Double Bill: Michael Pitt

Glen Luchford Captures A New York Moment with the Rag & Bone Stars in Today’s Two Films 

Glen Luchford's short films for NY fashion house rag & bone are as beautiful and elegant as they are real. Starring actors Michael Pitt and Palme d'Or winner Léa Seydoux, and set to a yearning Sparklehorse soundtrack, Luchford’s signature is a combination of dramatic understatement and modern nostalgia for the craft of shooting on film. “Having the confidence to let the shoot flow is a great feeling, because anything can happen,” explains Luchford, whose only direction for Seydoux and Pitt was to do “whatever came naturally. My aesthetic is planned and controlled reportage—which is obviously a contradiction. On the day, you have to just let go and see what happens. Sparks fly and unexplained ideas pop up.” Luchford started his career at as a fashion photographer on the style magazine The Face, going on to shoot iconic campaigns as well as directing the award-winning feature film, Here to Where. Rather than pose in the rag & bone collection, it seems Seydoux and Pitt were encouraged to live in it.

What are your earliest memories of film and photography?
Glen Luchford: I saw Snow White in the cinema when I was three years old, and something in the imagery stuck. I only remember a few scenes but they stayed clearly imprinted. Then The Wizard Of Oz at five, which blew me away. The fact that video didn’t exist then, and their unavailability, made them even more exotic and exciting.

What appeals to you about fashion?
GL: Fashion has an ADD quality to it: it can't focus on anything for too long and has to keep shifting its gaze, like an irritable kid. I loved playing musical chairs as a child. Part of me feels like I’m still playing.

How has your filmmaking evolved since Here to Where?
GL: I’m not as good. Youth gives you something extra.

What are you most proud of?
GL: Walking into The Face magazine's office and saying, “Give me a job, I can do that.”

What inspires you today?
GL: Instagram, Intelligentsia Coffee and the word ‘Yes.’