Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
To be fair, most people involved with Melania do seem to feel shame, if not the ones who matter. The publicity emails sent from Amazon regarding the movie have no individual names or email addresses attached, as though no one wanted their career or personal brand sullied by association. A report in Rolling Stone this week alleged that two-thirds of the production crew based in New York who worked on the film similarly asked to be uncredited. (“I feel a little bit uncomfortable with the propaganda element of this,” one reportedly said.) Melania is directed by Brett Ratner, best known for the Rush Hour franchise and for the multiple allegations of sexual assault and harassment leveled at him by half a dozen people in 2017. (Ratner has denied or disputed the allegations; Melania marks his return to public life after a nine-year absence, although a photo of Ratner with the accused sex trafficker Jean-Luc Brunel—now deceased—did pop up in the last month.)
At the Melania screening I attended today, what was most surprising about the movie was how little is actually in it, despite a running time just shy of two hours. Mostly, Ratner captures his subject walking from liminal place to liminal place in five-inch heels, the camera trailing her like a lap dog. She looks immediately uncomfortable being filmed, an effect that never quite goes away. In voiceover, she opines vaguely about wanting the film to capture her motivations as first lady. “Every day I live with purpose and devotion,” she explains, while we see her being fitted for her inauguration outfit, working with designers to manage the aesthetic of the presidential balls, and interviewing various white women with barrel curls to join her staff. She talks proudly about having, during Trump’s first term, restored the White House Rose Garden (unfortunately since converted by her husband into a paved patio area).
At the Melania screening I attended today, what was most surprising about the movie was how little is actually in it, despite a running time just shy of two hours. Mostly, Ratner captures his subject walking from liminal place to liminal place in five-inch heels, the camera trailing her like a lap dog. She looks immediately uncomfortable being filmed, an effect that never quite goes away. In voiceover, she opines vaguely about wanting the film to capture her motivations as first lady. “Every day I live with purpose and devotion,” she explains, while we see her being fitted for her inauguration outfit, working with designers to manage the aesthetic of the presidential balls, and interviewing various white women with barrel curls to join her staff. She talks proudly about having, during Trump’s first term, restored the White House Rose Garden (unfortunately since converted by her husband into a paved patio area).
