On top of being one of the most prominent names in modern fashion, Tom Ford is also an accomplished filmmaker, having written and directed A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals, both of which won hugely positive reviews from critics and landed some awards season recognition.
Before launching his own brand, Ford was the creative director at Gucci, a position he held from 1994 to 2004. That places him right in the middle of the story being told in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, where he’s played by Reeve Carney, star of Penny Dreadful and infamous stage show Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark.
In an essay for the digital weekly Air Mail, Ford voiced his opinions on the lavish dramatization that’s poised to take a decent bite out of the box office this weekend, and he found himself taken aback by the absurd camp on display, going to far as to compare certain scenes to a Saturday Night Live skit.
“I often laughed out loud, but was I supposed to? At times when Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci and Jared Leto as his son Paolo Gucci were on screen, I was not completely sure that I wasn’t watching a Saturday Night Live version of the tale… I was deeply sad for several days after watching House of Gucci, a reaction that I think only those of us who knew the players and the play will feel. It was hard for me to see the humor and camp in something that was so bloody. In real life, none of it was camp. It was at times absurd, but ultimately it was tragic.”
There’s just as many people claiming House of Gucci will be an Academy Awards contender as there is those waiting for it to sweep the board at the Razzies, so it’s already proven to be a polarizing film among audiences, even without Ford weighing in with his thoughts on events he was an active part of.
