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| Matthew Miele with Anne-Katrin Titze inside Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle on Wes Anderson: "I saw him walk through here while we were filming." Photo: Leigh Wolfson |
Crazy About Tiffany's director Matthew Miele's latest documentary, Always At The Carlyle, is set to open today in New York just days after The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala celebration for Andrew Bolton's Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.
Anjelica Huston, George Clooney, Rita Wilson, Harrison Ford, Jeff Goldblum, Jon Hamm, Wes Anderson, Bill Murray, Jack Nicholson, Fran Lebowitz, Alan Cumming, Sofia Coppola, Naomi Campbell, Lenny Kravitz, Elaine Stritch, Nina Garcia, Paul Shaffer, Graydon Carter, Vera Wang, and Woody Allen are huge fans of The Carlyle Hotel and it is a post-gala celebration hotspot on each First Monday in May as shown in Always At The Carlyle.
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| Matthew Miele at Bemelmans Bar: "I think Wes hit it right on the head. If you walk into The Carlyle, it hasn't changed all that much." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
Matthew Miele joined me for a conversation inside Bemelmans Bar at The Carlyle on a late afternoon two days before the theatrical opening of his playful and insightful gem of a film.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Naomi Campbell says: "The party is always at the Carlyle, always." And that party was Monday.
Matthew Miele: Was it Monday? The gala was Monday. Our [Always at The Carlyle] party was last night.
AKT: Yes, your party was last night. She's talking about the Met Gala and that's always where the real party is.
MM: I think so, from what I understand. I'm not invited to that party, but I gather it is.
AKT: I saw the exhibit at the press preview before The Met Gala. They drove us to The Met Cloisters as well. The Catholic Imagination - in two parts. In your film you are doing something similar, I felt, to what you were doing with Tiffany. You let people expose themselves.
MM: Do I?
AKT: Isn't that your method?
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| Matthew Miele on Anthony Bourdain: "When you look at it and you don't know, you wonder why there are sheep there. Then he explains it and it all kind of comes together. " Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
MM: I don't even know if I have a method. It's making them as comfortable as possible. And not to prepare. I never write anything down. I don't have any plan where the conversation is going to go. Even if they speak about something totally not related I won't stop.
AKT: So you don't prepare, we hear you talk off-camera, you sense what's in the air?
MM: I guess one method I have is, when I'm interviewing you, I'm never going to let you go. Generally, I'm never really off them because you lose them. And if you lose them, then they get disinterested. If I have a faraway look in my eye or if I ever don't listen appropriately, they give me a canned line.
AKT: And disappear in full sight.
MM: And I can't have that. So generally my body posture would be more, like in, and I'm constantly moving in closer and closer. They're not aware of it, but in-between a question I move up an inch. It's also we're very unassuming with the crew, the cameras are small, the lighting is generally not oppressive. Sometimes that sacrifices a look. I think the more unassuming you are, the more you're going to get from someone.
AKT: And you get these little non-verbal human gems - from Nina Garcia a blush.
MM: Because she's talking about a date she had there. What happened?
AKT: Exactly. You get real moments. You got a wonderful laugh from Harrison Ford. A terrific laugh.
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| The staff of The Carlyle Hotel loves George Clooney in Always At The Carlyle Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
MM: Which you don't see. From him. He doesn't laugh a lot.
AKT: These are the things you capture. Dogs show up again, one running through The Carlyle lobby. You had some dogs in Crazy About Tiffany's. Are you a dog person?
MM: I like animals. I think they're always endearing.
AKT: That's why we're sitting here in Bemelmans Bar under the sheep. Who is commenting on the sheep in your film?
MM: Anthony Bourdain. When you look at it and you don't know, you wonder why there are sheep there. Then he explains it and it all kind of comes together.
AKT: There's police on the horse. There's one sheep with a bow-tie on its head, the black sheep leading the pack?
MM: You know it's funny, the John Lennon Imagine memorial circle is on the wall.
AKT: It is? That makes no sense time wise.
MM: He [Ludwig Bemelmans] couldn't have painted it. I do know they have artists come in. There's the song from the movie! [We hear the song from the beginning of the documentary playing in the bar right now].
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| Matthew Miele on The Carlyle Hotel: "The lobby is what it was when it was built. That marble is the original. Bemelmans was 1947 when they did this." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: Apropos songs, Two-Faced Woman is the song Dwight [The Carlyle Hotel longtime concierge] sings. Maybe they'll play that next.
MM: I was like, anything you want to sing.
AKT: The only other version of this song I know is with Joan Crawford, dubbed and in blackface.
MM: I didn't know that.
AKT: Joan Crawford dances in blackface, it's not her real voice and I believe they cut the scene out of the movie [Torch Song, directed by Charles Walters]. Wes Anderson talks about Bemelmans Bar where we are sitting now. It is such a Wes Anderson place.
MM: It is and I saw him walk through here while we were filming. I didn't sit him down that day but discreetly I went to the PR people and was like, "You think we could get him?" They said, "Yes, he's been here and we've seen him around". But no one has ever engaged him about the place. That's kind of how a lot of the interviews transpired.
AKT: So you were just sitting around The Carlyle for a few years?
MM: No, I walked through. Generally things happen when you're out and about. It's a small hotel where you don't miss much.
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| Always At The Carlyle opens today in New York Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
AKT: Wes Anderson's brother's paintings and drawings look a bit like Bemelmans'. Remember the Louis Vuitton luggage in The Darjeeling Limited? It's a similar sensibility. He says in your film, that his "favourite thing to do is stepping back in time."
MM: It's true, and I think Wes hit it right on the head. If you walk into The Carlyle, it hasn't changed all that much. The lobby is what it was when it was built. That marble is the original. Bemelmans was 1947 when they did this. You're talking about 80 years of history that you're just part of now.
AKT: Speaking of the lobby, designed by Dorothy Draper. I noticed how you edited that. Right after you talk to Matthew Weiner. Did he name Don Draper after Dorothy Draper?
MM: He did not. But I thought so. I asked him and he said he did not. He dispelled that. He didn't really tell me why Draper. But it's funny that you picked up on that. I wonder how many other people might pick up on that.
AKT: The Dorothy Draper connection never crossed my mind before that. The other editing juxtaposition - to stay in the Mad Men realm for a second - is with Jon Hamm and Condoleezza Rice.
MM: Yeah. One side and the other.
AKT: Quite a juxtaposition.
MM: Why is that? Last night, with the crowd, she got a laugh. Why?
AKT: He says: "This place is ridiculously expensive."
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| Matthew Miele on getting Harrison Ford's terrific laugh in Always At The Carlyle: "Which you don't see. From him. He doesn't laugh a lot." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze |
MM: And she says it's not. "You get what you pay for."
AKT: That's what I meant when I said you let people expose themselves. You let them chose how they want to present themselves. You leave these things in. You don't protect them, in other words, from themselves,
MM: Which to me, makes them a little bit more accessible, maybe.
AKT: A lot of what you do is about accessibility. You take these gigantic old institutions that people might shy away from, that they might be afraid of such as Bergdorf [in Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's], Tiffany, The Carlyle and present them. Will there be more?
MM: Is there another one coming?
Coming up - Matthew Miele on preserving the past, the Hannah And Her Sisters Bobby Short connection, Bill Murray and Danny of The Carlyle pondering a catch phrase, Jackie O's Cobb salad, the paintings of Weenix, George Clooney and a closet, the sin of enjoyment, and an Alan Pakula upcoming project.
Always At The Carlyle opens in the US on May 11.
