When Tom Ford goes to the Oscars, it’s usually because his clothes are being worn on the big night by the likes of Daniel Craig and Julianne Moore. But he may make it to the Kodak Theater as a nominee next March, with his stylish, moody period piece “A Single Man” picking up raves in advance of its Friday opening.
The celebrated fashion designer (who designed for Gucci before launching his own label) makes an auspicious screenwriting and directing debut with the film, based on a book by Christopher Isherwood. “A Single Man” delineates a day in the life of a schoolteacher (Colin Firth) who’s despondent after the recent death of his partner of 16 years. After stellar showings at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, the film was acquired for distribution by the Weinstein Company.
I wasn’t comfortable with it at all. I think our society is a bit twisted. The first trailer is the one that I cut before we had a distributor, and I wish I could have left it intact. But we had to do a trailer that was more broadly accessible to a wider audience. Kissing between two men is considered adult content, and there are only certain places that you can run trailers that show it. It’s very strange, because you can turn on HBO and see full-frontal male nudity -- but for some reason, things are more restrictive in cinema.None of them. I don’t want to sound arrogant, and I learned an enormous amount, but in terms of being prepared as a director, I felt really, really comfortable, once I had the script in a place where it felt good. Working as a fashion designer is much more collaborative than people realize. Like a director, you have to be able to communicate a vision to a group of people to help you achieve it, and you have to create an environment where those people feel comfortable enough to perform. And then you have to steer the entire group to help you realize your initial vision.
For some reason, I felt really comfortable working with the actors. Maybe it’s because I knew the characters so well and had done so much preparation before. We shot in 21 days, and having worked for a large company where big budgets were at stake, I’m very pragmatic and very organized and I make decisions very quickly. So I felt very comfortable doing that.
