SHOES AND MOVIES.

Luca Guadagnino's  2020 Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams is a handsome documentary which curiously is interesting on movies and shoes but dips out on bringing its subject to life.

Salvatore Ferragamo certainly had quite a life. One of a family of fourteen, he decided as a child, he wanted to be a shoemaker, though this was the lowest rung on the social ladder in Bonito his Sicilian home village, from which he moved to Florence, Naples and then to the 1907 USA where he rejected factory production by the thousands of shoes lacking the comfort of his own hand made work.  He studied anatomy in medical school for this. He participated in the shift from Santa Barbara to Hollywood by the now-forgotten American Film Corporation.

Ferragamo's life provided the relevant quota of  drama - crossing the globe in his teens, a car accident which had him designing and patenting a splint for his smashed leg. (He ran up a series of notable patents - something alien to the sharing of knowledge in his origin culture). Ferragamo mixed with Valentino, Gloria Swanson and Cecil B. De Mille (“If cowboys had boots like these the West would have been settled much quicker”), being wiped out in the Stock Market Crash and, with devoted staff entering into a potentially ruinous deal, while still bankrupt, to set up again in his historic building. He rolled through though the rise and fall of Mussolini and two world wars.

 Thief of Bagdad - Fairbanks, with Sôjin

Fairbanks’ Pixie Boots from The Thief of Bagdad (most of which he did barefoot) and Swanson’s sex-worker bow footwear for Sadie Thompson get special attention. There’s a surprisingly involving description of the construction of his arch-supporting soles and the innovative use of undisguised nylon and cork materials. We don't get any mention of cost or durability. It's another look into the Hollywood lives of the rich and famous. The people who had their homes styled by Billy Haines, walked round them in Ferrigamo shoes.

The documentary has a great range of source footage - the founders setting up United Artists where only Griffith is taking interest in the surroundings, clips from The Covered Wagon, the silent 10 Commandments, Charles Mintz’ 1935 The Shoemaker & the Elves, Italian historical actuality, Ferragamo’s own grainy B&W 8mm. home movies, which they allow to jump frames or go out of rack, a Pez digital animation, along with stills of Ferragamo handling the feet of glamour stars or surrounded by the lasts of famous people's feet - Greta Garbo, Claire Booth Luce, Gloria Swanson, Ingrid Bergman Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren. He seems to have given up on men’s footwear

Salvatore Ferrigamo & Audrey Hepburn.

The interviews let it down, fashion pundits and family, even with glimpses of Martin Scorsese and Jay Weissberg to comment the movie connection. Adding echo to the track is an interesting piece of manipulation.

Curiously the high point is the artizanal hand making of a Ferrigamo shoe, which we’ve already seen in the opening, with the family material and digital shoe ballet coming as an anti-climax. 

Director Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, the new Suspiria) has still shown a firmer grip on the documentary form than most fiction makers taking it on. His film has the variety and hints of significance (labor relations, the shoe maker in legend) that sustain it for most of a hundred and sixteen minutes. However, possibly due to the involvement of his heirs in the production, Ferragamo himself remains irritatingly two-dimensional.

 It would be interesting to know why the film has attracted more attention than other current non fiction.

 

Barrie Pattison 2022