a flicker of emotion disturbs her glacial surface, it's quickly contained: a flash of defensiveness when comparing her work to that of her siblings (a political editor at The Guardian, a low-income housing advocate, a labor organizer), and a fleeting sadness when her daughter, Bee, announces a preference for legal briefs over the designer variety. If Wintour's prodigious self-control were the primary emotion on view, The September Issuewould quickly alienate all but the most Ungaro-obsessed. But Cutler - and his movie - are clearly more drawn to the magazine's senior creative director, Grace Coddington, whose gorgeous layouts are continually getting bumped in favor of the celebrity du jour.

Entertainment Weekly

Is she a diva, a bitch? The devil in Prada? (If my eyes don't deceive me, she seems to prefer Lagerfeld.) Well, she's a devil only if you think there's something nasty about a woman who's paid a royal salary to elevate her every whim into a command. The September Issueis organized so that we observe the ruthlessness, the high perfectionistic logic, of each decision Wintour makes. There's not enough color in that collection! Why does this layout feature only one fur garment? - it looks out of place! "I don't see any real evening on that rack," she tells a quivering Yves Saint Laurent designer. No casual comment about after-dark wear was ever such a threat. Yet Wintour isn't mean; she simply means what she says.

If she were just pushing people around, we might look on with derision (or fear), but part of the movie's dishy fun is that there's room for more than one ego in the room. André Leon Talley, who is Wintour's consigliere and editor-at-large, isa bitch (I mean that as a compliment), a witty postmodern man so neurotic about swaddling his giant physique that he can't play tennis without draping a designer towel over his shoulders. And if Wintour is the film's subject, its true heroine is Grace Coddington, Vogue's passionate and addled creative director. A former model (like Wintour herself) who rose up in the 1960s glory days of swinging London, Coddington now looks like a Pre-Raphaelite ghost. It's she who orchestrates the magazine's photo shoots, which are like eroticized couture dioramas that fuse the past and the future... I came away from The September Issue liking Anna Wintour more than I thought I would, but mostly with an appreciation for her mission: not just to sell magazines, to market clothing and style, but to give femininity its sheen.

Salon

R.J. Cutler's vibrant and mischievous documentary The September Issue is only partly a movie about fashion. At its heart, it's really a movie about work, about the ways individuals compete with, grate against and inspire one another in the workplace. What really drives Cutler's picture is the dynamic between Wintour and her right-hand woman, creative director Grace Coddington, who has, for more than 20 years (she started at American Vogue at the same time Wintour did, in 1988), been the mastermind behind the magazine's most imaginative fashion spreads. Wintour may be the elusive minx who first captured Cutler's interest. But with Coddington as the other half of this highly mismatched tag team, Cutler has struck documentary gold. Coddington — a former model and flame-haired Welsh giantess who pads around the Vogue office in billowy black trousers and sturdy flat sandals, a chic but earthbound contrast to Wintour in her tiny, fur-trimmed jackets and spiky heels — is the not-so-secret star of The September Issue. Radiating equal parts flamboyance and good common sense, Coddington needles Wintour in a way no one else on staff dares. Their working relationship is an uneasy chemistry of mutual regard and know-it-all stubbornness, a fascinating model — not easily described, nor, alas, readily reproducible — of the way creativity and friction can coexist in the workplace.

The Village Voice

The quick peeks into Her Highness's inner life break up Cutler's too-often-rushed, montage-heavy countdown of the frenzied months leading up to that behemoth issue's close, capturing the desperate attempts of Voguestaffers to please their boss and their singular, gnomic pronouncements at meetings: "The jacket is the new coat." Even Vogue's queenly editor-at-large, André Leon Talley must bend to Madame's will, explaining his presence on a tennis court: "Miss Wintour said I had to lose weight. What Miss Wintour says, goes." But not always. Grace Coddington, Vogue's creative director and the only one who dares to say no-if not always directly-to Wintour, emerges as The September Issue's true star, or at least the player with the greatest resolve, a devoted romantic who still has the sanest perspective on the industry... Coddington is especially gifted at manipulating the presence of Cutler's crew to get what she wants from her boss.

The A.V. Club

[The Devil Wears Prada] readers might wonder why a figure as legendarily image-conscious and remote as Wintour might open herself up to the scrutiny of a documentary, but the fashion/publishing icon makes it through September with her privacy and secrets intact. Director R.J. Cutler maintains a respectful distance from Wintour and similarly compelling subjects, like model turned Voguecreative director Grace Coddington and towering, iconic editor-at-large André Leon Talley. Cutler is in the enviable position of having arguably too many fascinating documentary subjects, but while Septemberis never boring, it's also superficial. The internal machinations of Voguemight be too much for a single documentary to handle; a multi-part TV documentary series might have given the folks behind the camera more time and space to flesh out these colorful characters and let audiences decide for themselves whether they love or hate Wintour, or fall somewhere in between.

The New York Times

Most of the truly ugly stuff in fashion - the models starving themselves, the exploited Chinese workers cranking out couture fakes and the animals inhumanely slaughtered for their fur - remains unnoted in The September Issue, much as it often does in Vogue. And while the movie shuns any overt discussion of money, it includes an instructive scene of Ms. Wintour playing the coquette with one of the magazine's important advertisers. Of course it really is all about money. Despite being crammed with glossy images of beautiful, weird, unattractive, ridiculous and prohibitively expensive clothes and accessories, Vogue isn't about fashion: it's about stoking the desire for those clothes and accessories. It's about the creation of lust and the transformation of wants into needs. Almost everything in this temple of consumption, including its lavish layouts and the celebrities who now most often adorn its covers, hinges on stuff for sale. Some of that stuff comes with a price tag, but some of it is more ephemeral because Vogue is also in the aspiration business. Mr. Cutler doesn't notice or doesn't care about any of that, which makes his movie as facile as it is fun.

As Cathy Horyn writes in today's New York Times, the September 2007 issue of Vogue was the largest issue ever: 840 pages. The cover proclaimed, "Fearless Fashion." Horyn says the issue, in the film,

...has all the gaiety of the "Titanic" two miles out to sea, with a spread on Sienna Miller in Rome, pages of models leaping in the new fall clothes, and a reflective piece by Plum Sykes on brooches.

Obviously times have changed. Today, NY Post media columnist Keith Kelly reports:

Conde Nast is reeling from what is expected to be a loss of 5,000 ad pages this year, translating into a revenue shortfall of between $275 million and $350 million — and very likely pushing the publishing giant into the red.

Vogue is one of the magazines whose ad pages are down; and in The September Issue, viewers see Anna Wintour spend, spend, spend. When Wintour cuts a photo shoot, the magazine's creative director, Grace Coddington sighs, "They've probably thrown out $50,000 worth of work," according to today's Gatecrasher column. And, notes Horyn, magazines like Vogue have always "readily projected a spare-no-expense mentality to help maintain their status." She continues:

A fashion shoot at a magazine like Vogue, or Vanity Fair, or W, can easily cost $150,000. Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, has killed shoots that didn't meet her standards and ordered them reshot. Such creative excess serves Vogue's star image, like the Town Cars waiting outside Condé Nast, and apparently has been condoned by management so long as revenues are high… It may be difficult for outsiders to appreciate the logic in fashion shoots that require a team of 30 photographic assistants, digital producers, lighting experts, hairstylists, makeup artists, a manicurist, editorial gofers and caterers to feed everyone. It's not uncommon at a top American magazine, editors say, to spend $5,000 a day just on food at a shoot.

But these days, there's a recession afoot. And last we heard, Vogue's September 2009 issue will only be around 450 pages — almost half of what it was 2 years ago — making The September Issue not only a documentary of what it takes to make a fashion magazine, but, quite possibly, evidence of the end of an era.

Still Fearless at Vogue? [NY Times]
Vogue's Anna Wintour's Power On Display In Film 'The September Issue' [Gatecrasher]
Sea Of Red At Conde [NY Post]

Earlier: September Ladymags: "Looking Thin"
5 Guesses Why Vogue Is Hurting
In Vogue: Things Learned From The September Issue, September Issue Trailer
The September Issue Less Than Flattering?

This documentary has long been touted as showing a side of Paris we've never seen before, but it turns out that side must not exist. We already know she was embarrassed about the sex tape, cries when she reads mean gossip about herself, and gets frustrated by the paparazzi. Also, no joke: her cheeks often twitch from smiling so hard on the red carpet. In the clip above, Paris prepares to be interviewed by "a writer (she) hates," who sharp-eyed media watchers will recognize as current bestselling author Paula Froelich, who just left the NY Post gossip column Page Six after a decade of helping people like Paris Hilton have any career at all.

The documentary is a thrown-together mess of black and white montages of Paris in front of flashbulbs while sad music plays as if she's recently died a tragic death; footage of Paris complaining about the paparazzi while driving her car around LA; and arcane commentary by insiders like Page Six's Richard Johnson, Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, Donald Trump, and Paris's crisis publicist Eliot Mintz, who, with his Botox-overdosed face, lack of eyelashes, and slow creepy voice is a dead ringer for Jigsaw in the Saw movies. The commentators are to be forgiven for the "so 2005" nature of their observations about our celebrity-obsessed culture, because at least some of this movie was actually filmed back then! It's just been sitting on the shelf waiting for a distributor until finally MTV stepped up and paid probably a thousand bucks for it. Because the parts of it that aren't totally irrelevant (its subject, for example) are now time-worn cliches. Only one part of the hour-long movie seemed remotely "revealing," and that was this one moment when Paris used what is apparently her real voice, which, yes, okay, sounds unlike her. But this is the only moment:

At one point, Camille Paglia observes that Paris Hilton has a Princess Di-esque uncanny ability to enchant "the still camera," which is underminer language for "pretty, but with no real personality." Like Princess Diana, Paris Hilton is criminally boring when speaking or moving about the world: only the still camera loves her. But it's not the fault of either lady — they just had the bad luck to never be forced to compensate for an insecurity or flaw by becoming interesting. That's the only way interesting happens. If only those two had had a stutter or a back brace, who knows what enchantingly clever and charming and witty creatures they could have been. And since this documentary puzzlingly treats Paris Hilton as if she were already dead, it seems fitting to say: maybe in the next world.

Wiseman, whose films only recently became available to the public in affordable, consumer DVD editions, is a documentary filmmaker of the "purest" tradition: His style is a sort of cinema verité taken almost to an extreme, with long takes, minimal editing (or rather, not particularly obvious editing), and a refusal to insert himself or his crew into the narrative, meaning that he eschews expository voiceovers, showy camera work, or familiar, Hollywood-style transitions. (Michael Moore he is not, although eagle-eyed viewers will catch the shadow or reflection of a boom mike from time to time.) Because of this, his films - which chronicle American institutions, industries, and, in the case of domestic violence, epidemics - can seem slow, plodding, boring or disorienting to some. (The average length of any featured vignette is between 9-13 minutes; edits are not made at expected moments.) But for those with attention, patience, and curiosity - not to mention free holiday weekends - to spare, Wiseman's films can rise to the level of "art".

Wiseman's series on domestic violence, which includes the films Domestic Violence (196 minutes, 2 discs) and Domestic Violence 2 (160 minutes, 2 discs), were filmed in the Tampa, Florida area in the late 90s; the first film focuses on a shelter for abused women and men called The Spring, and it chronicles the intake, counseling, education and other efforts made on behalf of a group of diverse clients as they confront the realities of their situations and move to triumph over them. We meet an elderly lady, married 50 years, who has finally had enough of the abuse she's endured; young mothers who have uprooted themselves and their children to escape their abusers; women on the verge of leaving the shelter to start life anew. All of them are women we might think we recognize, but, as Wiseman's film proves, we actually don't. (As film critic and producer Elvis Mitchell put it in his Times review in 2002, "We think we know these families until one woman talks about her husband's contempt for her education, which includes a doctorate. With that brief fact, dropped simply into conversation as the woman describes her life to a crisis counselor, Domestic Violence immediately shocks us out of our complacency.")

What I was most fascinated, yet wholly unsurprised by - in addition to the utter banality of the evil perpetrated against the women and children featured in the film - is the range of emotions on display by those who were abused, and those committed to helping them. There is no classic, narrative arc to their experiences: Women who have obviously been in recovery for some time seem self-possessed and confident at one moment; withdrawn and lost in another. During group therapy sessions, some clients are animated and engaged; others are bored or distracted. There are stories of physical abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse, sexual abuse; women who confess to being abusers themselves. Moments of catharsis come and go; the way forward seems slow and, at times, frustrating... for victims and counselors alike. It is a human portrait, and the honesty of its characters makes for compelling - and for some, apparently troubling - viewing. (I do agree that the film presents partner abuse as a crime afflicting a disproportionate number of financially-troubled families. Related: the current increase in financial hardships among Americans is also leading to an increase in the severity and number of reports of domestic violence.)

I could go on - and maybe I will at a later point; after all, some of the behaviors and reactions described in the film hit close to home with regards to my own experience of a troubled relationship - but for now I'll just make like Mr. Wiseman and share some of most unforgettable moments from Domestic Violence by simply getting out of my - and the subjects' - way. Some selected clips - in the order in which they appear in the film - below.

Intake.

Counseling session.

Tour group.

Status update, part 1.

Status update, part 2.

Group therapy (economic control and abuse).

Group therapy (emotional control and abuse).

Domestic Violence [Zipporah Films]
Frederick Wiseman [Wikipedia]

Related: Up Close But Too Personal? [St. Petersburg Times]
Domestic Abuse and the Global Financial Crisis [Utne]
U.S. Women's Shelters Link Rise In Abuse To Recession [Reuters]

Ziff's film, Picture Me, premiered at the Gen Art film festival in New York on Monday — and after watching this trailer, I am dying to see it. Ziff's background — her parents are an NYU neurobiologist and a lawyer, and Ziff herself went to high school at Manhattan's tony Dalton school — made her an unusual fit in a profession that, as she explains, makes you feel like "a living doll." And, as she worked in the industry, she began to question its practices: from the probably harmful (in an interview with the Daily Beast, Ziff relates working with a model so young that she was playing with a coloring book) to the abstractly interesting (there's no better demonstration of the power dynamic of the photographer/model relationship than the footage, in the trailer, of Ziff turning her video camera on a backstage lensman who is shooting her). This is a girl who's clearly read her Sontag. (It must have been a struggle to find the time. A brief summary of her very successful career requires mention of everything from Chanel couture and Balenciaga shows, to Delias catalogs, and ads for DKNY and the Gap.)

In Picture Me, Ziff and her co-director, Ole Schell, get models like Diana Dondoe, Tanya Dziahileva, Olga Scherer, Lisa Cant, and Missy Rayder, as well as industry eminences grises like Gilles Bensimon, on tape discussing everything from models' weight (how heartbreaking it is to hear Rayder talking about how she always felt her hips made her stand out from the other girls in the runway lineup) to the realities of becoming the family breadwinner at the ripe old age of 14. (When Schell asks Dziahileva, who is from Belarus, to describe her family's situation prior to her modeling career, she shakes her head no, presumably from shame at her former poverty.) The full film promises to show models addressing topics like agency debt and our vulnerability to the predators who mar the industry. (Topics which are of course close to my heart.)

It helps to know that, for Ziff at least, this is a story with a happy ending. She earned enough money to buy a place of her own in the West Village, and now, at 26, she's studying English and Fine Arts at Columbia. (You can read her contributions to the university paper, the Spectator.)

It's great that a model thought to create the opportunity to talk back to an industry that sometimes leaves you feeling like a professional mute.

The Ugly Truth About Models [The Daily Beast]
Picture Me [Facebook]
Interview With Sara Ziff, Then Aged 19 [ZoneZero]

Frederick Wiseman's 1980 documentary, Model, is one such film.

Wiseman — who tends to study American institutions like the criminal justice system, or education, or public housing, and whose films were recently made available, and affordable, on DVD for home viewing — turned his attention to the modeling industry as it was on the cusp of great change. The agency he follows, Zoli, doesn't even exist anymore; today's powerhouses, like IMG, hadn't been founded. Oscar de la Renta, whose show is featured in the final scenes of the film, wasn't exactly an up-and-coming name at that point, but the backstage preparations, and the proceedings on the runway itself, not to mention the other editorial and presentation jobs featured in the film, seem marked by a kind of enthusiastic near-amateurism that the industry has by now almost completely shed. At Oscar, there are dressers and models dancing as they put on the garments, and the girls do their own makeup — unheard of today. One of them is a young Jerry Hall.

There's also plenty of things that don't change. The nervous girls lining up at agencies with test photos, grasping for the brass ring of representation, for instance. One Zoli booker says that, of the people he sees at open calls, maybe 5% will be offered the chance to work as models, and that in six months' time, as good as half of them will have dropped out for lack of client interest. Wiseman's camera follows young women at open calls, working models at castings and on the sets of editorials, runway shows, and catalogues, and, like all of his other documentaries, never does he intercede with any voice-over narration or staged interviews with the key players — it's as if the whole thing unfolds before your eyes as it happened in real life. Of course, that's an artistic choice, since the whole film is obviously the highly edited creation of an author, but the natural-seeming meandering narrative form has the added element of mimicking the way your career, and your life, goes when you're a working model — never sure of its direction, prone to sudden changes of scene and strange new situations that become clearer only as they are directly experienced.

In this clip, a model a director keeps calling "Apples" (although her name is, I think, Apollonia) poses for a clip at the end of a pantyhose ad. The finished segment is all of three seconds long and is supposed to show a leg kicking up through the still frame, against a white studio background, only it's as though the leg stops in mid-kick at eight different positions, fanning out like a peacock's tail, and of course clad in eight kinds of tights. This simple idea that would now be done with some simple computer post-production tools entails a full day in the studio and unknown hours of video splicing afterwards; the model, who seems to be Eastern European, works like a trooper as the client rep and the director argue over how fishnet will read on camera, and how the lighting should look. The sound guy, the assistant director, the dressers are all on set — there are easily a half-dozen people working long hours to get this tiny blip of an ad-part just right. This scene is one of the best representations I've ever seen of the curious distillation that is the essence of this line of work, the weird collapse of countless hours and untold labor into a few photos in some magazine, or a quick, jaunty, television spot. At the end of this clip, the director finds some reason to start giving a little speech about "the proscenium of the the 30-second commercial" and the split-second discipline it demands of its performers and directors; he's kind of right, but also kind of being an ass, and you can tell the girl is just thinking, Let me change now, so we can get this take over with.

Some things truly never change.

Related: Frederick Wiseman Homepage [Zipporah Films]
Model [Zipporah Films]

The documentary, part of PBS's “Independent Lens” film series, follows five women in an engineering battalion — part of the first "Team Lioness" group which volunteered to accompany male combat units to central Iraq. The women have diverse backgrounds — from supply clerk to West Point grad — but all are thrown into an unprecedented military situation. A Pentagon spokeswoman told the Times, “A recent RAND report confirms that the Army and all other services remain in compliance with the DOD policy regarding the assignment of women in the military" which prohibits female troops from direct combat. But, she continues, “Women will continue to be assigned to units and positions that may necessitate combat actions within the scope of their restricted positioning — situations for which they are fully trained and equipped to respond,”

As the documentary makes clear, in this new military world, with its guerrilla warfare, there is no distinction between "combat" and the discharge of normal duties — which included searching and communicating with Muslim women. As a result, more female soldiers than ever before have ended up in combat, often without adequate training, and are suffering the same consequences as their male counterparts — PTSD and depression. Indeed, statistics from the British Ministry of Defense suggest that female soldiers are affected at a far higher level than their male counterparts. And, by the same token, therapists are not necessarily trained to help women in combat situations where they are not "officially" supposed to be. The film, which airs on November 13th, is apparently not polemical — one of the soldiers profiled says she is very much for women in combat, provided they're trained — but makes the need for scrutiny of women's roles in modern warfare very clear.

Women Soldiers Suffering From More Mental Problems [Telegraph]
Battleground: Female Soldiers In The Line of Fire [New York Times]