Model (Documentary)
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Producer: Frederick Wiseman
Cinematographer: John Davey
Editor: Frederick Wiseman
Four decades ago, Frederick Wiseman offered a glimpse into the rarefied world of fashion photography, before models were super and image was everywhere.
Aspiring models attend interviews at Manhattan’s Zoli agency. The evaluations are pitiless: some are deemed too short; others, too commercial. Billowing around them are photographers, directors, make-up artists, casting agents – even, at one point, Andy Warhol – all working on the next big thing against the backdrop of a gorgeous and grimy 1980s New York. The hours are long and the work is repetitive, but the lucky few who make it through this ordeal will go on to a life of glamour, money … and much, much more of the same.
Restored to stunning 4K from the original 16mm negatives, Frederick Wiseman’s 1980 documentary may be one of the veteran US filmmaker’s lesser-known works, but it’s an extraordinary snapshot of an industry at a fleeting moment of time. As a meticulous observer of people and images, Wiseman is uniquely suited to capturing the hours-long monotony of take after take that goes into shooting a single photograph – an image as manufactured as Model’s are natural. Dissecting the gap between reality and illusion, Model immerses us in the tantalising intersection between the fantasy of fashion and the moment it disappears in a puff of smoke.
”Wiseman has illustrated, often marvellously, a rat-race perfectly in tune with the commercially-obsessed society within which it operates … Explains a lot more than usual about the world around us.” – The Guardian