Dancing to Phil Collins With Duct Tape: The Patrick Bateman/Andrew Cunanan Connection

As we enter further into the psychotic, drug-addled brain of Andrew Cunanan with each new episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace, one can’t help but find some rather overt parallels between the man of many masks and the ultimate authority on masks (both metaphorical and skin care-related), Patrick Bateman. The second segment in the eight-part series, “Manhunt,” flashes back and forth between the week leading up to Versace’s killing, as well as giving us some insight into Versace’s near brush with death in early 1994 as a result of being HIV positive–though at the time, it was billed as ear cancer, and, to this day, Donatella maintains that’s all it was.

Of course, one can’t have engaged in the type of high-risk sexual behavior that Versace and boyfriend Antonio D’Amico did without the high plausibility of contracting the still rampant disease. In what turned out to be many yin and yang foils between Cunanan and Versace, Cunanan was not HIV positive at the time of his death, had so much more technical reason to go on living his healthy life than Versace, a person who celebrated the beauty of existence and all of its details to the very end. An aesthetic man whose designs were rooted in joyousness, his fights with Donatella about shaking up the brand were legendary. This element is also explored in “Manhunt,” in a scene of Versace at the final fashion show in Paris he would put on before his assassination. With Donatella insisting that he open himself up to some of the popular trends of the moment (what with everyone taking more notice of Galliano and McQueen at the time), Versace rebuffs her offering of models who look “ill”–as though they enjoy nothing about life, which they probably don’t.

Looming in the background of it all is Cunanan, biding his time at a shitty hotel that at least has an ocean view. As he continues his endless search for a drug fix, he hones in on HIV positive Ronnie (Max Greenfield), based on a real life person Maureen Orth featured in the biography the show is based on. And since most of the pleasure Cunanan derives from life is in telling elaborate lies to get people to trust and like him, Ronnie seems to be a perfectly adequate way to pass the time as he waits for his moment, casing Versace’s villa and taking a series of photos of it with a disposable camera (just one of many reasons to yearn for the 90s).

Keeping his predatory skills sharp, Ronnie accompanies Cunanan to the beach where he targets an older man he can hustle who then takes him back to his hotel room. It is in this disturbing, duct tape-filled scene that we are given the strongest echoes of Bateman, in the now iconic moments leading up to his murder of Paul Allen (Jared Leto) to the tune of Huey Lewis and the News’ “Hip To Be Square.” Similarly, Cunanan puts on Phil Collins’ “Easy Love” after wrapping the older man’s entire face in duct tape and then dancing about with stoically and controlled gleeful abandon. Bateman, too, has an appreciation of Collins, giving an entire spiel about how much better his solo work is from Genesis.

Each man’s tendency to calmly explain and/or dance to their squirming, terrified victim speaks to the fractured emotional mechanism in their brain. Sure, they’re aware of the abstraction of what pain is, but it’s become so dulled that their need to inflict it on others is, in turn, how they can finally experience some level of sentience. At one point, Bateman himself remarks, “My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape.” It’s as though Cunanan’s own monologues have been ripped from the very pages and frames of Bret Easton Ellis’ and Mary Harron’s character, respectively.

As Ronnie starts to suspect that Cunanan is deeply disturbed upon seeing him with duct tape put over his own face before taking a shower (David Hockney would approve), Ronnie asks, “What have you done?” Cunanan snaps, “Nothing. I’ve done nothing. My whole life I can honestly say I’ve done nothing.” It is this feeling of inadequacy in spite of having all the intelligence and talent (in his mind) to have done something great, to have reached the level of fame and respect that Versace has, that plagues him. And, desiring a release of that agony of being a cipher–like Bateman–he must kill. Music just happens to be an integral part of that sadism. That the show’s soundtrack has thus far been drenched in dance cuts of the time (even the late 80s club staple “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” by Soul II Soul) means we’re going to get even more ominous song associations with Cunanan (Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” is already definitely ruined).

Below is the much more sinister, in my opinion, “Cockiness (I Love It)” by Rihanna synced up to Darren Criss’ Golden Globes-worthy clip, followed by the original “Easy Love” by Phil Collins one. In both auditory cases, Patrick Bateman has some serious competition.

https://ia601500.us.archive.org/15/items/PPY9921124633_201801/PPY9921124633.mp3?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
https://acsversace-news.tumblr.com/post/170123061914/audio_player_iframe/acsversace-news/tumblr_p34mrtdjD81wcyxsb?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fia601500.us.archive.org%2F15%2Fitems%2FPPY9921124633_201801%2FPPY9921124633.mp3

Still Watching: Versace

Joanna Robinson and Richard Lawson discuss the second of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, directed by Nelson Cragg. This week’s featured interview is Emmy nominated actor Max Greenfield who discusses portraying Ronnie in the series and his research into the HIV positive community.

Inside Gianni Versace’s Final Fashion Show and the Battle With Sister Donatella

Just nine days before Gianni Versace was fatally shot outside his Miami mansion, the designer had been in Paris, debuting his haute-couture fall-winter collection in extravagant style at the Ritz. Models including Naomi Campbell, Amber Valletta, and Stella Tennant, dressed in body-clinging chain mail and silk jersey gowns, descended from a double staircase and strutted down a glass catwalk that had been erected theatrically over the neoclassic swimming pool.

The second episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, “Manhunt,” flashes back to Versace’s last fashion show, revealing the creative tensions simmering between the designer and his sister shortly before his death. According to one biographer, however, the stress-filled showdown hours before the fashion show was even more volcanic than what’s being shown on television.

As depicted on American Crime Story, the siblings clashed backstage over the women they wanted showcasing the collection. Donatella had booked models with skinny, “heroin-chic” builds—including Karen Elson, the fair-skinned, flame-haired up-and-comer Donatella selected to wear the collection’s climactic piece: the wedding dress.

Archival photos on Getty show Elson in the Versace atelier being fitted with the piece—a slinky, metallic-silver baby-doll dress, accessorized with a veil emblazoned with a silver Byzantine cross. But on the show day, the collection’s marquee piece was reassigned to a proven supermodel and Gianni favorite, Naomi Campbell.

“Gianni never liked [Elson],” explained Deborah Ball in her 2010 book, House of Versace: The Untold Story of Genius, Murder, and Survival. “‘Why are you so pale?’ he used to demand of Elson, in Italian. The British girl looked blankly at him. ‘Why don’t you go get some sun?’”

Ball reported that, during rehearsals the day before the show, Gianni erupted in front of his sister and Elson, who had never before walked a runway.

“He bristled as he watched Elson nervously descend the stairs and walk the runway. Gianni didn’t like her lopey, horselike gait, and he raged at Donatella for having suggested the girl in the first place. So he substituted Naomi, who did him proud as she sauntered by in the wedding dress […] Elson burst into a fit of tears, while Donatella wore a stony look on her face. Gianni’s ruling showed he didn’t trust her with key decisions.”

(Elson, who returned to the Paris runway for another Versace couture collection in 2016, diplomatically told Vogue that year, “I remember [Gianni] being very tender and sweet to me. It was daunting, as every supermodel on the planet was there and I was the ‘new girl’ at school, so to speak.”)

Clashing was nothing new for the Italian siblings. Earlier in 1997, Donatella’s husband at the time, Paul Beck, told Vanity Fair contributor Cathy Horyn that it took him five years to get used to the “Versace verbal dynamic.”

“I thought somebody was going to kill someone,” Beck said of witnessing their first fight. “I had to leave the room … And the argument would be over something like where to put the sweaters in the new boutique on Via Monte Napoleone.”

But as the tensions escalated within the Versace empire, so did the fights. Gianni had long been the creative genius and workhorse behind the fashion house, counting on Donatella as his muse and critic. For Donatella, who was more of a brand ambassador in those days, her ability to stand up to Gianni was part of her value.

“I thought of myself as the one who really was able to tell Gianni the truth, because with a big designer, nobody is able,” Donatella told New York magazine. “That’s the big threat for a big designer.”

As Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Orth wrote in her book Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History, Donatella stepped up to help manage the company when Gianni fell ill in 1994, and was being groomed to take over the fashion house. The relationship fractured unexpectedly when Gianni recovered several years later and attempted to reclaim his position.

“We know that Gianni was very, very sick in 1994—he was struggling to walk to the news stand in Miami,” explained Tom Rob Smith, who wrote Wednesday’s episode. “He was working closely with Donatella to [prepare her] to take over the company. There was this real sense that she was his heir, and then, unexpectedly, he gets better. That is a very tricky situation for anyone—if you’re about to be given control of something and then that control is suddenly modulated.”

Gianni and Donatella “acknowledged friction during the winter and spring of 1996, when Gianni disagreed with her choices for an advertising campaign and she seemed to overstep her bounds,” reported Orth in her book, which is the basis for the FX series. The siblings were struggling to find a power balance and share footing in the spotlight. Ball claimed that Gianni’s decision to change his will in September 1996—leaving his shares of the company to his niece Allegra, rather than his brother or sister—was done in secret and fueled by his frustration and resentment towards his siblings.

“That tension you see in the final fashion show … You feel like Donatella felt she was no longer subservient to her brother,” continued Smith. “She was his equal. It’s hard in those creative industries to have parity. Someone ultimately has to make the final decision. So you start splitting everything up—you could have some models, and he could have other models. They had different styling on the models and different ideas. It didn’t really coalesce as well as a singular vision might have.”

The aesthetic disparity between brother and sister Versace was so apparent during this particular runway show that American Crime Story costume designer Lou Eyrich told Vanity Fair that she took special care to craft a dozen looks for the series that represented Gianni and Donatella’s different ideals.

“Gianni had a more colorful look, so the creams and the pinks and the yellows and the reds were Gianni,” Eyrich explained of the costumes she attributed to Gianni. “Donatella’s models, meanwhile, were more waif, heroin-chic models who wear all black and had the heavy eye makeup. It was important to show the difference between the designers’ visions at the time.”

In spite of the tensions simmering behind the scenes, Versace’s final fashion show was widely praised. Even though the house faced fresh competition from flashy rivals like John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, Versace got first billing in the Associated Press’s write-up: “Gianni Versace reigned supreme with his ‘King of the Night’ pool runway.” Joan Kaner, then the fashion director of Neiman Marcus, was quoted as calling the collection “terrific, sexy, and modern.” The New York Times, meanwhile, acknowledged the disjointed feel of the collection, writing, “for every dress that took the idea too far, there was one where the idea worked.”

“When Gianni died, things were unresolved with Donatella, and how awful must that have been for her,” added Smith. “For Gianni to die and to think, ‘What were we even fighting about? Models?’ It was utterly trivial.”

Indeed, Donatella has said in the years since her brother’s death, “My brother was the king, and my whole world had crashed around me.”

By 2012, though, 15 years after the murder, Donatella had found the strength to keep her family’s company afloat and develop her own identity as a designer. She was finally able to look back at the defining details of her brother’s final collection—the ones that she hadn’t necessarily liked at the time: the Byzantine crosses he applied to his dresses and the slinky silver-metal mesh he had specially created—and incorporate them into her 2012 fall-winter collection.

Speaking to The New York Times about finally having “the courage” to face and find inspiration in Gianni’s final fashion show, Donatella said, “I can look at it now with a smile … I remember my last moments with Gianni, the rehearsal, the show. But finally I have freedom. I am not afraid.”

To find out more about the true Versace story, the series itself, and everything between the two, subscribe to Still Watching: Versace on Apple Podcasts or your podcast app of choice. New episodes, including behind-the-scenes interviews, air every Wednesday.

Inside Gianni Versace’s Final Fashion Show and the Battle With Sister Donatella

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Episode 2 Recap: Light Is the Left Hand of Darkness

If you thought the saintlike halo surrounding the title character in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story‘s premiere was striking, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Not to get all Manchurian Candidate about it, because there’s no reason to believe writer Tom Rob Smith’s take on the designer is anything but sincere. But based on “Manhunt,” the riveting, rhapsodic, terrifying second episode, it’s safe to say Gianni Versace is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life, which makes the hour’s ever-deeper plunge into the abyssal psyche of his murderer — the “white guy who killed four white guys,” as a witness who nearly helps nab him (inaccurately) describes him — all the more frightening to endure.

When the episode opens, Gianni has been stricken with what appears to be but is never referred to explicitly as HIV/AIDS — the real-life Versace family’s principal objection to the series and to reporter Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors, the book on which it’s based. He does not push away his partner Antonio for initiating him into the rollicking open relationship that likely exposed him to the virus, even as his sister Donatella blames the younger man for Gianni’s illness. (Their exchange includes some dynamite dialogue sure to be quoted far and wide: “I am not a villain, and he is not a saint.” “My brother has a weakness for beauty. He forgives it anything. But I am not my brother.”) In fact, Gianni quite literally leans on his boyfriend of many years for support when he’s too weak to walk by himself. The sickness’s main effect on him is to dull his creative impulse, because, simply put, he cannot create when he’s sad.

And when he rebounds thanks to the era’s miracle drugs, he’s like a man reborn. He bucks the era’s trends towards scary-skinny models (“They look ill,” he says, perhaps recalling the emaciation of HIV sufferers who weren’t so lucky) and just plain scary designs, arguing that strength, health, and joy are precisely what his clothes are meant to highlight and celebrate in the women who wear it. He challenges his skeptical sister Donatella to a design-off, pitting his bright and buoyant designs against her severe and on-trend approach, and wins over a fashion-show crowd dulled into quiescence by Donatella…but because they love and respect each other so much, Donatella seems legitimately happy his philosophy came out on top, and he certainly does nothing to rub his victory in her face. You can dig on the terrific music cue for the runway scene, the Lightning Seeds’ trip-hoppy Austin Powers soundtrack cover of the Turtles’ “You Showed Me”, or get a kick out of the cattiness involved in making real models’ names recognizable in the scene where Gianni calls out the vogue for emaciation (Shalom! Irina! Karen!), but mostly the effect is just to win us over the same way the designs won over the folks in the front row at the show.

The better angels of Versace’s nature don’t stop flying at the runway’s edge, either. When Antonio brings a guy back to their place for a threeway, Gianni’s too busy working to join in the fun, but he gives his partner his blessing to continue without him, and smiles with quiet delight at the sounds of pleasure coming from the man he loves in the background as he draws. When Antonio proposes, Versace gently rebuffs him, knowing that the younger man would chafe under the commitment but loving him no less for that. For God’s sake, Gianni is even nice to the Donatella impersonator who tries, not for the first time apparently, to crash his compound while Andrew stakes it out! I don’t know if there’s a word in Italian that covers all the connotations of mensch, but Versace is that to a tee.

Compare the love on Gianni’s side of this episode’s ledger to the fear, hate, and horror on Andrew’s. Just two episodes into the series, Darren Criss is cementing the status of his portrayal of Cunanan as one of the all-time great on-screen serial killers, not just calling to mind Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Tom Noonan as Francis Dolarhyde, Ted Levine as Jame Gumb, or Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, but actually earning the comparisons.

He’s certainly helped in this respect by Smith’s script and the direction of People v. O.J. cinematographer Nelson Cragg. The reference set they assemble for Andrew to inhabit includes a genderbent shower scene by the beach with Andrew’s ersatz friend and escort manager Ronnie (a warm, wounded, marvelously understated Max Greenfield), combining Psycho‘s defining visual with the pre-shower/murder rapport between Norman and Marion Crane, not to mention its star Perkins’s closeted sexuality. (A motel also figures prominently, again with roles reversed: Andrew’s the guest on the run from the law, not the person at the front desk, and he must ingratiate himself to her instead of the other way around.)

Elsewhere, a scene of excruciating sadism, in which an underwear-clad Andrew dances to the Big ‘80s strains of Phil Collins and Philip Bailey’s pounding “Easy Lover” while an escort client slowly suffocates beneath the duct-tape mask Cuanan wrapped around his head (“You’re helpless…accept it…accept it…ACCEPT IT…”) drags the male-on-male-gaze subtext of Bret Easton Ellis and Mary Harron’s respective American Psychos squirming into the harsh Florida light. Simultaneously hitting Pulp Fiction‘s gimp sequence, Boogie Nights‘s “Sister Christian”/”Jesse’s Girl”/”99 Luftballoons” coke deal gone bad, and Silence of the Lambs‘ Buffalo Bill/”Goodbye Horses” buttons as well, this is a scene people will remember. (A closing scene in which Cunanan prefaces his usual torrent of bullshit about his life by straight-up saying “I’m a serial killer” to a prospective suitor also tears a page from the AP playbook.)

And in the most chilling allusion of all, Ronnie — a sweet guy who moved to Miami because he’d heard “people like living by the ocean who don’t have much living left,” then got unexpectedly healthy, and now dreams of opening up a small florist shop with the money he and Andrew have amassed from his escort gigs — knocks on the bathroom door and finds Andrew in full Manhunter Great Red Dragon mode on the other side, the top half of his face rendered obscure and inhuman by the duct tape he’d applied to himself. Because the context of each of these scenes is so specific to who Andrew and Ronnie are, none of it feels derivative or plagiaristic, the way the generic King/Carpenter/Spielberg rehash of Stranger Things does, for example. Indeed, it’s no different from the way it alludes to Christ telling Peter he’d deny him three times when Andrew tells Ronnie, who’s desperate for connection even as Cunanan flees, “When someone asks you if we were friends, you’ll say no.” As I’ve argued before, the horror genre exists in conversation with itself, and Versace is simply using the language established by its forebears to tell a story all its own.

Yet I think the episode’s two most moving and crushing moments don’t fit neatly in either category. The first involves Versace’s final repose: cremated, his ashes are placed in a bag monogrammed with a V, like everything else in the Versace empire. The gold box in which the bag of ashes is placed for transport back to Italy gets its own seat on the plane. Even in death, beauty and luxury are everything.

The second involves Andrew, making his getaway following the murder. After replacing his stolen car’s plates in a Wal-Mart parking lot — grinning like the cat who got the cream at the girl who spots him doing it, pleased beyond reckoning that he’s getting away with it — he drives down the highway with the windows down, blasting Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” and singing along at the top of his lungs while flubbing every other lyric. Contrasted with his petty glee at committing a crime in front of a little kid, this an utterly brutal portrait of forced happiness and feigned freedom. He’s going through the motions of every Brat Pack flick and Bonnie & Clyde knockoff he’s ever seen, but this brat has no pack, this Clyde has no Bonnie. He’s alone with his horror, and he can’t drown that out forever. How do the lyrics go? “I think you’re headed for a breakdown, so be careful not to show it.”

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Episode 2 Recap: Light Is the Left Hand of Darkness

AMERICAN CRIME STORY Review: “Manhunt”

One thing that sets the second season of American Crime Story apart from its predecessor is that, while People vs. O.J. was told entirely linearly, The Assassination of Gianni Versace hops back and forth in time quite a bit, and also plays with the audience’s expectations. It can be confusing, but I think to a certain extent that is intentional. It sets the tone well at least for the second episode, entitled “Manhunt,” which is very centered on the enigmatic serial killer and murderer of Versace, Andrew Cunanan. Andrew’s own thoughts seem scattered and confusing, though he is able to masterfully charm people into giving him what he wants; whether it’s a room with a view of the ocean or just some plain old attention.

The episode begins, however, with Versace himself in 1994 entering a hospital with his lover Antonio. Though it isn’t spoken outright, it is heavily implied that Versace has AIDS. I looked it up, and it was never confirmed that he was in fact HIV positive, though it does seem likely given it was the height of the epidemic at the time and his chosen lifestyle, funneling through partner after partner. Given the news, a tearful Donatella asks him “What is Versace without you?” He replies, “It is you.” Much of the outright conflict in the episode, and the series thus far, comes from Donatella (Penelope Cruz) butting heads with Antonio (Ricky Martin). She blames Antonio for her brother’s condition, and even after he is killed due to something else entirely, Donatella’s heart still does not soften for Gianni’s lover, as much as he tries to convince her to let bygones be bygones.

The series is beautifully shot, as mentioned in the previous review. One particularly pretty scene early in the episode, which involved almost no dialogue, showed Donatella standing before her brother’s open casket, alone in an enormous room. She unzips a bag and actually puts her brother’s suit on for him, tightening his tie while she says goodbye, not with words but with her eyes. All done up and looking sharp, as he would have wanted, the casket is closed and put into a kiln to be turned to ashes. Gianni Versace is then bagged, boxed, and presumably shipped to Italy. All the glitz and glamour comes down to this for all of us.

But beyond that much of the episode belonged to Darren Criss’s Andrew Cunanan. We begin with him driving a red pick-up truck and swapping license plates with another car outside a Wal-Mart. He’s then on the road to Miami and listening to the radio when we hear a news bulletin about him being wanted for the murder of another man, not Versace, so we are suddenly made aware that this is in the past. Cunanan switches the station and blasts “Gloria” singing and screaming outside the car window with euphoria. He soon arrives in Miami Beach.

There he tells his first of many lies in the city, explaining to an old desk woman at the Normandy Plaza that he grew up in Nice, France. He also tells her that while he’s a man of little means now he plans on becoming a fashion designer. He seems to charm her well enough, and is even able to finagle himself into a room with a view of the ocean later, after some practicing in front of a mirror. Now that he’s in Miami, the official stalking of Versace begins. He heads by the designer’s home and tries to open the gate to no avail. He gazes at the second story windows from across the street hoping to get a glimpse of something. But he knows he may have to play the waiting game here.

In the meantime, he makes friends with HIV survivor and fellow gay man Ronnie (Max Greenfield). After some “magic pills” saved his life, Ronnie headed to Miami Beach. There’s he’s basically been doing drugs and prostituting himself, which Andrew quickly takes to. Really, Ronnie just becomes a sounding board for Andrew to continue lying to. He tells Ronnie that Versace had proposed to him, though it didn’t work out. Andrew talks about Versace dreamily saying “That’s the man I could have been.” Ronnie replies “Been WITH.” Andrew nods.

In one extremely uncomfortable scene to watch, Andrew takes a gentleman back to a lavish hotel room. “I can be submissive,” the old man tells him. But suddenly Andrew is wrapping masking tape around the man’s head, eyes, nostrils… and finally mouth. The old man struggles on the bed while Andrew dances flamboyantly, repeating “Accept it.” Finally, the man stops struggling, Andrew holds a pair of scissors over his head, and for a moment we don’t know if he will kill the man or save him. He saves him, stabbing a small hole over his mouth so he can breathe. The man is clearly shaken, but decides to not tell the police about his encounter, probably due to the shame of being homosexual; we see his is also married as he puts a ring back on his finger after their encounter.

Speaking of the police, they and Detective Lori Wieder’s (Dascha Palanco) efforts are barely touched upon this week, other than to make a point that the FBI had dropped the ball, not putting out fliers that would have warned the general public about Cunanan, and certainly would have alerted them after he sold a gold coin to a pawn shop owner in the area. Wieder pushes for these fliers but doesn’t get her way. I suspect we’ll see more of her butting heads with the feds as the manhunt continues. At the end of the episode, after stalking Versace at a nightclub (a place Wieder also pushed police and the feds to stake out for Cunanan) and failing to find him, Andrew orders a tuna sandwich down the street. The man working there recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls the cops. By the time they get there, Andrew is gone again.

I don’t know the full true story and I’m trying to avoid spoilers, so I don’t know exactly how long this manhunt goes on. I’m hoping it ends in the next episode, as I fear the cat and mouse game could get old fast.

TB gives it: B+

AMERICAN CRIME STORY Review: “Manhunt”

The Undeniable Power Of Donatella Versace In “American Crime Story”

If the premiere episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story focused on the violent shooting of Gianni Versace on the front steps of his Miami mansion in 1997, episode 2 — set partly in 1994 — tackles a very different brush with death. This time, the assailant isn’t handsome serial killer Andrew Cunanan, but Versace’s own body.

The rumors about Versace’s HIV-positive status remain unconfirmed to this day — Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Orth, whose book the show is based on, first reported the fashion designer had HIV back in 1997, but there haven’t been any significant breakthroughs since then.

Still, I’m not here to comment on Gianni Versace the man, but Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) the character. And the character, according to Ryan Murphy’s vision, starts off “Manhunt” by seeking treatment for a unnamed disease we are meant to deduce is HIV. This unforeseen development means Donatella (Penelope Cruz) is called upon, three years before her brother is eventually murdered, to start thinking about what the empire they’ve built will look like with herself at the helm.

We catch a glimpse of her vision later in the episode when Gianni, feeling a renewed sense of purpose after the medication starts controlling the symptoms, dismisses the models she’s hired for a fashion show as “morbid.” He wants his brand to celebrate life. She feels they’re just going in the same old direction — there’s fresher, younger talent in the news now. They need to compete to stay relevant. In the end, Gianni gets his way, describing his final look: a Versace bride.

“She will be proud, and she will be strong,” he declaims. “And that’s how I will end my show.”

It’s a haunting exchange when you consider that only a couple of short years later, Gianni would, in fact, hand his show over to a woman prouder and stronger than he could have imagined.

As the episode pivots back and forth between those earlier years and the direct aftermath of Gianni’s death — not by disease, but by a random act of violence — we see Donatella struggling with her competing ideas about the direction the company should be heading in, and her insecurity at having to replace the man known worldwide as a creative genius. The fact that Tom Rob Smith, who wrote the episode based on material from Maureen Orth, chose to portray this ambivalence is significant. Power isn’t something women of that generation — and still today — took for granted. Often, it was obtained in chaos, when no other recourse was available.

Watching this episode, I was struck by the parallels to Meryl Streep’s performance as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham in The Post. Like Donatella, Graham was thrust into the spotlight in the aftermath of a tragic event: her husband’s 1963 suicide. In the years that followed, she took the local paper she had inherited and turned it into one of the most powerful and iconic American journalism institutions, navigating ethical and political crises like the Pentagon Papers and Watergate along the way. What’s interesting about Liz Hannah’s script, however, is that, like Smith’s, it doesn’t shy away from the real feeling of helplessness and inadequacy that many women feel when they are handed the keys they were denied for so long.

It’s fascinating to see a woman like Donatella Versace, now so indissociable from the brand she has been in charge of for over 30 years, and a fierce female force, feeling inadequate. But it’s also strangely comforting.

Imposter syndrome, or the feeling that you don’t belong somewhere you’ve worked long and hard to arrive, is something even the most successful women struggle with today. We have undeniably made strides since the late ‘90s: young girls are no longer being taught that their dreams are limited to that small space between the kitchen and the bedroom. But that doesn’t mean we are always welcome in the boardroom, or in the laboratory, or government. It’s okay to feel uncertain and afraid. What matters is how you face those insecurities. Then, like Donatella, you, too, can become a boss bitch.

The Undeniable Power Of Donatella Versace In “American Crime Story”

“ACS: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace” Episode 2 Recap: “Manhunt”

If the first episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story scared me, the second episode, “Manhunt” almost lured me into being intrigued but feeling a little dirty about it. I was a hesitant rubbernecker made aware of how a particularly scary monster can feel impossible to look away from.

The introduction of Ronnie (Max Greenfield) felt like an exploration of the disturbing phenomenon, where people know there’s something off about a person like Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss), but are unable or simply don’t want to bring themselves to stop talking to him. It reminds me of the folklore that vampires, ghosts, demons, and witches all have to be invited into your home in order to enter. To be fair, that folklore sounds a bit victim-shame-y if I think about it long enough.

For guys doing drugs in a seedy hotel, Ronnie and Andrew have an almost sweet, sad-sack friendship. TVLine noted that this actually the second time that Ryan Murphy has cast Greenfield as a drug addict. I found the New Girl star’s makeup and hair so convincing that I wasn’t sure it was him at first.

Ronnie’s presence is understandably heavy because he’s living at such a unique historical moment: he’s HIV-positive and assumed he was going to die any second. Suddenly, he is given newly discovered treatment and is not immediately dying. He’s based on a real person, and I found myself thinking of him and this especially fragile time in his life for the rest of the episode.

Andrew and Ronnie’s dark and dingy life is harshly contrasted with Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez) and Antonio D’Amico’s (Ricky Martin) glamorous lives – they included a fashion show he hosted atop his own devastatingly beautiful swimming pool for Christ’s sake. Seeing Gianni walk – er, glide? arm in arm with two models in glittering dresses does remind me why fashion shows are a cultural problematic fave. I ate up every word of Gianni’s speech about his artistic intentions and vision. It was at times a bit self-important, but it made me respect him and what he was trying to do. It also allowed me to see what might have made Andrew fall in love with him. I’m actually not sure if I think Andrew was in love with him, or if he simply had a jealous obsession with his seemingly perfect life. Gianni does seem like the ideal symbol to fixate an envious rage on. He lives flamboyantly and acts almost like the unofficial mayor of South Beach. I’m reminded of this when his staff bowed to him in the first episode.

I see now that the choice to start the season off with the murder itself and then work up to it chronologically is a classic stab and twist. Seeing the tenderness of Gianni and Antonio’s relationship warms your heart until you remember that their desires lining up is happening days before Gianni will be assassinated. Knowing this painful timing makes the moment from the first episode when Donatella (Penelope Cruz) is berating her brother’s lover for not trying to give him a family all the more heartbreaking.

One more example of people knowing something is not quite right and doing nothing comes along when Andrew takes a client and nearly suffocates him. We watch the man he dominated consider calling the police, but decide against it. I’m not sure what I’d want that man to have done, but it’s interesting to see by the look on his face that he knows on a gut-level he was not safe until Andrew left. I couldn’t help but notice that we’ve seen two examples of women whose intuition tells them to act. Detective Lori Wieder (Dascha Polanco) thinks they should be flyering the very area where Andrew is, and the woman in the pawn shop reports Andrew and doesn’t hear back from the FBI for days.

As the episode goes on, Andrew’s behavior becomes more and more unhinged. It feels like a wink to the camera when he tells the guy at the bar that he’s a serial killer, but it does show just how frayed and sloppy he is becoming. There’s a lot of glorifying serial killers for being so careful and calculated, but Andrew is unraveling and might even be enjoying being almost-caught at every turn. Still, I’m hooked because I really wouldn’t put anything past someone with such a clear absence of a moral compass and his back getting further and further up against a wall.

“ACS: The Assassination Of Gianni Versace” Episode 2 Recap: “Manhunt”

‘Versace’ Recap: Gianni Learns Difficult News & Andrew Stays Under The Radar

The second episode of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story starts out in Miami in March 1994. Gianni Versace keeps a low profile as he goes to the hospital for blood work. He catches a glimpse of two gaunt men in their side-by-side hospital beds. The show implies that Gianni finds out he’s HIV-positive. (The Versace family vehemently denies this.) Despite the diagnosis, Gianni is certain he will get better. Donatella is devastated over the news. “What is Versace without you?” she asks her brother, who replies, “It will be you.” She continues, “Who am I without you?” He says, “You’ll find out.” Donatella is equal parts angry and sad over the diagnosis. She blames Antonio for allowing Gianni to participate in wild activities. She thinks that Antonio has given Gianni nothing — no marriage, no kids, nothing. But Donatella doesn’t see everything. She doesn’t see Antonio comforting Gianni or taking care of him. Gianni senses the tension between Antonio and Donatella. He begs them to get along so they can all be a family.

Cut to three years later and one day after Gianni’s death. Donatella tells Antonio that “there is no need for us to pretend anymore.” Donatella goes to see Gianni’s body and dresses him in a custom Versace suit. The stoic Donatella finally breaks down in tears over the loss of her beloved brother. She cremates Gianni and takes his ashes back to Italy.

Three months before Gianni’s death, Andrew Cunanan is on the run. He heads to Miami after killing four innocent people. He shows no remorse for the crimes he’s committed. Andrew drives to the Normandy Plaza and asks for a room. Right off the bat, he name-drops Versace and schmoozes the concierge. He stays under the radar, but not completely out of sight. During his first night in Miami, he walks right up to Versace’s villa. The gates are locked, of course. He buys a camera and takes photos of Versace’s house to have for himself.

The police are looking for him, and there are boxes of wanted posters just waiting to be distributed, but they’re not a priority. Detective Lori Wieder thinks otherwise. Agent Evans is convinced that Andrew is headed to Ft. Lauderdale, but he’s right there in South Beach.

Andrew meets a man named Ronnie (Max Greenfield) and asks where he can get some drugs. Ronnie reveals he has AIDS and explains how he made his way to Miami. He asks Andrew if he’s sick, and Andrew quickly gives him a definitive no. Andrew admits that he lost both his best friend and lover in the past year, but doesn’t say anything about being the one to kill them. Ronnie also asks why Andrew’s in Miami. “I know people,” Andrew says. “Versace.” Andrew tells yet another wild story and claims Versace proposed to him, but it “didn’t work out.” When Ronnie says he doesn’t like Gianni’s clothes, Andrew is offended. Andrew calls Gianni a “great creator” and the type of “man I could have been.”

In addition to the murderous side of Andrew, he’s also got a sadomasochistic side. He wants to live out these crazy sexual fantasies that involve duct tape. A lot of duct tape. He picks up an elderly man on the Miami beach and goes back to the man’s hotel room. He loves when his sexual partner is helpless and suffering. Andrew duct tapes the man’s face and nearly suffocates him. The man calls 911 but doesn’t say anything when the responder answers. Another missed opportunity. (Can we also talk about Darren Criss in that pink underwear? Whoa.)

Just a few days before Gianni’s death, there was a fashion show. Donatella thinks Gianni is stuck in the past. His only concerns are fashion and the art of fashion. Donatella considers the politics and image. Donatella and Gianni engage in sibling rivalry at the fashion show, with Gianni coming out on top. Gianni believes this is his second chance. His health is improving, his designs have never been better, and Antonio wants to marry him. He has it all. Meanwhile, Andrew has nothing. “I’ve done nothing my whole life,” Andrew says. He envies Gianni’s life. He wants Gianni’s fame and fortune, but he doesn’t want to work for it. Ronnie knows something is up with Andrew but is too scared to ask.

Andrew trades in an expensive gold coin at a pawn shop for quick cash. When the pawn shop worker looks at the list of wanted posters, Andrew’s isn’t there. Another missed opportunity. He stops for food and the cashier recognizes him from America’s Most Wanted and calls 911. Andrew is gone by the time the police arrive.

Gianni and Antonio decide to go out to a club nearby. Andrew, realizing Gianni’s not home, goes to the same club. Gianni and Antonio leave soon after arriving, realizing they’re done with their wild phase. It’s time to settle down. On the dance floor, Andrew tells a stranger that he’s a “serial killer.” If only the stranger knew that Andrew is being serious…

‘Versace’ Recap: Gianni Learns Difficult News & Andrew Stays Under The Radar

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Review: Episodes 1 and 2

FX’s American Crime Story is back with an all new season, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, which takes on yet another 1990s-based murder. Unlike the sprawling focus of The People vs. O.J. Simpson, however, The Assassination of Gianni Versace focuses in on one individual, and explores the path of destruction he created with his actions. Our first The Assassination of Gianni Versace review looks at the first two episodes of the season: “The Man Who Would Be Vogue” and “Manhunt.”

Within the first few minutes of The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, it becomes clear this is a different beast than the first season. Besides the obvious difference in subject matter, The Assassination of Gianni Versace operates on a completely different wavelength than People vs, O.J., and its different tone and atmosphere are immediately apparent.

Where as People vs. O.J. was bathed in shadow, even during the day with the California smog making full-blown sunshine impossible, Versace is sun-dappled, opening on the pink-hued, picturesque locals of Miami Beach. If you had been expecting Versace to work its way up to its titular slaying, the first episode of the season, “The Man Who Would Be Vogue,” will catch you completely off guard: the murder of the fashion mogul happens in the beginning of the show.

There’s a slight build-up: director Ryan Murphy gives us a study in contrasts. We watch as the wealthy Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez) rises in his breezy, gorgeous mansion and begins his relaxing, pampered day, all while the sweaty, nervous Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) stalks around the beach, living out of a backpack. Cunanan staggers into the crystal clear water and shrieks, half-laughing, half in agony. And then he sets about his foul deed.

Who are these people? Versace doesn’t really introduce them, but in these first few minutes we know exactly who they are. We know Versace is a man who has it all: huge house, lots of money, a steady romantic partner – Antonio D’Amico, played by Ricky Martin – and a lust for life; and we know Cunanan is a man who has literally nothing. And yet that man with nothing is able to quite casually take everything Versace has away with few shots from a handgun.

Just as The People vs. O.J. was not really about O.J. Simpson, The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not really about Gianni Versace. Instead, it uses Versace’s death as a starting point to track the life and crimes of Andrew Cunanan, a con artist and serial killer who was able to evade capture for so long due to indifference. Cunanan was a gay man preying on other gay men – crimes that law enforcement weren’t necessarily chomping at the bit to solve in the 1990s. Homosexuality, and society’s reaction to its culture, is the overarching narrative hook of Versace, as racism was for People vs. O.J.

As episode one unfolds, you get the sense that Ryan Murphy and company are trying to ease the audience into what this new season is going to be while hitting beats familiar to the first season. After Versace is gunned down, the narrative begins jumping around, showing a clearly out-of-its-depth police force already beginning to bungle this huge murder case, as well as ghoulish souvenir hunters willing to break through the police tape to dab a torn-out Versace magazine ad in a pool of the slain fashion designers blood. Penélope Cruz’s Donatella Versace enters the picture, and proceeds to steal the show. Cruz nails the real Donatella’s voice, but also makes the character her own – a brooding-yet-imposing figure trying to figure out how to keep the Versace name (and brand) alive now that her brother is dead. Flashbacks also begin – and these are what you need to start paying attention to. Because as episode two makes clear, the whole show is going to consist of flashbacks.

The Man Who Would Be Vogue presents a scene that the Versace family insists never happened: a moment where Cunanan meets and charms his way into Versace’s life years before the murder. Whether or not this event actually happened is irrelevant – this scene exists to start revealing to us who Cunanan is: a charming, manipulative psychopath, able to sweet-talk his way into seemingly anyone’s life.

Here is The Assassination of Gianni Versace’s biggest strength and weakness. Darren Criss’ performance is remarkable – the type of committed, engrossing work that gets labeled as “career defining” and wins awards. Yet it’s nearly impossible to empathize with Cunanan. One of the People vs. O.J.’s greatest strengths was finding a way to make nearly every character (save possibly Simpson himself) relatable. Even blow-hard lawyer Johnnie Cochran was given a sympathetic, or at least empathetic, backstory. As Versace moves forward, or rather, backward (more on that below), Cunanan becomes worse – a cruel, unfeeling creature who kills with impunity.

Episode 2, “Manhunt,” is the first episode that truly reveals the narrative format the show will be taking. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento or Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible, Versace is a story told in reverse. Every episode jumps back to events that occurred just before the previous episode. So while “The Man Who Would Be Vogue” has Cunanan already in Miami Beach, about to murder Versace, “Manhunt” presents us with his arrival – blowing into town in a red pickup truck, blasting and singing along to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” This brief, amusing moment is perhaps the most likable Cunanan will ever seem in the series. Once he arrives in Miami Beach, however, he instantly begins working the angles, needlessly lying about his past to a hotel manager as he takes up residence in her run-down, pastel-colored hotel by the sea.

One in Miami Beach, Cunanan befriends a local named Ronnie (Max Greenfield), but it’s not entirely clear what, if anything, Cunanan wants out of the friendship, other than perhaps someone to spend time with as he waits to make his big move against Versace. Ronnie is HIV positive, although he never quite comes out and says that. He instead mentions being sick, and then asks Cunanan, “Are you sick?” The vagueness allows the question to linger – Cunanan is not HIV positive, but he has a different sickness somewhere inside him; a sickness robbing him of empathy, driving him to do his terrible deeds.

Sickness is what opens Manhunt as well. In a rather heartbreaking mini-movie taking place right before the title card, we get a whirlwind tour of events in Versace’s life. The fashion designer arrives at a hospital, incognito, and travels down a lonely wing where he sees two sick, dying men laying side by side in hospital beds. Versace is sick, and yet again, the show takes a vague approach to his illness. It’s heavily implied here that Versace has AIDS or is HIV positive, but the Versace family disputes this claim. According to them, the fashion designer had ear cancer. Tom Rob Smith, who wrote the script and helped develop the season, maintains he talked to off-the-record sources who confirmed Versace had HIV. Whether or not Versace did, this moment is intended to establish the fashion designer looking death in the face – and coming back from the brink.

Later in the episode, we see Versace talking about how he feels healthy and alive again, and how he wants his designs to reflect life. But here, in this opening, the focus shifts abruptly from Versace coming to terms with his illness, to Versace’s body being prepared in the morgue – the gaping bullet hole in his face being sealed up so he can be presentable in an open casket. Donatella later arrives, dresses the dead man in a fine suit, and then Versace is cremated. We see all of these minute yet devastating details, and the message is clear: this is what Andrew Cunanan did. With a few bullets, he reduced Versace to a literal pile of ashes – ashes that are soon placed in a gold, ornate box, and flown away on a private jet by Donatella.

“After all he went through, to die like this,” she mutters, her glassy gaze on the box. This is the sum total of an iconic life: dust. It’s haunting, and it’s necessary. Occasionally, Versace will dip into camp territory, but moments like this are essential to remind us that while Cunanan may occasionally seem darkly comedic, he also destroyed lives.

As for Cunanan, “Manhunt” begins to peel back the curtain on him as an individual. Again, Criss’ performance is stellar, full of bluster and confidence always masking panic and rage. In Criss’ hands, Cunanan is a cross between Tom Ripley from The Talented Mr. Ripley and Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, image-obsessed and possessing the cunning ability to adapt and turn himself into whatever the situation calls for. “Manhunt” even gives him a very Bateman-esque moment, where he dances around a room to pop music as a victim struggles before him. This scene is shocking, starting off amusing and descending into high tension. Hoping to score money for drugs, Cunanan has picked-up an older, closeted man at the beach. They go back to the man’s posh hotel room, and Cunanan proceeds to wrap the man’s entire head in duct tape – taking away his humanity, removing any trace of personhood. The man struggles to breathe as Cunanan hovers over him, scissors clenched in a fist. Cunanan eventually stabs a hole around the man’s mouth so the man can breathe. Later, the act over, Cunanan leaves as if nothing happened at all. The man, clearly traumatized, slips on a wedding ring, picks up the phone, and dials 9-1-1. Yet when the operator asks him what his emergency is, the man whimpers, “Nothing,” and hangs up.

This is Cunanan’s ultimate power. By preying on closeted gay men, he knows his chances of being caught are slim to none – because law enforcement doesn’t care. We get a front row seat to this as FBI agents show up and meet with local cops. The FBI is pretty sure Cunanan is coming to, or already in, Florida. When a local cop suggests they hang Cunanan’s WANTED fliers in the gay section of town and start canvasing, the FBI seems utterly indifferent. “This isn’t our top priority,” they say. In other words: they couldn’t care less.

Versace isn’t shying away from the implications presented here: that if someone, somewhere, just gave a damn, Versace (and other people) would still be alive, and Andrew Cunanan would’ve been stopped a lot sooner.

As for Cunanan, he closes out “Manhunt” by letting his mask of sanity slip. While stalking (and failing to find) Versace at a gay nightclub, Cunanan encounters another man. “What do you do?” the man asks. “I’m a serial killer,” Cunanan yells into his ear over the pounding music. When the other man at the club asks him to repeat that, Cunanan launches into a laundry list of jobs: “I’m a banker, I’m a stockbroker, I built movie sets, I…” – here are all Cunanan’s various fake identities coming out in one arterial gush. He senses the end is near. Earlier, Ronnie told him that he personally moved to Miami Beach because he once heard that people who don’t have much time left to live often decide to live by the water. Cunanan has gotten so far on his wits, and lies, but here, in this moment at the club, you sense that he knows he can’t keep this up much longer. You sense that Ronnie’s earlier question is echoing in his head.

“Are you sick?”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Review: Episodes 1 and 2

American Crime Story Review: Always on the Run Now

Rating: 8.9

In “Manhunt,” an opening flashback takes us into the 1990s, where Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramirez) is diagnosed with a severe illness. They don’t dwell on the diagnosis, but it’s strongly hinted that Versace had HIV (his family has denied this, and “cancer of the ear” is called out in his Wikipedia entry). Considering ear cancer isn’t contagious, or particularly linked to one’s sexual proclivities, it’s interesting that, following the diagnosis, there’s a showdown between Antonio (Ricky Martin) and Donatella (Penelope Cruz), who seems to blame Antonio, and the couple’s apparently polyamorous lifestyle, for the situation. Gianni begs them to “be a family” as he attempts to regain his health.

We then return to the present (meaning 1997), where Antonio and Donatella are still locking horns as Versace is presented in an open casket and cremated.

We pull back a couple of months, in what we can assume will be a backward-spooling breadcrumb trail of the moments that led Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) to murder Versace. We see him stealing a license plate in a South Carolina Walmart parking lot and tearing down the highway, where a radio station he flips past mentions his own name in connection with the murder of Lee Miglin in Chicago. He blithely changes stations, singing exuberantly along with Laura Branigan’s “Gloria.” (“Gloria, you’re always on the run now / Running after somebody, you gotta get him somehow.”) He arrives in Miami, has an incredibly creepy conversation with the woman at the desk of a sleazy motel (“I’m a fashion student,” he gushes, “and I think Mr. Versace will find my conversation quite wonderful”). He bags a room and unpacks his gun. We see him try the locked gates of Versace’s palazzo on the waterfront. He buys a disposable camera and starts photographing the mansion, seemingly very focused on the gorgon detail on the gate. Back in his hotel, he studies the pictures.

The FBI shows up and the agents act really cagey with the South Beach police, refusing to clarify why they think Cunanan would be in Miami and oddly reluctant to accept help scouring the gay bars, clubs and beaches of the area.

Cunanan immediately hoovers up a buddy who knows where to score. Ronnie (Max Greenfield) is openly HIV positive, so Cunanan makes up a story about all the people he helped working at an AIDS initiative in San Diego. Then, he tops it off with the story of the time Gianni Versace proposed to him over dinner at Stars (a perfect detail, as anyone who was in the Bay Area in the 1990s can attest, right down to the fact that in his haughty description Cunanan slightly mispronounces the name of celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower). He picks up an older man on the beach and… teaches him a very difficult-to-watch lesson in submissiveness. The traumatized man calls 911, then hangs up.

We cut to a fashion show. Gianni complains that the models “look ill.” Donatella shows up, clears the room, and tries to convince him that he’s in danger of being a has-been. He stands his ground; the show’s a success and even his kind of insufferable sister has to concede that his standing up for his own style wasn’t wrong.

Cunanan and Ronnie get high in the hotel room. Ronnie tries to talk “Andy” into opening a florist’s kiosk while Cunanan wraps his face in duct tape, as he had done to the older man.

Antonio tries to talk Gianni into joining a threesome. Gianni sketches instead, pausing to watch them with an inscrutable expression. Later, Antonio says he “doesn’t want that anymore” and says he wants to marry Gianni.

In need of cash, Cunanan stops in at the pawnshop we saw in the season premiere and sells a gold coin. The shopkeeper (Cathy Moriarty) is immediately suspicious and looks at a wall of FBI Wanted flyers. (Gee, too bad the agents didn’t have any particular enthusiasm for distributing his picture.) After watching a fake Donatella trying to get into the house (“No, baby, I’m sorry,” Gianni calls from the balcony, “I can only handle one Donatella”), Cunanan rushes back to the hotel, gets his gun, tears down his serial-killer-standard wall mural of Versace pictures, and leaves Ronnie.

But Versace has left. He and Antonio go to a crowded club, Antonio repeats his marriage proposal. They leave just as Cunanan walks in. “What do you do?” a young man asks him.

“I’m a serial killer.”

American Crime Story Review: Always on the Run Now