Fashion designer Tom Ford segues into celluloid with a daring film project.
By Brandon Voss
After stepping down rom a decade-long reign as creative director of Gucci in 2004, Tom Ford raised eyebrows higher than his hemlines when he joined Creative Artists Agency with aspirations of becoming a film director. Now, a year after announcing that he had acquired the movie rights to Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel A Single Man, the out fashion designer has begun production in Los Angeles.
Hailed by novelist Edmund White as "one of the first and best novels of the modern gay liberation movement," A Single Man centers around a middle-aged gay college professor coping with the death of his lover. Ford, who adapted the screenplay with David Scearce, has fashioned a dream cast that includes Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Matthew Goode.
So can the neophyte director do for gay cinema what he did for Gucci? More seasoned filmmakers seem hopeful — if somewhat skeptical. "It just goes to show that the only way to get anything made anymore is to have a wallet full of cash to bribe stars that will draw an audience," says Chuck Griffith, whose film Shifting the Canvas, set to star Alan Cumming and Cheyenne Jackson, was recently shelved due to a lack of funding. "But Ford obviously has a great eye, and he's proven that he really can master anything. After all, Joel Schumacher once dressed storefront windows and then went on to give us The Lost Boys and St. Elmo's Fire."
"He will do just fine," predicts out filmmaker Casper Andreas (A Four Letter Word), who says that Ford's casting coup is a promising first step in attracting mainstream audiences to gay-themed projects. "Someone like Tom will also be able to get great talent to help him out behind the camera. With experienced people around him, he should be able to avoid a lot of the usual problems facing first-time filmmakers."
Whatever becomes of Ford's movie debut, one fact seems fairly certain: A Single Man is sure to look fabulous. E! Online reports that Ford, who now heads his own fashion house, has enlisted the aid of award-winning production designers from AMC's acclaimed series Mad Men to create an authentic 1960s aesthetic. "Regardless of the performances or how the story comes together," Andreas says, "Tom Ford, with his amazing sense of style, will definitely make a beautiful film.”
The Advocate, December 2008.