Fashion week can be murder. And in director Sally Potter's latest film Rage, one catwalk in particular gets thrust into the spotlight when it turns into the scene of a deadly investigation. Flashbulbs ignite. A whodunit ensues. Potter has turned the new page, opening up a sordid chapter, behind closed doors, at a New York fashion show in this, her latest feature film.   

Flashback: Potter proved herself as a visual force to be reckoned with when audiences worldwide flocked to her gender-bending, time-traveling royal romance Orlando back in 1992. The film thrust Tilda Swinton into the spotlight and landed Potter on the map. Lush and dynamic beyond its one-dimensional screen presentation, Orlando showed that she could fill a frame artfully while telling Virginia Woolf’s classic tale.

Flash forward: 17 years later, London-born Potter has created the complete opposite in her latest work, Rage, filling minimalist frames with her actors’ bold performances. Taking risks while borrowing elements of theater, documentary, and avant-garde filmmaking, Rage is staged as if shot on a mobile phone. From seamstresses to critics to delivery boys, a collision of fashion world stories unfolds at the fateful event as each character shares their personal exploits with an ambitious schoolboy Michaelangelo, who has his own agenda. Addressing the camera directly in pure character with their confessionals, John Leguizamo, Eddie Izzard, Jude Law (in major drag), and Judi Dench, among others, paint a picture of a fashion show unraveling.

Rage premiered digitally as a “custom seven-part version on mobile phones and Internet” alongside a screen and DVD release. Here, the genre-breaking director speaks to V. L.A. Collins

L.A. COLLINS Rage is told so resourcefully, but touches on so many industries on the brink. You once called it a celebration of “poor cinema.” Tell us more.
SALLY POTTER I think with the economic crisis in this profession, global warming, and all the rest of it, we have to think about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, and what’s really important. Call it “poor cinema,” “basic cinema,” call it what you will. It’s more a return to doing things with people whom you love and really want to collaborate with.
LC It must be a relief when the budget isn't so much of the focus.
SP I mean it’s somewhat idealistic in a way, but at this point in my working life it’s very refreshing not to be motivated for financial gain. [Laughs] Not that any of my films have been motivated by financial gain, but this one was so low budget. All of the actors worked for minimum wage. We got to focus on subject matter—the visible and invisible people of every industry.

LC This murder set in the fashion world can speak to so many things. Which do you lean towards, the story being an allegory or more straight-forward?
SP What’s wonderful about the medium of cinema is that you can work on many, many levels at once. And the more levels you can work on, the richer the experience can be. Even if audiences are consciously selecting only one of those levels, much has gone into the making of it, so that there’s allegory, character, politics, emotion—there are just many, many layers.
LC Can you talk about your involvement with the fashion world as you’ve moved through your career?
SP I think that like most people I’m an inadvertent consumer of fashion. Thru Orlando, I got very, very, VERY involved with the history of clothes and color, and did a lot of research. I got very interested in the history of clothes.
LC Did it impact your wardrobe?
SP For myself, I love clothes and have far too many of them. [Laughs] But “fashion” is beyond my financial reach. It’s something I look at. I loved it when Vivienne Westwood put out that thing recently when she said, “Stop buying clothes!” A great fashion icon saying that there was a danger in overconsumption.
LC Your characters are drawn with bold, unapologetic strokes, yet feel nuanced in their own way. Was this work based on any fashion world players you’ve come across?
SP I did do my research. It held a lot of parallels with people I know in the movie industry, and that world, those people, I know very well. I think that these characters arise in any industry where art meets commerce, and the tension comes from that. It’s very real. 

Rage is in theaters now.

www.ragethemovie.com

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