Tagged: Suede Jacket
The Killer Elite: James Caan’s Brown Suede Jacket
James Caan in The Killer Elite (1975)
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James Caan as Mike Locken, government mercenary
San Francisco, Spring 1975
Film: The Killer Elite
Release Date: December 19, 1975
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Costume Designer: Ray Summers
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The Godfather co-stars and real-life friends James Caan and Robert Duvall reunited as rival mercenaries in The Killer Elite, widely released fifty years ago today on December 19, 1975, following its L.A. premiere two days earlier. Adapted by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant from Robert Syd Hopkins novel Monkey in the Middle, the film’s mixed reception hasn’t improved much with age, and Caan himself considered it a dud that he took merely to work with director Sam Peckinpah—even if Peckinpah’s creative control was limited by United Artists.
The Killer Elite takes a lighter, action-oriented hand to the anti-government paranoia that defined ’70s thrillers, capitalizing on the easy chemistry between Caan and Duvall who portray the friends-turned-foes on opposing sides in a San Francisco proxy war. They begin the story as Mike Locken (Caan) and George Hansen (Duvall), colleagues in ComTeg—a private intelligence network often hired by the government. “What’s that? ‘Circumsized Italian Americans’?” Mike jokes when they’re asked if they work for the CIA. Continue reading
The Dreamers: Michael Pitt’s Suede Jacket, Jeans, and Chuck Taylors
Michael Pitt in The Dreamers (2003)
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Michael Pitt as Matthew, expatriate student and self-professed cinephile
Paris, Spring 1968
Film: The Dreamers
Release Date: October 10, 2003
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Costume Designer: Louise Stjernsward
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Much discourse around Bertolucci’s 2003 erotic drama The Dreamers (which premiered in Italy 22 years ago today) centers around what the characters aren’t wearing, so I’ll flip the script by focusing on Louise Stjernsward’s evocative costume design that brings to life Parisian culture against the backdrop of the 1968 student protests.
Hailing from San Diego and studying in Paris, Matthew encounters sibling activists Isabelle (Eva Green) and Théo Fontaine (Louis Garrel) among his “freemasonry of cinephiles”—introduced during the very French situation of Isabelle asking Matthew to take her cigarette during a police demonstration at the storied Cinémathèque française. He’s quickly drawn into the siblings’ strange dynamic of deeply incestuous overtones littered with cinematic references epitomized by Isabelle’s insistence on leading the trio on a run through the Louve as seen in Bande à part. Continue reading
Keith David’s Ochre ’70s Suede and Plaid in the Duster Finale
Keith David as Ezra Saxton in the series finale of Duster.
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Keith David as Ezra “Sax” Saxton, ruthless but complex Arizona crime boss
American Southwest, Summer 1972
Series: Duster
Episode: “66 Reno Split” (Episode 1.08)
Air Date: July 3, 2025
Director: Darren Grant
Created by: J.J. Abrams & LaToya Morgan
Costume Designer: Dayna Pink
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Just because Duster was unfortunately canceled by HBO Max after its first season finale aired two months ago today doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about it. Luckily, the showrunners told a comprehensive story in the first season that generally concluded Keith David’s arc as the charismatic crime boss Ezra Saxton. Continue reading
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan: Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown
Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown (2024). Photo by Macall Polay.
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Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, folk singer-songwriter
New York City and Monterey, California, Spring to Summer 1963
Film: A Complete Unknown
Release Date: December 25, 2024
Director: James Mangold
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips
Jacket Maker: Jimmy McBride
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 84th birthday, Bob Dylan! Born as Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, the iconoclastic musician’s early career was recently depicted in James Mangold’s biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet’s extensive work to achieve Dylan’s distinctive voice, mannerisms, and playing style resulted in a characteristically dedicated performance that earned the actor his second Academy Award nomination—one of eight total for the film, including Best Picture.
A Complete Unknown begins in early 1961 when the young Minnesota-born troubadour arrives in New York City, seeking out his ailing idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). As Dylan’s star power evolves among the Greenwich Village folk scene, so do his tumultuous relationships and friendships with contemporaries like Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), and Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook)—who had previously been the subject of the Mangold-directed 2005 biopic Walk the Line starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Adapted from Elijah Wald’s nonfiction volume Dylan Goes Electric!, the film spans these four crucial years of Dylan’s early career leading up to his controversial performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, fifty years ago this summer.
Dylan’s primary motivation through A Complete Unknown is presented as total musical freedom, often at the cost of public popularity or traditional friendships. Baez and other characters bemoan their struggle to know Dylan on a deeper level; indeed, some reviewers even cited this as a flaw of the film—however, I see it as part of its overall thesis: even after a career of 60+ years and hundreds of compositions and recordings, Dylan remains the titular “complete unknown”, to borrow a lyrics from his 1965 hit “Like a Rolling Stone”. The only human connection that never frustrates the cinematic Dylan is his bond with Woody Guthrie, centered purely around music—and no doubt helped by the fact that Woody’s medical condition has rendered him all but mute, never asking Dylan anything about himself that he doesn’t want to answer.
After his self-titled first album is comprised primarily of cover songs, Dylan embraces the opportunity to make a stronger musical signature by recording more original tracks on his follow-up record, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. A Complete Unknown very briefly depicts CBS staff photographer Don Hunstein’s cover photo shoot on the streets of Greenwich Village in February 1963, with a casually dressed Dylan and his then-girlfriend, Suze Rotolo—renamed at Dylan’s own request to “Sylvie Russo” (Elle Fanning) for the screen, citing that the late Ms. Rotolo was one of the few people in his life who never sought fame.
“It is one of those cultural markers that influenced the look of album covers precisely because of its casual down-home spontaneity and sensibility,” Rotolo wrote in her memoir, A Freewheelin’ Time. “Most albums were carefully staged and controlled, to terrific effect on the Blue Note jazz album covers… and to not-so-great effect on the perfectly posed and clean-cut pop and folks albums. Whoever was responsible for choosing that particular photograph for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan really had an eye for a new look.”
The Bourne Identity: Tim Dutton as Eamon
Tim Dutton as Eamon in The Bourne Identity (2002)
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Tim Dutton as Eamon, wealthy family man
French countryside, Winter 2002
Film: The Bourne Identity
Release Date: June 14, 2002
Director: Doug Liman
Costume Designer: Pierre-Yves Gayraud
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Poor Eamon, seemingly always having to get his half-sister Marie (Franka Potente) out of jams!
The latest finds Eamon and his two kids driving up to his Christmas-decorated French country home (actually filmed in the Czech Republic), only to find that Marie and her new boyfriend have broken in, apparently in some kind of trouble and seeking refuge. The next morning, he learns that “some kind of trouble” centers around that boyfriend being Jason Bourne (Matt Damon), a trained killer whose amnesia has made him a target for a rogue branch of the CIA specializing in assassinations. Continue reading
Midnight Cowboy: Jon Voight as Joe Buck
Jon Voight as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969)
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Jon Voight as Joe Buck, naïve Texan wannabe gigolo and Army veteran
New York City, Summer through Winter 1968
Film: Midnight Cowboy
Release Date: May 25, 1969
Director: John Schlesinger
Costume Designer: Ann Roth
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Harry Nilsson recorded his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin'” 57 years ago this week on November 13, 1967. This Grammy-winning folk hit has since become inextricably linked with the 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy—which celebrated its 55th anniversary in May—after director John Schlesinger chose it as the film’s theme song.
Adapted by Waldo Salt from James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel of the same name, Midnight Cowboy received a controversial if critically acclaimed response upon its release. Six months earlier, the MPAA implemented its voluntary rating system to classify age suitability for major releases, replacing the increasingly outdated “Hays Code” that had been enforced since the early 1930s. Midnight Cowboy was one of the first mainstream movies to be rated “X”, which forbade any audience members under age 17 to be admitted and was reserved for movies demonstrating the most extreme sexual themes, graphic violence or language. Despite the stigma of this dramatically restrictive rating, Midnight Cowboy was the third highest-grossing American movie released in 1969 and won three of the seven Oscars for which it was nominated—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay—and it remains the only movie with an X (or equivalent NC-17) rating to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Continue reading
Kris Kristofferson’s Brown Suede Jacket as Cisco Pike
Kris Kristofferson on the cover of his 1971 album The Silver Tongued Devil and I, photographed by Baron Wolman the previous year while in costume for Cisco Pike (1973).
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Kris Kristofferson as Cisco Pike, down-on-his-luck musician and former drug dealer
Venice Beach, California, Fall 1970
Film: Cisco Pike
Release Date: January 14, 1972
Director: Bill L. Norton
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
He’s a poet, he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, he’s a pusher, he’s a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he’s stoned. He’s a walkin’ contradiction—partly truth and partly fiction—takin’ every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.
In tribute to the late outlaw country icon who died one month ago today at the age of 88, I recently received a great suggestion from a BAMF Style reader to cover the style that Kris Kristofferson wore in Bill L. Norton’s directorial debut Cisco Pike. Continue reading
The Gambler: James Caan’s Tan Suede Shirt-jacket
James Caan as Axel Freed in The Gambler (1974)
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James Caan as Axel Freed, gambling-addicted English professor
New York City, Fall 1973
Film: The Gambler
Release Date: October 2, 1974
Director: Karel Reisz
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released 50 years ago today on October 2, 1974, Karel Reisz’s drama The Gambler stars James Caan as Axel Freed, a literature professor whose gambling addiction spirals into self-destruction. Screenwriter James Toback drew on his own reckless experiences as a compulsive gambler during his time lecturing at City College of New York.
The film opens with Axel already deep in debt at Hips’ gambling den, where the seasoned bookie (Paul Sorvino) notes that Axel’s $44,000 losing streak is “the woist luck I seen in fifteen yearhs.” Continue reading
Little Murders: Elliott Gould’s Beige Suede Belted Jacket
Elliott Gould in Little Murders (1971)
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Elliott Gould as Alfred Chamberlain, aloof photographer
New York City, Spring 1970
Film: Little Murders
Release Date: February 9, 1971
Director: Alan Arkin
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
As we wave goodbye to summer and celebrate the 86th birthday of Elliott Gould, born August 29, 1938, let’s review the actor’s style in the final act of Alan Arkin’s 1971 directorial debut Little Murders, a stark, satirical portrait of a chaotic New York City plagued by unsolved homicides, power blackouts, and rampant street crime. Continue reading
Glen Powell in Hit Man: Gary’s Western-Inspired Wardrobe as “Ron”
Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in Hit Man (2023)
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Glen Powell as Gary Johnson, mild-mannered psychology professor moonlighting as an undercover police contractor
New Orleans, Fall 2022
Film: Hit Man
Release Date: May 24, 2024
Director: Richard Linklater
Costume Designer: Juliana Hoffpauir
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
After a limited two-week run in theaters, Hit Man debuted on Netflix at the beginning of this month and quickly became the service’s #1 most-watched movie in the U.S. The screenplay by director Richard Linklater and star Glen Powell fictionalizes the life of Gary Johnson, a college professor and successful “fake hitman” whose undercover police work led to more than 70 arrests of people seeking the services of a contract killer.
Hit Man is Linklater’s second cinematic depiction of stranger-than-fiction true crime based on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth (the first was Bernie in 2011), though the production and setting were moved from Houston to New Orleans to take advantage of Louisiana tax credits.
Described in the epilogue as the “chillest dude imaginable,” the real Gary Johnson—whom the same epilogue is sure to insist was never actually involved in any murders—died in 2022 at the age of 75 before getting to see this dark comedy that riffed on his life story.
Though sensationalizing his life for dramatic purposes, Hit Man includes many details from Johnson’s life, like his cats Id and Ego, his unassuming politeness, and the random opportunity that elevated him to the city’s most in-demand assassin who signals his identity to prospective clients with a single response phrase:
All pie is good pie.