Sofia Coppola's 'Marc by Sofia'

                  

 Among the many things I generally ignore, high fashion ranks near the top of the list. Occasionally, I peruse the photos in one of the New York Times' glossy Sunday supplements, an activity that seldom fails to amuse. How could it not, with designs so exaggerated they might be taken as examples of human absurdity?

  Keep my attitude in mind as you read this review of Sofia Coppola's documentary, Marc by Sofia, a look at the way fashion icon Marc Jacobs goes about the business of designing clothes and creating a show. 

    Set in the months before Jacobs's 2024 spring show, the movie mixes show preparations with clips from the movies that inspired Jacobs (Sweet Charity, All That Jazz, and Hello Dolly). He's also partial to the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and an admirer of Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry. Diana Ross's sequins? The best.

    A long-time friend of Jacobs, Coppola takes a casual stroll through Jacobs' world, stitching together a tale that puts the designer's sensibilities on display while offering sketchy biographical material: At the age of 15, Jacobs left home to live with his grandmother, a meticulously organized shopper. His widowed mother had remarried, and Jacobs didn't like the stepdad. 

    Perhaps biographical detail doesn't matter. Jacobs seems to live in a world ruled less by the accumulated sediments of his past than the cultural ether he inhales, absorbs, and, then, transforms. 

   Some have seen Coppola's film as a look at Jacobs's creative process, which includes attention to every detail of his looming show: from set design to the quality of the false eyelashes for models to the music he’ll play. I approached the movie as I would a visit to another planet, a journey into exotic and unfamiliar terrain.

    In the 2024 show, women wearing wigs bigger than beach balls, display their chalky, mannequin-like expressions and wear outsized clothing that falls slightly short of qualifying as housing. 

   The clothing seems part of a satirical joke. 

   Is it?

   Beats me.

    It probably helps to be familiar with the arc of Jacobs' career, which Coppola presents mostly with references -- from his stint at Perry Ellis to his mold-breaking work at Louis Vuitton, where he added humor and flash that stretched the Vuitton brand. 

   And, of course, there's Jacobs' fabled Grunge period, that moment in the 1990s when sighs over elegance were replaced by the enraged banshee screams of rockers and those who followed them. We even see a clip from Jacobs' days as a student at the Parsons School of Design.

   But Jacobs works in the real world, too -- sort of. He once designed clothes for Winona Ryder's shoplifting trial. 

    The movie can be amusing, although it seems directed at those who already know that Jacobs is a major designer whose work has proven influential. 

   Coppola doesn't tell us, by the way, where Jacobs, now 62, stands in relation to other contemporary designers. And she doesn't include much by way of outside observation about his work. A little more context would have been welcome.

    I've admired Coppola's work in movies such as The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006), and The Bling Ring (2013). Nothing about Marc by Sofia made me think less of Coppola as a filmmaker, although it does seem like a bit of a digression.