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Matt Tyrnauer exposes Valentino as 'The Last Emperor'
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Valentino and his lifelong business partner Giancarlo Giammetti (right)
during a fitting in his design studio in Rome, 2006.
(Courtesy of Acolyte Films)
You would think that the documentary Valentino: The Last Emperor would be a candid glitz-fest of Valentino’s last collection before he took his final bow in 2008. Instead, it’s an intimate look at Valentino Garavani's personal life, with fashion as a supporting character.
We see him laugh. We see him cry. We see him as a diva. But most of all we see him illustrated as a normal person with feelings. For those of you who are yearning for some Project Runway-esque action, there are scenes of him sketching and draping and there are some cameos of the Hollywood starlets he has dressed (Gwyneth, Anne, Julia, et al), but the meat of the documentary is all about Valentino and his relationship with his business partner and companion Giancarlo Giammetti.
Matt Tyrnauer is the reason why this documentary came to be. As a longtime editor and writer for Vanity Fair (and a former film student), Tyrnauer wrote a piece in the magazine about Valentino right before he sent his final collection down the runway – but he felt that it was a story that should go beyond the written word.
“When I was doing the piece on him, I thought that it was bigger,” said Tyrnauer. “It was a cinemascope movie: the lifestyle, the personality, the relationship with Giancarlo – I just kept thinking this has to be recorded for posterity.”
Seeing as though Tyrnauer and Valentino maintained a good rapport after his Vanity Fair piece, he decided, on a whim, to ask Valentino and Giancarlo if they were up for being a part of a documentary.
Valentino backstage after his pret-a-porter show. Paris, March 2007. (Courtesy of Acolyte Films)
“They said yes and I started immediately so they wouldn’t change their minds,” quips Tyrnauer. “I think that they thought nothing much would come of it because I never made a movie before. They thought it would be an interesting enough experiment.”
Little did both parties know, the experiment would turn into an acclaimed documentary. But before it hit the festival circuit, there was some red tape that Tyrnauer had to go through. Besides the year of contract negotiations, Tyrnauer had an even bigger hurdle to jump: Valentino’s approval. He wanted to make the documentary as honest and fair as possible but he says being fair is always subjective.
“If you wanted to make a movie that was completely objective, what are you going to do? Just let the camera roll like a nanny cam at someone’s house?” explains Tyrnauer. “But I think (the film) is fair. I think it’s a portrait as any movie is.”
Valentino at work with his seamstresses. Rome, January 2006. (Courtesy of Acolyte Films)
It didn’t take that long for Valentino and Giancarlo to get used to cameras. Tyrnauer says that reality TV in Italy is bigger than it is in the U.S. The fashion public may be surprised to know that Valentino loves those cheesy reality shows. That said, he knew the idea of reality entertainment, but as for serious documentary filmmaking, Tyrnauer said it doesn't have a strong presence in the Italian culture.
“An animal movie is a documentary to them,” says Tyrnauer. “They were thinking more fashion TV. I was thinking more of something that is a piece. They got really upset. They went on their own time schedule and when your making a movie, it’s inconvenient. We got ribbed all the time – but you survive that.”
As for Valentino and Giancarlo’s initial reaction to the film, they weren’t exactly jumping for joy. As Tyrnauer puts it, the couple “freaked up.”
Even so, Trynauer looks at this as a good thing, “He didn’t like the movie the first time he saw it so that’s an indication of some honesty,”
After the L.A. premiere, Valentino started to warm up to the film. Tyrnauer says that Valentino gave a moving speech at the premiere and said, “When I first saw this movie, I did not like it and now that I have seen it with the audiences and see how much they love it, I have come to understand that it is an honest portrayal.”
During the film, we see all sides of Valentino; including his ferocious fashion designer diva – which is something that movie-going crowds are probably craving.
“Valentino had a meltdown at noon and 4:45 p.m. everyday on the dot,” jokes Tyrnauer. “We watched all 270 hours and tried to make a story. It was all about telling a story out of raw footage. We transcribed the entire movie on index cards. Anything that’s said in the film was put on a card. All the cards were color-coded according to the city (it was filmed in) and dated. We pretty much edited the movie on paper and we put it on the wall. We found our story that way. In the story, we needed to have these inflexion points; these dramas – and Valentino creates these dramas. It’s part of his personality.”
Valentino on the set of his haute couture show, a reminiscence of his 1967 groundbreaking advertising campaign. Paris, January 2006. (Courtesy of Acolyte Films)
In one dramatic moment, Valentino and Giancarlo have a little spat about a sand dune set for his fashion shows. Valentino isn’t satisfied with it and Giancarlo insists that it’s a good idea. Tyrnauer knew that would be in the movie and used it as a jumping off point for more revelatory scenes.
In another scene, Valentino sees his life work on faceless mannequins hung on a wall and his meltdown isn’t because he’s a Prima Donna; it’s because it’s about the mortality of his work.
“For me, it was the heaviness and deeper implications of that situation that were much more significant than the frivolousness of someone freaking out in front of the camera,” says Tyrnauer about the incident. “That was a very loaded scene. People feel it too. He’s not mad that the camera is there. He’s blaming the camera for something that’s shaking his soul. In his opinon, his work is being ruined and on top of it all, it looked like a mausoleum. That shook him to his core.”
Despite all the drama, the film has been lauded at the Venice Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. It also won for Best Documentary at the 2008 Chicago Film Festival. Oprah even gave the documentary her stamp of approval. It's no wonder that within one week, the movie has expanded to 25 cities; a number that is sure to grow even more.
Valentino poses for the photographers in front of his red dresses for the opening of his retrospective exhibit at the Ara Pacis museum in Rome, July 2007. (Courtesy of Acolyte Films)
Strip away the meltdowns, the uber-skinny models, the celebrity wattage and the impeccable fashion and the documentary is all about removing that velvet rope between the public and Valentino.
“It’s a love story with fashion as the backdrop,” says Tyrnauer. “You don’t know until you watch it with paying audiences. It’s very unexpected because no one knew. Only insiders knew about (Valentino and Giancarlo’s) relationship. People connect to it and find Valentino very sympathetic. He himself said, ‘You see me as I am.’”
Valentino: The Last Emperor is now playing at San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center Cinema located at One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level.
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