Film Review: “Men of the Cloth”—Portrait of an Artist
as an Old Man
December 7,
2015|
Director Vicki Vasilopoulos has masterfully crafted a
documentary about tailors, clothing, and the painstaking search for excellence.
Men of the
Cloth, directed by Vicki Vasilopoulos. Screening at the Museum of Fine Arts
Boston on December 10.
By Paul
Dervis
To be
honest, when I was assigned to review this documentary I was not looking
forward to it. A film helmed by a rookie director about the trials and
tribulations of aged tailors: it didn’t sound like something that would be
particularly engaging.
Well, I was
wrong.
Director
Vicki Vasilopoulos has masterfully crafted this film, not unlike how her
subjects have masterfully crafted their garments. And make no mistake about it,
these tailors are artists with pins in their collective mouths.
Opening
with images that capture the ancient beauty of a small town in Italy, the film
immediately suggests that that kind of splendor will be created (and embodied)
by her heroes. The film’s protagonists are three elderly Italian tailors: one
hones his craft in Manhattan; another plies his trade in a Philadelphian
suburb; the last is building an empire in his homeland. They are scattered
across the globe, but the sublimity of their skills connect them.
Nino
Corvato dropped out of school after the sixth grade to apprentice in the
clothing industry. As a young man, his work took him to America and (of course)
to Brooks Brothers. But employment by a menswear giant proved frustrating.
When, even though his talent had been acknowledged, he was passed over for
promotion because of his lack of formal education, he set out to make it on his
own. Now, some 40 years later, he has a business in the priciest location in
New York City, making handmade suits for the upper crust. He has even been
teaching his trade at Parsons Fashion School in Greenwich Village. Approaching
the twilight of his career, he now wants to establish his own program for
aspiring young craftspeople.
It is an
attempt to maintain a dying art.
Joe
Centofanti, the Philadelphia tailor, has had a remarkably intriguing life.
Still working when this film was shot (he was 90 years old), he had made
uniforms for Italian fascists and spent years during the war in an internment
camp in Africa, where he continued to cut cloth. Now, as he envisions the end
nearing, he has taken in an apprentice of his own, in hopes of continuing an
invaluable legacy. That young man, Joe Genuardi, a Carnegie Mellon graduate,
dreams that one day he will be able to combine the intricacies of handmade work
with the contemporary production of the ‘factory’ industry.
That idea
leads the filmmaker to Checchino Fonticoli, the Italian master who stayed
home…or did he? As a young man he was one of a hundred tailors in his town—now
he stands alone. Yet he has slowly grown
his business into a major business operation, with countless workers creating
his men’s fashions. And, though he is still in his native land, he travels the
world, creating clothing for kings and presidents. Along the way, he has won
Italy’s most prestigious honor for tradesmen.
Vasilopoulos
clearly has an enormous love for these men and what they represent. And well
she would. A former fashion editor herself, she has spent nearly a dozen years
making Men of the Cloth, admiring her subjects and their miraculous skills.
The appeal
of this film is its ability to take a subject that could be potentially boring,
making clothes, and turning it into a deeply moving narrative, a story that is
filled with a deep lust for life. At no time does Men of the Cloth drag. Even
when the action becomes somewhat repetitive, Vasilopoulos finds something
unique and compelling for us to see.
Equally
clear is these old men are not merely superb craftsmen, but artists who
obsessively pay attention to every detail; it is their striving for perfection
that transforms them into archetypes. Their painstaking search for excellence
separates their world of fashion from that of our ‘off the rack’ realities.
Enjoy the
inspiring lives of these men…they will not be coming around again.
Paul Dervis
has been teaching drama in Canada at Algonquin College as well as the theatre
conservatory Ottawa School of Speech & Drama for the past 15 years.
Previously he ran theatre companies in Boston, New York, and Montreal. He has
directed over 150 stage productions, receiving two dozen awards for his work.
Paul has also directed six films, the most recent being 2011’s The Righteous
Tithe.
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