"Model": A Review

"I am aware of an inner thing. I look from...within."
Focus on a GQ cover model explaining the secrets of his hard earned success. He goes on to tell the interviewer that he has never posed nude for any publications, but would for an incredible amount of money. His typical salary is $125/ hr or $1000/day. The year is 1980.

"Model," a documentary by Frederick Wiseman, is a study on both the modeling and advertising industries in America. Though I appreciate the fashion industry, I couldn't help but savor this film for its comedic look into what most perceive as an empire built on vanity and fluff. Despite what you may think, modeling is a career. It is not an oxymoron like, I don't know, cheerleading scholarship, airplane food or French deodorant. The documentary follows male and female counterparts as they build their modeling portfolios. A handful of midgets at 5'7" or 5'6" are immediately, but courteously, turned down by the agents at Zoli modeling agency. Wiseman adds shots of New York in the 80s: a homeless woman sleeping on a bench during the filming of a commercial, a stout man wheeling produce across an intersection, a congregation of maids observing a photo shoot in front of an upscale hotel. Life goes on for these common people as the models form the American fantastical ideology that tall, skinny and striking cheekbones is the paragon of beauty.

One of the highlights involves a conversation between Andy Warhol and two male models, one of which answers "no" to the question "Do you think of yourself as a sexual object?" Zoom out on the model taking a shower on film in his briefs. "I would pose nude if done tastefully." Almost an hour is dedicated to the production and filming of something- the audience has no idea of what. The director is tedious and speaks belittling towards the female models calling them "darling" and "sweetheart". See the attached clip below for reference. At the end of the hour, we learn this drawn out process was for a panty hose commercial, no more than 30 seconds long. Other train wrecks include a gay photographer's painful attempt to court a straight model using profound pick-up lines like "You have no mistakes" or "People are talking about health things and preventions and things [nowadays]. I don't get it."

The brilliance about this film is its relevance 30 years later. Even the trends in the clothes are grossly reminiscent of the hoards of decade-confused-always-ironic-in-my-fashion hipsters who gentrify the streets of Williamsburg and Bushwick. The only noticeable anachronisms for present day are a Czechoslovakia restaurant, life-size Rolodexes, and agents smoking indoors as they proceed with everyday business.

The unscripted quote from a talent coach sums up the mood of the film: "Tragedy and comedy are so close."