Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?
France, 1966. Director William Klein. 102min.Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?, the 1967 winner of the French Prix Jean Vigo, remains a quintessential film by one of the wittiest and most versatile veteran artists and fashion image-makers. A team of TV reporters chronicles the life of the dolly-faced fashion mannequin Polly (Dorothy McGowan) at a climax of her career. In an obsessive quest for Polly’s elusive identity, the filmmakers try to get “under her make-up.” Following Polly’s own musings on who she is, they end up in a frustrated debate about fashion, surface and existence. Particularly inspired are Klein’s outlandish fashion scenes and his understated commentaries on film and filmmaking, best exemplified in a sequence showing media’s manipulation of “raw material” through cunning editing. Highly stylised, sarcastic, hilarious and heart-achingly sharp, Klein’s first full-length feature film offers no moral maxims. In a method truly worthy of fashion, it merely lays the surface out for the viewers to figure out.
For further reading, see Pamela Church-Gibson’s essay Qui Êtes-Vous, Polly Maggoo?
Past screenings:
Between Stigma and Enigma – London
Sunday 14 May 2006, 14:00 | Ciné Lumière
Screening followed by William Klein in conversation with writer and journalist Paul Ryan and film and fashion theorist Pamela Church Gibson.
The 1st Fashion in Film Festival – Prague
Wednesday 27 September 2006, 20:30 | Kino Svetozor
The 1st Fashion in Film Festival – New York
Saturday 24 March 2007, 19:00 | Museum of the Moving Image
The 1st Fashion in Film Festival – Arnhem
Friday 15 June 2007 | Steenfabriek
With lecture by philosopher and artist Rebecca Breuer.
