Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Cinema Tuesdays {Funny Face}

I love Funny Face! I actually prefer it to An American in Paris for many reasons, excluding the ballet which is brilliantly perfect. If you haven't seen Funny Face (or An American in Paris too) then you are seriously missing out on the best fashion movie ever made and I want you to go and sit in the corner and write an essay explaining why you haven't seen it yet.
The corroboration with Richard Avedon is what sets this musical above other musicals and is what makes it memorable.
After watching the movie dozens of times, you start to notice things that are normally supposed to go unnoticed, like the secretaries' outfits and their hats, especially the one with the scarf.
I wish that Kay Thompson had done more things in front of the cameras. Kay Thompson is fabulous and a real once-in-a-lifetime personality. Anyone disagree?
Dovima is also brilliant and I love how the movie shows behind the scenes at photo shoots, especially the clothespins.
I think that what has gone unnoticed in the film is it's brilliant satire on pop philosophy. Just look at the name of the bookshop.
The great debate: why wasn't AH allowed to sing in My Fair Lady when she did her own singing here and not badly either. Actually, I've never liked My Fair Lady, I've always preferred Pygmalion.
I love this shirt of Kay Thompson's. Just look at the sleeves and the collar.
And her shoes. I want those shoes! Stappy shoes are the best!
This is the main reason why I prefer this film to Mr. Kelly's. Funny Face was actually shot in Paris and the photography is wonderful, especially for "Bonjour Paris".
And it also had dancing tour guides. How brilliant would it be if you could have your own troupe of dancing tour guides when you travelled?
See, location shoots are fun!
One of the required courses I had to take in university was in Philosophy and it happened to be on Existentialism. I spent the entire course feeling like Mr. Astaire did in the café talking to the Empathicalists.
Very few male stars had an instantly recognizable walk. Groucho had his duck walk. James Coburn walked cool. Cary Grant walked like Cary Grant. But Mr. Astaire walked like he was dancing.
I love the chemistry that these two had together, so much fun to watch.
Once he moved into colour, you could really see how sartorial Mr. Astaire was. Like this, with the same shade of blue for his shirt, tie and socks and how it draws attention to his plaid lining.
And how effortlessly his casual wardrobe was, like a scarf as a belt and his socks. I love brightly coloured socks.
Out of all of his dancing partners, AH was the only one who could have danced this number. She looked like she was having fun and didn't care that there were cameras there.
Wouldn't it be great if everyone could have their own personal Givenchy to dress them?
I love this wedding dress and the unique veil with the bow on top.

Check out the double breasted shirt. You don't see many of those around.

The advantage that men's clothing has over women's is that any guy can belong anywhere at night, if he's wearing a tux.
I'm so going to copy this outfit of Kay Thompson's in the fall, if only I could find the right scarf and brooch.

Apparently, Kay Thompson's character was based on Dianna Vreeland and you can tell this in some of the outfits, although Kay Thompson does wear more colours, the suits look similar and Kay Thompson does look like a powerful woman and not a woman in a high powered job trying to look like a man.
I so love her outfit and the red vest is the only colour in this scene.

2 comments:

Melissa Clark said...

Great pick! "Funny Face" is one of my all-time favorites. I think I'll watch it again this weekend, after reading this. :)

Andi B. Goode said...

I absolutely adore this film!
-Andi x