Home Performing Arts Tribeca Film Festival Roundup: Part 2.

Tribeca Film Festival Roundup: Part 2.

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UltraSuede. In search of Halston.

Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston: Director Whitney Sudler-Smith makes a convincing case as to why famed designer Halston is a worthy of a detailed, in-depth film examination. Unfortunately, this is not that documentary.

Sulder-Smith uses plenty of archival footage and photography to paint a vivid picture of Halston’s enigmatic public persona. Sadly, he does not go far enough in revealing the man behind the public mask. What was his childhood like? How did he break into the industry? Was his private self ever in conflict with his public facade? These questions are never addessed. Instead, we get more than enough on Halston’s days as king of the 1970s party scene, reveling in the excess of Studio 54. There are plenty of relevant interviews with the people who were there at the time, including Liza Minnelli, Angelica Houston, and Andre Leon Talley. The problem is that Sulder-Smith seems far more interested in ingratiating himself with these large-than-life personalities than asking probing questions. He tries to make this documentary too much about himself and not enough about Halston. The result is that his interview subjects often seem irritated with his unpreparedness, and the flopsweat and nervous laughter he produces when his subjects call him out on his unpreparedness made me and other audience members shift uncomfortably. I only hope his missteps don’t sour these people from talking to the next Halston documentarian, if there is one.

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