The Last Impresario

Director Gracie Otto serves up a documentary profile of Michael White, one of British theater's most enigmatic and iconoclastic individualists. Since the laconic White is not a man of many words, Otto hauls in a parade of White's famous friends, including Yoko Ono, Kate Moss, John Cleese, and Anna Wintour, who explain (in predictably fawning terms) just how White put the “swing” in Swinging London. White certainly had an uncanny ability to spot upcoming talent in places where no one else bothered to look. He discovered Cleese and his Cambridge Circus comedy troupe and brought them to London's West End, and would also bring modern dance maestro Merce Cunningham to the world's attention. White also injected the initial creative juices into The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the nudie musical Oh! Calcutta!, and the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, among other groundbreaking film and theatrical projects. While viewers never really get a sense of what inner demons drove White professionally, it's obvious that his public persona is that of the socially ubiquitous Warholian figure whose hip detachment and quiet insouciance naturally attracts beautiful and talented people. Recommended. (M. Sandlin)