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Tom Ford was on the job as Ben Mankiewicz took a last look at himself before the photographer got to work. “Hair looks good; stubble looks good,” Mr. Ford said. “But you need to button your jacket on camera. Every time I watch you on TCM, your jacket is undone.”
“I don’t like buttoning it,” replied Mr. Mankiewicz, 49, a host on the Turner Classic Movies network. “It feels so formal.”
“It slims the silhouette,” Mr. Ford said. And coming from the fashion designer, 55, who reinvented Gucci and presided over its explosive growth for a decade, working simultaneously as the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent for six of those years, it sounded like the final word on the subject. Mr. Ford started the Tom Ford label in 2006, and has won every fashion accolade there is to win.
“When Tom Ford tells you to button your jacket,” Mr. Mankiewicz said, “you button your jacket.” Recent viewings of TCM suggest he took the advice to heart.
But it was film, not fashion, that brought the pair together recently. Mr. Ford’s new film, “Nocturnal Animals,” which he wrote and directed, opened Friday. Adapted from a novel by Austin Wright, the film stars Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal in a complex film-within-a-film: a gritty psychological thriller tucked inside an urbane contemplation of upper-class life. It follows Mr. Ford’s critically acclaimed debut, “A Single Man,” in 2009.
And who better to join him in a discussion of movies than Mr. Mankiewicz, a film enthusiast and presenter of classic films on TCM since 2003. Before arriving at the network, he worked as a television news reporter. He also carries a sterling film lineage as a grandson of Herman Mankiewicz, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who, with Orson Welles, wrote “Citizen Kane,” among other classics, and the great-nephew of another Oscar winner, Joseph Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed “All About Eve” and “Letter to Three Wives.”
Over a leisurely lunch at the Tower Bar in the Sunset Tower Hotel here (a hamburger and green salad for Mr. Ford, and a Cobb salad for Mr. Mankiewicz), the pair discussed their hyphenated careers, the roads that led them to film, and their short list of favorites.
Mr. Ford directed the new film “Nocturnal Animals,” starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal. Photo: The New York Times
Philip Galanes: Did you think for an extra five seconds about what you’d wear today?
Ben Mankiewicz: Five seconds? Try five hours. I have five pairs of glasses with me.
PG: Every interview with Tom starts with an aria about how nervous the writer is about his outfit.
Tom Ford: Which is weird, because I’m only thinking of meeting Ben. TCM runs in my house, on every television, all day long. But I get it: When you turn yourself into a product, as I have, there’s the “billboard you” and the “real you,” and when people meet you, they get nervous because they think they’re meeting the billboard. And the longer it goes on, the real you starts to divorce itself from the billboard. This must happen to you.
BM: Probably the closest is when I’m interviewing a star or director that everyone admires. I want to be the best version of myself to bring out the best in them.
PG: But a billboard is just a two-dimensional surface.
TF: A lot of people who work hard on the surface of things — like I do and the characters in my films — are doing it because what’s inside isn’t so pretty. The surface is armor for me. You build a box because maybe you don’t feel so great about what’s inside. But you think, “If I can make it look perfect, if my hair is right and my suit is buttoned, it will all be O.K.”
PG: Let’s get straight to what you have in common.
TF: Love of film. He’s an expert.
PG: I’m not going to ask your favorite film of all time.
TF: Good. That’s too hard. We all have favorites from different periods and different genres. But one of my favorites is “Dinner at Eight” [a 1933 film co-written by Mr. Mankiewicz’s grandfather].
BM: Oh, that is not where I thought you were going.
TF: Why not? It’s so modern. It’s hysterical; it’s sad; it’s tragic. We know that Lionel Barrymore’s character is going to die from a heart condition. And the daughter has been having an affair with an older movie star, who killed himself. She’s just found out, and now she’s grabbing onto her fiancé’s arm. So, you’ve got adultery and Jean Harlow and Billie Burke, who’s a genius. And in the end, they all go in to dinner. It’s an amazing slice of life that doesn’t get tied up in a nice little bow. And they laugh!
The two talked about the effect certain movies have had on their lives.Photo:New York Times
PG: Ben, you look so nervous.
BM: Well, I want to give a good answer. What have I seen recently. …
TF: So, yours is going to be contemporary?
BM: No, I meant, what have I seen again recently. Oh, I know! “Umberto D.” [an Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica from 1952].
PG: Final answer?
BM: I auditioned to host that show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” I auditioned to host every show on TV. No, I read that Tom loves that film, and I thought, “Let me watch it again.” I remember liking it, but it floored me this time.
PG: How so?
BM: Dogs matter to me, to start with. I didn’t have that thing that everyone says is going to happen when you have a child; it didn’t change how I felt about my dog. I love my daughter more than anything; she always wins. But my dog suffered no loss of stature. In the film, this man has lost everything. He’s been rejected by everyone. His former friends can’t wait to get away from him — like an odor. But that dog sticks with him. Just the way he holds the dog when he finds it at the shelter and again at the end. …
TF: You’re going to make me cry just describing it.
BM: It’s this fleeting moment. He’s going to be depressed again the next day. But for that moment, he didn’t kill himself, and the dog is the reason why. There’s joy in his life.
PG: Which movie have you seen more times than any other?
TF: For me, that’s easy. “The Women” [George Cukor’s ensemble comedy from 1939]. I mean, come on.
BM: The remake? [They laugh.]
TF: No, in fact, I warned one of the stars that she should not remake it. I mean the real one. The lines come so quick. Every time I watch, I hear a new one. Pow, pow, pow. The writing is amazing.
(New York Times)
