Gentry style

A retrospective at London’s NFT celebrates the film career of Frank Sinatra. While he may have been Mr. Smooth on record, he was one of the fiercest and most intense of screen actors. Below, Gentry look back at the greatest movies of a true performer.

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One of the cinema’s most beguiling and enthralling genres, the gambling movie is always a wild ride, sometimes taking the audience to the the thrilling heights of the winner’s circle and, more often than not, to the lonely lows of the loser’s personal hell. There is something vicariously sumptuous in gambling movies, it’s all about the minutiae, the resplendent details, the simple pleasure of ‘the game’ to be found in the turn of a card or the roll of the dice. It’s a strange kind of cinema, one of direct experience and implied meaning. Below Gentry look back at some of the best gambling movies ever made…

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The Exhibition: Vanity Fair Portraits (National Portrait Gallery)

This excellent collection has been around for a while so there’s no excuse to miss it. The NPG has been given access to the Vanity Fair archives and pulled 150 of the most iconic, revealing pictures. The exhibition features vintage prints from the magazine’s first period (1913-1936) – on display for the first time. These are combined with more popular and contemporary images from its second period (1983-present). Legendary photographers like Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton took glamorous portraits of Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo and Gloria Swanson in the period 1913-1936, and these are on display. Two unseen portraits of author Virginia Woolf taken in 1924 are an added treat in this part of the exhibition. Another highlight of the exhibition is 22 images by acclaimed portrait photographer, Annie Leibovitz. Leibovitz has become the dominant image-maker of Vanity Fair. Her portraits include that of Miles Davis, Kate Winslet, Lance Armstrong, and more recently, the Queen. With subjects as diverse as Claude Monet, Cary Grant and Madonna, if you’re looking for great photographers or great subjects, or both, don’t miss the Vanity Fair Portraits exhibition. In our view, this is the hottest photographic experience in town. Go and see it!

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Cinéma du look was a French film movement of the 1980s that had a slick, self-concious visual style. It focussed on young, alienated and almost invariably handsome characters. It was a thrilling blend of high and low (pop) culture and music, dealing with themes of urban loneliness and cosmetic attraction - very much taking its lead from the music videos of the day (breathing in both Punk and New Romanticism). Perhaps the most style conscious movement in the history of the medium, Cinéma du Look was a neon slap of a sub-genre, as sexy in form as maddening in content. Gentry Style pays tribute below to the best Films du Look, each one a slinky, vampirically vapid classic.

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Gentry offers a week’s worth of interesting diversions in the world of cinema, pop and art & culture…

The Film:  BLACK WATER
Directed by David Nerlich & Andrew Trauki with Diana Glenn, Maeve Dermondy, Andy Rodoreda

Every once in a while Australia produces a particularly nasty little film. In 2000 in was the slash-happy Chopper, in 2005 we were happily subjected to the sinister road movie nightmare Wolf Creek, and this week we’re given an even more edgy slice of antipodean anxiety with the crocodile chiller Black Water. This low-fi movie perfectly exploits the simple, tense pleasures of horror: think Open Water but creepier, with shadowy beasts swooshing beneath the murk of an outback swamp. The characters are involving, even thoughtful and the mesmeric scenario ensures the film never slips too far either way of the fatal edge that is its central attraction. An undemanding but thoroughly successful genre piece, Black Water is a perfectly formed, thrilling excursion into the leathery heart of darkness.

The Record:  EL GUINCHO – ALEGRANZA!
Discoteca Oceano

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5. Gladiator (2000)

The only thing ‘epic’ about this venture is the vastness of its preposterousness. Russell Crowe grins and gurns his way through an array of bad accents and lurid emotional churning. Both less exciting than Ben Hur and less impressive than Spartacus, Crowe is somewhat out of his depth and even his commendable, natural Aussie surliness cannot mask his ultimately floppy centre. Joaquin Phoenix is impossibly wrong as the sister-hungry Commodus (a name which conjures images of Imperial incontinence), not to mention the strange digitally enhanced performance of the expired Oliver Reed. This is an oddly sinister film in which the hero is a barbarian invader, his mentor a slave trader and the arch-villain an incestuous psychopath. So, sure, what’s not to like? It looks great and Ridley Scott builds worlds like other people cook sausages, but even the stunning and innovative CGI-fired set design isn’t enough to save the chewy, anti-climactic script.

Cringe with me:

4. West Side Story (1961)

Gang violence never had it so good. I’m sorry, I know this film is a lot of fun and one sequence in particular – the scene around the song ‘America’ – is stunningly iconic, but, it cannot possibly have been the best film of 1961. In fact, I can assure you it wasn’t. West Side Story was up against Robert Rossen’s The Hustler. It is a travesty that this soft pedalled, misleading flash and dazzle twirl-fest was allowed anywhere near the same category as the classic movie depicting the compelling self-destruction of Paul Newman’s ‘Fast’ Eddie. So why does Hollywood do this to us? Why does it punish us for believing in a meritocracy? Not only is West Side Story a second-rate film, it is a botched one. Robert Wise was only brought in to direct once Jerome Robbins (who directed the Broadway incarnation of the tale) was fired for his over-meticulous preparations. His scenes remain far more energetic than those forged by Wise, a filmmaker way outside his comfort zone.

Ah, but here’s that great scene anyway!:

3. Chicago (2002)

Another musical – a genre that should be banned from the Oscars along with racist snuff movies and (more…)

Film has always been attracted by the possibilities of its own image, defining and re-defining moods and modes, styles and fashions in a playful, unusually discursive way. The overriding texture and impression of an era is often synonymous with the icons of the period. Think of Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in the 1920s, Clark Gable and Errol Flynn in the 30s, Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart in the 40s, Rock Hudson and Marlon Brando in the 50s, Alain Delon and Marcello Mastroianni in the 60s, Warren Beatty and Edward Fox in the 70s, Richard Gere and Tom Cruise in the 80s, Brad Pitt and George Clooney in the 90s. Tailored to perfection, buoyed by their own charisma, these cultural icons stand on both sides of the mirror, looking good. Below is our pick of the Top 5 most stylish, inspirational actors in their most elegant incarnations. What do you think? Let us know your own contenders in the comments section. And if you’re in need of a new style, you know where to go…

1. Richard Gere – American Gigolo

Quite simply, no-one has ever looked smoother than Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s glaring film about the male escort industry. He sashays his way through the movie, enslaved by his own searing sexual appeal. Defined by a sly athleticism and self regarding arrogance, the scene where Gere prepares for a night out is beautifully voyeuristic and one of the most mechanically pleasurable scenes committed to film.

2. Warren Beatty Shampoo

Beatty’s poodlish bouffant, open-necked shirts and paint-on jeans combine for a look that Russell Brand seems to have transposed wholesale into his own rakish style. But Beatty gives these otherwise (more…)

 Inspired by the film classic The Third Man, Caron’s titular fragrance also goes by the names ‘Number 3’ and ‘Le 3me’. Drawing upon the unpredictable and irrepressible, avant-garde flair of Orson Welles, Caron’s 1985 elegant, smooth aroma has been blended in the flickering magic of the movie beam. The cinema screen is a projection of desires, of aspirations and dreams, and it is no surprise that other creative industries should be captivated by the magnetism of the medium – just recall Cindy Sherman’s melodramatic photography or Miles Davis’ real and unreal scores. Individual films, beyond their own generic classification, are ‘a style’ in a very different sense. They are a mélange of music, image and performance – as much an indefinable coming together of essences as any carefully procured perfume. The seduction of Caron by the beguiling élan of Harry Lime and his irredeemable but awe-inspiring character smells of a conceptual richness that befits both industries.

“If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas.”   – Benjamin Franklin

Hair grows out of your face, so persistently that you have to scythe it off with something sharp enough to slit your own throat. With the recent release of Sweeney Todd, the blatant terrors of the shave have never been more in the public eye. But there’s nothing to fear, not really. At Murdock there are safer hands than the trembling, vengeful mitts of Benjamin Barker. In fact, shaving is a strangely luxuriant, invigorating ritual, it’s the grooming equivalent of pulling up your socks or rolling up your sleeves – shaving means business, energising a kind of innate professionalism like nothing else. There is a distinct joy in the daily taming of the wild man that lurks beneath, or, even better, teasing out just enough stubble to allow it to think it’s on the verge of victory, before a deeply restorative smoothing of the skin. 

The straight razor shave adds the gentleman’s touch to your morning routine. This method of shaving stretches back to the Iron Age, when men, desperate to disassociate themselves from their furry wives, would use bronze or flint to scrape their beard away. Even earlier incarnations would be made from clam shells or shark’s teeth, leaving the alluring aroma of fish stink. The razor as we might recognize it was introduced in ancient Rome by king Lucius Tarquinius Priscus a hundred years before such grooming tools were common use. The razor was, in truth primitive andLucius would often be found clutching his face and rolling on the ground, a tradition still practiced today by arch-Romanista Francesco Totti. Interestingly, it wasn’t until 1740 that the first hard steel grade was commercially produced, by Benjamin Huntsmen of Sheffield. Daily shaving is relatively recent as a common practice, introduced by American men in the 20th century, desperate to give a false impression of prosperity during the Great depression. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was far more common to receive a weekly shave, usually on a Sunday – a delicate, civilized procedure by a servant if you were wealthy enough or a far less accurate slice in the back alley of a gambling house if you were at the other end of the social scale. Easily slipped behind the trouser belt and readily available, the straight razor was also often used as a particularly unfriendly instrument.

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5. Godzilla (1954)

Ishiro Honda’s Gojira is a snarling dystopia of the present, pre-occupied by Japan’s legitimate anxiety over the nuclear capabilities of the USA. The mutant terrorist lays waste to the towering structures and, in doing so, stems the post-war economic resurrection of the city. Acting almost as an agent for Western forces, Godzilla has a strange place in the hearts of the people: at once an enviable, almost inspirational power but also an uncontrollable one. The urban landscape is a battle-ground and this iconic beast represents the awesome dangers of living in man-made world, substituting the peaceful order of nature with demented human designs. Much copied (see last year’s The Host) – and pummeled into near worthlessness by endlessly inferior sequels – this is a spectacular disaster movie that manages, from beneath the rubble, to tell a thrilling political allegory. (more…)