Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. (15.)
Directed by Lorna Turner.
Starring Vivienne Westwood, Joe Corre, Andreas Kronthaler, Carlo D'Amario, Murray Blewett and Kate Moss. 83 mins.
So nebulous is Westwood's reputation – genius to the fashionistas, mad old bat to most everybody else – that this very straightforward film portrait of her functions equally well as fawning celebration and character assassination.
At the beginning the subject bristles at the suggestion of having to talk about her beginnings, “it's so boring.” Fair enough, I doubt Elvis Costello or Paul Weller would have to suffer the P word being shoved into the title of a look back over the four decades of their career. But that doesn't stop her and there's twenty minutes of Malcolm said this, and Johnny said that, culminating in the assertion that punk was all her idea anyway.
Westwood has already disowned the film, despite co-operating fully with it, because the film gives so little attention to the A word in the title. Towards the end we get about 10 minutes of her addressing demos and on a Greenpeace boat in the Arctic surveying the melting ice, but the film is only really interested in her as a fashion world rebel. Maybe this is a kindness on the film maker's part. For all her pronouncements against capitalism and for justice and equality, the film suggests that she must be a difficult woman to work for. (Particularly if, as Private Eye frequently points out, you're one of her many unpaid interns who support her multi-million pound business.) She comes across as a ruthless and demanding boss, though being so from beneath the protective cover of her eccentric image that is a combination of David Hockney, Sue Pollard from Hi De Hi and a libidinous Mary Whitehouse. Early on an underling is upbraided for the small hem of a garment. VW doesn't like small hems, has never liked small hems. The underling initially tries to explain that small hems were in the notes that she took from her, but soon realises that the mistake had, of course, been hers.
I have always been a sucker for a bit of punk nostalgia but as the years roll on, the more I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't at the Screen On The Green for the Pistols gig. Probably the Warhol Factory gang were duller but for all their flobs of fury the Punk contingents were ultimately a bitter little knitting circle that got nowhere. The tint of failure colours the film. Westwood herself comments that the supposed revolutionary nature of punk was actually just another part of the system. You will probably chortle at the moment when the nice lady from the V&A brings out a swastika vest and announces that “This is one of her most important pieces,” but it is also thoroughly depressing. The system always wins, effortlessly soaking up whatever blows you aim at it.
Punk was this great, one-off, almost entirely random pick'n'mix scoop that dredged up far more chancers than talents. After 83 minutes of this, I can't decide whether she was its only true genius or its biggest charlatan. Probably both. She is certainly a one-off, someone who struck her own path and didn't let anyone stand in her way. In Britain, it is the done thing to celebrate eccentrics, no matter how dull or selfish they are. The defining image of the film is of VW standing astride a big white anti-fracking tank, looking for all the world like the mirror image of Margaret Thatcher.
Directed by Lorna Turner.
Starring Vivienne Westwood, Joe Corre, Andreas Kronthaler, Carlo D'Amario, Murray Blewett and Kate Moss. 83 mins.
So nebulous is Westwood's reputation – genius to the fashionistas, mad old bat to most everybody else – that this very straightforward film portrait of her functions equally well as fawning celebration and character assassination.
At the beginning the subject bristles at the suggestion of having to talk about her beginnings, “it's so boring.” Fair enough, I doubt Elvis Costello or Paul Weller would have to suffer the P word being shoved into the title of a look back over the four decades of their career. But that doesn't stop her and there's twenty minutes of Malcolm said this, and Johnny said that, culminating in the assertion that punk was all her idea anyway.
Westwood has already disowned the film, despite co-operating fully with it, because the film gives so little attention to the A word in the title. Towards the end we get about 10 minutes of her addressing demos and on a Greenpeace boat in the Arctic surveying the melting ice, but the film is only really interested in her as a fashion world rebel. Maybe this is a kindness on the film maker's part. For all her pronouncements against capitalism and for justice and equality, the film suggests that she must be a difficult woman to work for. (Particularly if, as Private Eye frequently points out, you're one of her many unpaid interns who support her multi-million pound business.) She comes across as a ruthless and demanding boss, though being so from beneath the protective cover of her eccentric image that is a combination of David Hockney, Sue Pollard from Hi De Hi and a libidinous Mary Whitehouse. Early on an underling is upbraided for the small hem of a garment. VW doesn't like small hems, has never liked small hems. The underling initially tries to explain that small hems were in the notes that she took from her, but soon realises that the mistake had, of course, been hers.
I have always been a sucker for a bit of punk nostalgia but as the years roll on, the more I thank my lucky stars that I wasn't at the Screen On The Green for the Pistols gig. Probably the Warhol Factory gang were duller but for all their flobs of fury the Punk contingents were ultimately a bitter little knitting circle that got nowhere. The tint of failure colours the film. Westwood herself comments that the supposed revolutionary nature of punk was actually just another part of the system. You will probably chortle at the moment when the nice lady from the V&A brings out a swastika vest and announces that “This is one of her most important pieces,” but it is also thoroughly depressing. The system always wins, effortlessly soaking up whatever blows you aim at it.
Punk was this great, one-off, almost entirely random pick'n'mix scoop that dredged up far more chancers than talents. After 83 minutes of this, I can't decide whether she was its only true genius or its biggest charlatan. Probably both. She is certainly a one-off, someone who struck her own path and didn't let anyone stand in her way. In Britain, it is the done thing to celebrate eccentrics, no matter how dull or selfish they are. The defining image of the film is of VW standing astride a big white anti-fracking tank, looking for all the world like the mirror image of Margaret Thatcher.
