spotlight mcqueen
acquired from one place or did you have to hunt and peck for all of it? Literally, hunt and pecked for all of it. When
we went to actually raise money—many times with documentaries people expect you to have some sort of contributor’s arrangement, or a honey pot of moolah—we had none of that. We just had a very strong idea of the structure we were going to do about the film and decided to tell the story in six chapters. We ended up with five, which we called tapes because of a happy accident of finding footage about Lee. We ended up having to look at between
170 to 200 archive sources, and every time we interviewed someone we asked if they had pictures, footage or tapes. We constantly reviewed his shows or behind the scenes footage, would see another camera and then would try to track back that source. We searched online for anyone who edited a piece of film, like an homage over one minute then we tracked that person, too. It was very much an investigation. I do remember McQueen’s work very vividly. What I didn’t really understand was how much he completely altered that industry during that time period. His designs were so outside the realm of what the world had experienced up until that point. He changed the fashion world completely and in turn made it more about creating experiential art. I think that’s why he broke out. I think because his shows we’re so passionate, it triggered within the audience and beyond, deeply emotional reactions. It allowed people who may not have been attracted to fashion, to actually like his work. Lee always said, “If you want to know me, look at my work.” The Savage BeautyMet show and his collections proved that if you manage to reach a million people and break the fashion mold, you’re going to attract people who have nothing to do with fashion. People look at his work now like they would look at a Picasso or would listen to classical music or even a rock concert or pub concert or go raving… he had that ability to tap into a lot of the cultural and people’s creative psyche. McQueen transferred haute couture, it just blew my mind that all of it came out of one person’s head. He walked such a fine line between darkness and light... He was a raw nerve and it came out in his work. Were you aware of that sort of mania as you were going
I WOULD GO TO THE END OF MY DARK SIDE AND PULL THESE
HORRORS OUT OF MY SOUL AND PUT THEM ON THE CATWALK.” —Alexander McQueen
through the process, or was that something that spoke to you as you got into it more? The lightness and the darkness very much
spoke to us from the start. Though, as we talked to people, you do make more sense of it and you get closer to the core of the person and understand how it potentially might lead you to his creativity. What’s incredible as well, is that Andrew Groves, one of McQueen’s boyfriends at the time really said it, “You know you just fell in love with the naughty boy... you know, the guy that would play pranks on you.” I think even on a day-to-day basis the people who knew Lee, would be surprised by his creative madness. He was very down to earth and could be very vulgar and very naughty and get depressed… at his core he was a working class boy and that contrast really attracted us. How can you be this person and manage to create such beauty? It’s very humbling and actually teaches us that you can’t judge a book by its cover. His sexuality was such a part of what made him so intense. As a gay man, he was not hidden and for the time that was really powerful because sexuality used to be considered a fault or “less than.” It’s not a defining part I think, but he knew
being gay was in his DNA. I think right now it is essential not to identify anyone by any one of those things only. So many other things came first, you need to know Lee as a lover, a friend, a son, all of that makes the man. Creative people
have dark and lightness and anything that can anchor us within reality—if it’s your partner, if it’s a love of something, if it’s a passion, if it’s children or if it’s your family—anything that allows you to stay within those is essential to telling the story. That’s a really wonderful way to describe it because getting lost in his creative brilliance would be so easy to do. His inspired work was so important to the world and is what we see initially, but it was only a part of who he was…as was his sexuality. He’s an icon and we were very keen to get the
DNA of that right. A lot of gay and lesbian icons have been ripped off or have disappeared from view or died. We didn’t want it to be just an LGBT film because Lee transcended sexuality, but the LGBT community needs to be super proud of his genius and the fact he is part of the larger community. Being gay allowed him to look at things in a different way, as do a huge amount of creative people from the LGBT community. Being seven or eight percent of the society forces you to look at things from a different perspective and if society ostracizes you, then you’re going to have to find a way to create your own society. And, that is a very interesting thing.
McQueen is now playing in select theatres. For more information, go to
bleeckerstreetmedia.com/mcqueen
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RAGE monthly | AUGUST 2018
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