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Source: Wall Street Journal

Terry Gilliam: ‘Most People Don’t Experience What True Obsession Is’

Eyewear brand Persol, recognizable to style watchers and cinemaphiles alike as the company behind Steve McQueen’s specs and Marcello Mastroianni’s La Dolce Vita chic, debuted an exhibition in honor of cinematic artifacts in Chelsea.

“Persol Magnificent Obsessions: 30 Stories of Craftmanship in Film,” will be open to the public at Chelsea’s Center 548 through Sunday, June 19 before traveling to Paris and Milan. The exhibit features mixed-media looks at past “obsessions,” from sound design (Alan Splet and Ann Kroeber’s soundscape for “Blue Velvet”) to costume design (Milena Canonero’s sumptuous clothes for ‘Marie Antoinette,’ whose color palette was taken from a box of macarons) to set design (Mark Friedberg’s use of Rajasthani craftsmen to decorate ‘The Darjeeling Limited’). The exhibition’s theme is linked to Persol’s message about its products’ artisanal values and the 30 manual steps required to make one pair of glasses.

The opening night’s guest of honor, director Terry Gilliam, was quick to talk about his reputation for cinematic obsessions. “I liked the idea of something about cinema and obsession,” the director said on the rooftop terrace, during a quiet moment before the party kicked into high gear. “It’s a term that gets used a lot but most people don’t experience what true obsession is.”

“Ideas take me over. They possess me,” he said. And once ideas take over, it’s a battle to “clear it out.” When it works, there’s a film to show for it. “Other things, you work on for years and it doesn’t happen. Those are the ones that take a lot of energy out of you. There’s been several of those.”

“I’m not a director for hire,” Gilliam said. “I only do films when I’m obsessed or possessed. I’m always impressed with directors for hire. They take any old thing and show up for every day. I have to be driven, because I don’t like getting up to work every day.” He laughs softly.

That seemed as good a segue as any to ask Gilliam about his most recent work, a short film funded by an Italian pasta company. Trailers for “The Wholly Family” are online, showing a typically whimsical off-kilter Gilliam spectacle, with dancing clowns, a wide-eyed child and puppets. Gilliam said the company, Garofalo, only had two requests: That the film take place in Naples and no one dies. It was not different, the director says, than seeing Warner Bros. before the credits. Last summer, Gilliam directed a web cast of an Arcade Fire concert, which was presented by American Express.

This could signal the start of more corporations moving into funding films that blur the line between ads and films. “There’s no product placement. It’s just a movie,” Gilliam said. “There’s so many commercials coming out. So why not be a patron of the arts?”

“It’s as if we’re moving back into the era of the Medicis, and big corporations are thinking, well, if we can support the arts or something interesting, it will reflect on them,” the director said. And as for the directors: “Wherever the money comes from, we go.”

The director, who jokes that’s he’s currently jobless and looking, was hopeful that “The Damnation of Faust,” his debut as an opera director, now currently playing to London crowds, and with upcoming dates in Italy and Belgium, may eventually have its day stateside.

Persol Press Release For “Magnificent Obsessions: 30 Stories of Craftmanship in Film”

Source Persol

June 17, 2011
PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS.
30 stories of craftsmanship in film

The first in a series of three exhibitions, PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS. 30 stories of craftsmanship in film uncovers 10 stories of obsessive craftsmanship within filmmaking.
The exhibits offer the opportunity to view rarely seen artifacts from some of cinema’s most iconic films, as well as behind the scenes research notes, sketches, video interviews and materials used in the development process by some of the world’s greatest filmmakers.

Curated by Michael Connor, Persol Magnificent Obsessions. 30 stories of craftsmanship in film aims to show whether making a film or a pair of sunglasses, it is only through the uncompromising drive for perfection that one can truly create a work of art. The exhibition will explore the many steps – from an actor’s immersion in character research to the meticulous detailing of a costume designer – to create an icon. Iconic characters, iconic sounds and visuals, iconic scenes, costumes, and props, the exhibition will showcase how each step can take hours, weeks or months of painstaking research and craftsmanship to develop.

This is a theme close to the heart of Persol, a brand that for nearly a century has been linked to the film, art and creative worlds, with a long tradition of Italian design, craftsmanship and engineering. Just as each film emerges from a team of individuals combining their talent, dedication and creativity, at the Persol factory in Lauriano, Northern Italy, every pair of sunglasses passes through the hands of at least 15 highly trained craftsmen, each making their own personal contribution. It takes a minimum of 30 steps to create a pair of Persols, each step carried out by hand.

Among the celebrated stories are those of Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero, who designed hundreds of elaborate costumes for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, taking the entire color palette from a box of macaroons. And director Terry Gilliam, not just for his creation of a timeless dystopian vision in Brazil, but for his dogged battle with the film’s US studio to see its release, and preserve its less than audience-friendly ending. The exhaustive preparation and dedication to the art of award-winning acting, performances by Robert De Niro (unhinged Vietnam War vet Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver) and Sir Ben Kingsley (Gandhi), are also examined through a series of artifacts, video exhibits and a large-scale installation.

The brand was born in Turin in 1917, just as cinema was entering its first Golden Age, and Persol sunglasses went on to play a lead role in some of Italy’s best known films, including La Dolce Vita and Divorce Italian Style. In 1968, Steve McQueen appeared on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair wearing his favourite Persol folding 714 sunglasses, making legends of both the actor and his eyewear. Other notable screen credits for Persol include The Getaway, Casino Royale, Die Another Day, North by North West, The American, Broken Flowers and Ocean’s Thirteen among many others.

Today Persol continues to champion contemporary cinematic excellence as a sponsor of the Venice, Turin and Tribeca Film Festivals, and is working in special partnership with the Museum of the Moving Image.

PERSOL MAGNIFICENT OBSESSIONS. 30 stories of craftsmanship in film exhibition in New York will be open to the public from June 17th until June 19th included.

After New York, the exhibition will travel in Paris late June and Milan late September.