Director INTERVIEW

Kate Novak

Originally printed in Compass, May 30, 2018.

With “The Gospel According to André,” Kate Novack, who has produced documentary films directed by her husband, Andrew Rossi (“Ivory Tower,” “Page One: Inside the New York Times”) makes her directorial debut. Her subject is André Leon Talley, the former editor-at large of Vogue and a modern mainstay of fashion films and television. With a personality even bigger than his stately 6 foot 6 inch frame and billowing caftans, Talley has appeared on “ Sex and The City,” “America’s Next Top Model” and in documentaries like “The September Issue.” He sits, often draped in operatic drama — flowing capes, period ruffles, courtly leather gloves — at the top of the stairs at the Met Gala, greeting guests with hugs, kisses and tremendous compliments. Pulling back the curtain of expensive, imported velvet, Novak gives a rare opportunity for a sideline commentator to take the spotlight, revealing a man of both playful openness and well-concealed melancholy. Raised in North Carolina by his grandmother, Talley attended Brown University and would go on to be mentored by former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland as she managed The Costume Institute. He lent style advice to First Lady Michelle Obama, and watched in  stunned silence as racial progress in America took a step backward with the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Last week Novack spoke with Compass about her film, which will show at The Berkshire International Film Festival on June 1.  

On choosing Talley as the subject of her first film.

Kate Novack: Andrew directed a film called “First Monday in May” about The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and André gave one of these larger-than-life, over the top kind of scene-stealing performances. When Andrew and André did a Q and A at The Paris Theater, a young African American man stood up and said, “I moved to New York to study fashion. My parents don’t think what I do is real, but I know that it is because I saw you do it.” I had watched André in fashion documentaries for 20 years, he’s hilarious, but it was always very performative. It was clear there was more of a story to be told. I think people will expect jokes and pretty dresses. From the very beginning I wanted to uncover the side of André that he has kept private for many years. I think he has made it look easy. It’s been harder than it looked. I wanted to show what really made André: his grandmother, the church, his experience as an African American boy growing up in the Jim Crow South. 

On revisiting Talley’s childhood in Durham, N.C.

Novack: The nature of humanity is that we evolve over time and really change. André is someone who really became someone different than who he was as a boy. What André said to me when I went to pitch him the project was, “If we make this, I have to take you behind my childhood church and show you where I was baptized.” The black church is really a big, big part of who he is. I think he remembers walking through those woods there as the scariest moment of his childhood. He really is genuinely afraid of the snakes there. When I think about it now, it’s kind of moving, because he wanted to go right back to the heart of what he was afraid of.

On the hidden prejudices in the fashion industry.

Novack: I think people may be drawn to fashion partly because it can be a vehicle for becoming the person you want to be and becoming something different than what is expected of you, or expected within the environment in which you grew. Someone said to me after a screening, “Fashion schools are full of former misfits.” And the way we adorn our bodies can be a way to communicate who we are. In that way I think André’s story is inspirational because it does show how he is a self-creation, but was never the protagonist in his own story. He hasn’t spoken much publicly about the racism that he personally faced, or the pain of having to sublimate that struggle over the years. He feels now he can talk about it, and we are in a moment where there’s more of a discussion on race and racism in different industries. Anna Wintour was much more candid than I had expected talking about how the issue of race was always bubbling under the surface. 

On filming during the 2016 election.

Novack: I view André’s story as an American success story, although it has a lot of pain and a lot of sacrifice. He wished his grandmother could have seen the Michelle Obama Vogue cover. By extension, he wishes his grandmother could have seen the first African American presidency. At the same time he’s watching a car crash in the slow motion on the national political stage. Perhaps we haven’t made as progress as many of us think or hope. One of my favorite moments of the film is when Trump is being sworn in and André just goes quiet. It’s pretty rare that he goes quiet in public, and to me it was so clear that he was distraught. Even though I wasn’t one of them, I felt a profound guilt and shame that so many white women had voted for Trump. For André and me that morning was a moment of total despondency. I got to hide behind the camera, saved from having to think about everything else. But I almost felt like I owed him an apology. “I’m so sorry this is the country you live in.”

On capturing the private André Leon Talley.

Novack: He talks about growing up and his relatives sitting out on the porch when the weather was warm, telling stories. The movie is meant to feel like you’re spending time with André, he’s telling you his stories. He’s really Southern. Some people are shocked that he lives in Westchester. “He doesn’t live in SoHo?” But once you understand who he is, where he comes from, how that lives inside of him, the fact that he needs a front porch where he can sit and have trees and quiet makes sense. The fashion story of André was a wonderful, funny, enticing side of André. But sitting on his porch and watching bunnies in the grass is as much luxury to him as some beautifully aged Louis Vuitton trunk. He really is much more complex than a story of luxury. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.