Casablancas: The Man Who Loved Women

A spirited documentary about the legacy of John Casablancas, the founder of modeling agency Elite Model Management and inventor of the “supermodel” phenomenon in the 1970s and beyond, director Hubert Woroniecki's film grew out of a recording that Casablancas made in 2011 (two years before he died of cancer at age 70) in which he told his story. That posthumously-released narrative serves as the guide for what turns out to be a winning portrait of a likable pioneer in the fashion world. A youthful rogue, Casablancas was born in Manhattan to a financially successful couple who fled Spain during its civil war and then abandoned France just before Hitler's occupation. After his early years in New York, Casablancas attended an elite boarding school in Europe, where his teenage sexual relationship with a maid resulted in expulsion and a gradual path towards the world of managing models. Casablancas grows increasingly engaging as the subject recounts his hard work and the daring involved in building a nascent, entrepreneurial enterprise already overshadowed by titan Eileen Ford. The ups and downs of Casablancas's relationship with Ford over many years is just one of the recurring story threads here, but what is fascinating is how often he reinvented his business, ultimately reaching stratospheric success with the introduction of celebrity models in popular culture, including Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley, Stephanie Seymour, and Naomi Campbell. Casablancas's honesty about failures in his private life and certain business decisions help negate any easy assumptions that he lived a charmed existence. Drawing from a wealth of archival footage, including film and video of Elite's clients, this engaging portrait is recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)