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Plot Summary
A portrait of the rise and fall of America's first celebrity designer - Halston. Interviews with Liza Minnelli, Diane Von Furstenberg, Billy Joel & others round out the story of a man who defined beauty & fashion in the 70's.
Credits
Director
Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
40%- Reviews Counted: 20
- Fresh: 8
- Rotten: 12
- Average Rating: 5.0/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: Lost in all this is Halston, who comes through only in dribs and drabs. If you're curious about him, skip this film.
Fresh: This film has a grander trajectory than just about any other fashion doc.
Rotten: A self-indulgent pilgrimage to the shrine of '70s fabulousness, "Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston" assembles a fine assortment of archival material but falls far short of its stated goal.
Rotten: All the ingredients are here for another juicy fashion insider film, but this Halston portrait is diminished by a clueless fame whore determined to wedge himself into the story.
Customer Reviews
green
What could have been a truly interesting documentary on a significant figure in fashion history is ruined by the narrator whose presence in the film is both distracting and annoying. Cathy Horyn, Andre Leon Talley, Harold Koda, and others are not given the proper respect they deserve by allowing them to address an invisible interviewer toward the camera. The depth and generosity of their knowledge is undermined by the immaturity and ego of the narrator.
If you're going to make a film about Halston, have the intelligence, tact, and respect to focus on your subject instead of your costume changes and haircut. The effort to break from traditional documentary format is contrived, self-conscious, cutesy, immature, and ridiculous.
Financial Times review
This is the review from Financial Times, which gave it 4 stars:
You wait all year for a documentary about endangered New York subcultures, then two arrive together. (Pattern of the week). If Page One is a little po-faced, Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston – all about the so-named fashion designer who was the cynosure of 1970s east-coast America (Studio 54, Warhol parties, designing Jackie Kennedy and Liza Minnelli’s clothes) – is peculiar, picaresque and presided over by a self-appointed fashion paradigm.
The filmmaker and onscreen narrator Whitney Sudler-Smith resembles Austin Powers gone stateside. A new 1970s-ish outfit comes with every scene. The coiffed hair is slightly unkempt, as if the blower had been confiscated seconds before completion. Sudler-Smith’s erratic interviewing style – now diffident, now confrontational – leaves perplexed looks on the faces of Minnelli (one-time Halston best friend), Anjelica Huston (one-time Halston model) and others.
The archive footage, though, is delectable. Halston, handsome, louche, disdainful, presides over his creations, whether of fabric or flesh (the models on whom he bestowed fame and earning power), like a gay Hugh Hefner, in penthouse spaces somewhere above Cloud Nine. His office appears to look down on the late World Trade Center. Here he parades the to-die-for dresses. Halston himself died of Aids, soon after a sadly misconceived partnership with downmarket retailers JC Penney. Surviving him were a male lover, a grief-stricken fashion world and now this weird but watchable documentary.
Save your money and go on Wikipedia
My wife and I couldn't even finish this debacle of a documentary. The narrator did absolutely no research. He seemed to make all the respectable and knowledgable people he was interviewing, or rather ambushing, visibly uncomfortable to the point where it was impossible to watch. Thanks for taking a true american icon and portraying him in poor taste. Our hearts go out to anyone interviewed in the film. Do not rent this movie. Read a book!
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