INTERVIEW: ‘Celebration’ offers fly-on-the-wall look at designer Yves Saint Laurent
Photo: Yves Saint Laurent is the subject of Olivier Meyrou’s Celebration. Photo courtesy of KimStim / Provided by Film Forum press site with permission.
French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent came to define a generation through his celebrated collections and creation of haute couture clothing options. His legacy is preserved in the new documentary Celebration, from filmmaker Olivier Meyrou and now playing at New York City’s Film Forum.
In the movie, Saint Laurent is hard at work, yet life is catching up with him. He increasingly relies on the help of his many team members and his business partner / former lover Pierre Bergé.
“It was the way for me to tell the story of France,” Meyrou said in a recent phone interview. “The way they structured their life, they way they put creation at the center of everything — vision was more important than the business aspect of the thing.”
Meyrou spent three years being a fly on the wall and documenting the life and work of Saint Laurent — although admittedly it was difficult to distinguish the designer’s life from his work.
“I had total freedom,” the director said. “Of course, Yves Saint Laurent [didn’t] like cameras in general because he was a very secretive man. He was living by himself in his studio, and so the idea of a camera was always trouble. I never got any mention during three years that I shouldn’t do that or that or that I should not shoot Yves Saint Laurent. They didn’t have that sense of marketing. … When I say they were hoping, it’s more Pierre Bergé because he was really the man I was speaking to. Yves Saint Laurent was by himself. He was with his creation, but Pierre Bergé wasn’t afraid of the tragedy aspect of the story. He wasn’t afraid for the world to know that if Saint Laurent was fully exhausted it was probably because of the creation for 40 years, and so I had total freedom to explore that.”
The director enjoyed the team spirit that surrounded the famous designer, whose legendary output became one of the most impressive fashion houses in 20th century history. The seamstresses, cutters and models all pulled their weight and helped Saint Laurent find the most fashionable, trend-setting designs.
“It’s a large mix,” Meyrou said. “What I did observe is the fact that if Saint Laurent worked, it was a very personal work. It was genius, but in the meantime the 80 people around him were part of that work. They knew as well as Saint Laurent what Saint Laurent was about. They had been working for 40 years together.”
Meyrou entered the designer’s life in 1998, and it was obvious that Saint Laurent was exhausted, both physically and mentally. However, this team of workers helped support him as he continued to create.
“You had beauty in that,” he said. “That’s why I really wanted to show seamstresses. I wanted seamstresses to be in the movie, for instance, because they were a big part of that story also.”
One of the seamstresses in the movie started with Saint Laurent back when the designer was 24 years old and still working with Christian Dior. “So she knew perfectly what kind of work Saint Laurent wanted to make,” Meyrou said. “Also, the workers had a sense of normality because sometimes Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé were a bit out of touch.”
The documentary is a stunning portrait that has become respected and praised by critics, but it almost never saw the light of day. This portrait of Saint Laurent has been finished for more than a decade, but there was a delay in its release for many reasons.
For starters, the filming stopped in 2001, but Saint Laurent actually kept working into 2002. He eventually died in 2008. “He stopped in 2002, and I think that probably he didn’t want the images to get released so fast,” the filmmaker said. “But finally Pierre Bergé … asked to see the movie that he had never seen before. He asked to see it, and he loved it.”
He added: “Pierre Bergé was obsessed with the idea of legacy, what would be made of them after their death. I think that somehow when they asked me to shoot the movie, it was part of that process. What you see in the movie is Pierre Bergé working the legacy aspect of everything. … They knew it was over, and they wanted to leave a mark in history.”
A mark in history that continues to live on through memorable designs that will likely influence the world for generations to come.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Celebration, directed by Olivier Meyrou, is currently playing New York City’s Film Forum. Click here for more information and tickets.
