The Assassination Of Gianni Versace is a melodrama for the fake news era

(WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Opening to the unsubtle pangs of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Ryan Murphy casts a gilded pall over Gianni Versace, played in an uncanny resemblance by Edgar Ramírez. We see him laying in bed beneath a heavenly fresco at Casa Casuarina, his Miami compound. In a momentous two-hander sequence, we watch Versace and his killer, Andrew Cunanan, begin their day leading up to Versace’s tragic murder. Versace rises from bed in his Greek-key-waistband boxer shorts and steps into a pair of black velvet Medusa slippers. He swallows a couple of prescription pills and puts on a pink silk robe, before stepping out on his rococo balcony to survey the rollerbladers on Ocean Drive below. The imagery isn’t subtle: he is the king of South Beach. Nearby, fugitive Cunanan (Darren Criss), sits on the beach, the pauper to Versace’s prince. He stares out into the void of dawn, scratching an open wound on his leg. He wades into the ocean fully clothed, and screams. Gianni takes a glass of orange juice from a manservant in his courtyard, while his boyfriend Antonio D’Amico (Ricky Martin) prepares for a tennis lesson. He strolls to a nearby newsstand to pick up copies of Vogue and Vanity Fair. Andrew downs a JOLT! Cola and shoves a grimy copy of Conde Nast’s biography, The Man Who Was Vogue into his backpack. Inside, we see a handgun.

Everybody knows what happens next.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace marks the second season of Murphy’s anthology series American Crime Story, following last year’s prizewinning The People Vs. O.J. Simpson. It’s based on Vanity Fair reporter Maureen Orth’s 2000 book, Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History…at least, partially. Chronicling Cunanan’s troubled upbringing in San Diego, California, through his time spent in the Bay Area, and following his killing spree from Minneapolis all the way to the amphetamine motels of Miami Beach, Orth spoke to over 400 corroborating friends, witnesses, and acquaintances of Cunanan’s to craft a spellbinding and disturbing portrait of how a young, bright, closeted gay man became one of the most evasive and least cunning serial killers of the late 20th century. While the Versace family appear at the end of the book and are discussed at various points throughout, they are minor characters in the larger saga, which means much of the show’s research into the Versaces has most likely come from outside sources. (Donatella and the company have released a statement decrying the series as “fiction.”)

The road leading to Versace’s murder was a bloody one, filled with lies and half-truths, fake identities, closet cases, and cover-ups. In April of 1997, Andrew Cunanan murdered his former best friend Jeffrey Trail with a claw hammer. Discovered by another friend, David Madson, Cunanan threatened Madson into becoming his unwilling accomplice, before murdering him and disposing of his body in a lake outside Minneapolis. From there, he went to Chicago and met a 72-year-old real estate mogul, Lee Miglin, whom he killed with a hacksaw and a screwdriver (mercilessly) before stealing his car and randomly selecting a fourth victim, cemetery caretaker William Reese, of New Jersey, in order to swap vehicles yet again. By that point, Cunanan had made the FBI’s Most Wanted List and had inspired all points bulletins across radio and television. But despite the fact that he was hiding in plain sight, authorities bungled the investigation and let him escape time and again.

Families of the victims, some unaware of their loved ones’ homosexuality, refused to believe they’d be involved with Cunanan. Police and F.B.I., clueless about gay culture, ignored leads and witnesses that could have led to his capture. The media sensationalised each crime with homophobic glee, depicting the killings often as sadomasochistic sex rituals gone wrong. Misinformation was rampant. While it will take further viewing to parse the totality of Murphy’s vision, the show’s first episode indulges in these elements of confusion, blurring fantasy and reality to delectable melodramatic effect.

We see Cunanan and Versace on a romantic date, sipping champagne amid candelabras on stage at the opera after a performance. This most certainly never took place, according to Orth’s investigation, but Cunanan did regale many of his friends of meeting the designer at the Colossus gay club on Folsom Street, where Versace and D’Amico would often go. For years, Cunanan would repeat the line “I told him, if you’re Gianni Versace, then I’m Coco Chanel!” – a line he says on the show, to his friend, Liz Coté. Once, a witness named Doug Stubblefield alleged seeing Cunanan in a chauffeured car on Market Street with Versace and the socialite Harry de Wildt, although de Wildt has vehemently denied the account. For 20 years, Versace has maintained that the two never met.

Obsessed with high society and desperate to escape his station in the slums of San Diego’s La Jolla, Cunanan had ambitiously educated himself about art, design, architecture, publishing, and fashion, in order to blend in with the more elite teenagers from the county’s prep schools. Charming and loud, he was known for his pathological lying, which amused and revolted his peers in competitive measure. Later, Cunanan would go by a series of aliases, most notably “Andrew DeSilva,” and find himself drifting from abject poverty, selling stolen drug store merchandise out of his car for extra cash, to the lap of luxury at the expense of his sugar daddies, and back again.

By the time he made it to Miami’s South Beach, with Versace in his sights, Cunanan was an out of shape, broke, meth-addicted prostitute, holed up at the derelict Normandy Plaza Motel. In the role of Cunanan, Darren Criss is sublimely creepy. As the narrative jumps around in time, we see him both at the end of his rope, as well as at the peak of his prowess, before any of the killings unfolded, lying to his friends and cutting a dashing figure in Matsuda sweaters.

It’s a good 40 minutes before Donatella Versace arrives, shown descending from a private jet in the Miami dusk. As Donatella, Penélope Cruz gives a showstopping performance, embodying her subject’s fragility, courage, and style, not to mention the stormy Italian accent that is her signature. Immediately getting down to business (“It’s a bit crazy, no?” she demurs), Donatella delivers the episode’s most captivating monologue: “He was a creator. He was a collector. He was a genius. This company was his life. When he was sad, it made him happy. When he was sick, it kept him alive. And my brother is still alive as long as Versace’s alive. I will not allow that man – that…nobody – to kill my brother twice.“

Murphy’s artistic license with these events – dramatic highlights include Cathy Moriarty as a mouthy pawn shop owner and a swarm of demented extras seizing upon Gianni’s crime scene like fashion vultures – relish the spectacle of Versace’s death as much as the drama of the manhunt. But are the show’s creators glamorising Andrew Cunanan a degree too far? At the close of the episode, Cunana strolls up to Versace’s favorite newsstand to purchase all of the papers with his latest slaying splashed across the front. He’s in clean khakis, a yellow polo shirt, baseball cap, and Versace shades. A far cry from the fiending, homeless, desperate fugitive Cunanan was purported to be in his final days. One can’t help watching and thinking of how much Cunanan would love to see himself dramatised on cable, played by someone with washboard abs and a chiseled jawline. When Criss puts his hand over his mouth, feigning a gasp as his crime is splattered over the network news, his eyes water with ecstasy, making it all the more obvious and deranged.

Moving forward, the show intends to go backward in time, tracing Cunanan’s steps toward infamy in step with Versace’s ascendance to fashion royalty. Hopefully we will continue to see themes explored of homophobia in law enforcement, the media’s role in bungling investigations, the gay community’s involvement, the shadow of self-made identity, and the spell of consumerism that leads some people to commit murder. As long as Murphy and the show’s directors continue to pull no punches from the soap opera playbook, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Will Emmy Luxuriate in the Riches of ‘Versace?’ – Awards Daily

The Television Academy generally responds well to Ryan Murphy. That, I think, we can all agree on. Now, their response tends to vary for sure. They broadly embrace some of his properties, showering them with multiple trophies (see: The People v. O.J. Simpson, taking home 9 wins out of 22 nominations). Or they politely smile, recognize the material but don’t take their love all the way (see: Feud: Bette and Joan, taking home 2 wins out of 19 nominations). Ironically, Murphy himself has only a single Emmy win directly recognizing his contributions. He received a comedy series direction win for Glee. Naturally, anything bearing his name merits serious attention during awards season. Something akin to a TV-version of Steven Spielberg. That brings us to The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

Versace comes to us with lofty intentions. The title alone tells us that. Yet, having seen 8 out of 9 episodes, it’s also slightly misleading. The series isn’t necessarily so much about Gianni Versace as it is Andrew Cunanan, the lost soul whose killing spree across America ended with the public slaying of the fashion icon. Go into the series not expecting great depth on Versace as a character. Rather, the assassination event becomes the catalyst for a study of not only the deeply troubled Cunanan but also 90s-era homosexuality.

Murphy likes to make grand statements with his material. O.J. Simpson rehabilitated Marcia Cross, offered up a celebration of working women, and studied race in America. Feud looked at Hollywood’s cruelty in dealing with aging actresses. Even American Horror Story looks at a wide array of social tragedies, perhaps never so blatantly so as with Cult‘s socio-political horror. Twenty years from now, our children will study Ryan Murphy’s vast playbook in college. Versace will, I suspect, become prime source material for a term paper or three.

But with the Television Academy and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, I’m forecasting at least 12 Emmy nominations. It won’t top O.J. Simpson, but that’s partially because it doesn’t have that mind blowing, star-filled cast of world-class actors. Don’t cry for Versace, though. It’ll do just fine.

Greatest Emmy Chances

Honestly, I’ll be stunned if Versace isn’t nominated broadly. It’s a delicate, intense portrayal of a man without an identity. I’m stealing from my friend Joey Moser when I say it’s Murphy’s exploration of the Tom Ripley character through the real-life persona of Andrew Cunanan. Early reviews for the series have been mixed to good with few outwardly raving. I suspect that’s largely because the series doesn’t deliver what you’d expect. It’s not a lurid exploration of the fame and fortune of Gianni Versace. Rather, it’s a lurid exploration of the impact of Versace’s fame and fortune on highly impressionable minds. The series winds the two characters in and out of the narrative, Cunanan nearly constantly referring to his obsession with Versace and his place of influence.

Darren Criss emerges as the real revelation here. His performance as Cunanan is one of those performances frequently called “brave,” a term that makes me cringe every time I hear it. It means that an actor who is not openly gay plays a gay character in intense, frequently erotic, situations. Still, his performance is “brave” in that Cunanan opens himself to Murphy’s challenges. He’s exposed both physically and emotionally. He digs deeply into the material and emerges with a shocking portrayal of an exceedingly damaged individual. He’s never been this good. Ever. He immediately shoots to the top of the Best Actor in a Limited Series list. He may even win.

Versace is really all about Andrew Cunanan. As such, the supporting players don’t factor in quite as strongly as I thought they would. Penelope Cruz, for one, really doesn’t have that many scenes in the 8 episodes I’ve seen as Donatella. I think she’s great given the material, and I’m kind of obsessed with the accent she manages to deliver. Will she merit a nomination? It depends on how deeply the Academy embraces the material. Right now, I don’t see how she misses. She has a great episode toward the end where Gianni encourages Donatella to overcome her insecurities. Cruz manages to find a heart within the glamorous exterior. Given Cruz’s Oscar-winning status as an actress, I suspect she finds her way into the supporting races.

Unfortunately, attention on Cruz will likely push aside a very deserved nomination for Judith Light, playing Marilyn Miglin. Miglin’s husband was one of Cunanan’s victims, and Light’s composure and eerily stoic demeanor through much of the material are really a wonder.

The men, of course, will compete against each other for a handful of spots. I don’t know if this goes all the way to O.J. Simpson level with three actors receiving attention. Of the notable ensemble, my personal favorites are Finn Wittrock as Jeff Trail, another Cunanan victim and closeted Naval officer, and Jon Jon Briones (Broadway’s Miss Saigon) as Cunanan’s father. Murphy gifts both very talented actors a wealth of great material. Briones, in particular, gives a stunningly complicated performance of a man who is both monster and adoring father. His episode is the most difficult to watch (saying a lot given much of the subject matter), but it would be a shame to ignore his contributions to the legend of Andrew Cunanan.

That leaves the title figure himself: Gianni Versace as realized by Edgar Ramirez. For me, Ramirez looks a lot like the real deal and gives a very good performance. Yet, there’s something absent here when exploring Versace as a character. Ramirez gives it his all, but his is the least impressive aspect of the series. The significant focus on Cunanan and 90s-era homosexuality has to leave a victim in its wake.

Unfortunately, it’s kind of Gianni Versace all over again.

Guaranteed Nominations

Limited Series
Darren Criss – Lead Actor
Penelope Cruz – Supporting Actress
Direction
Writing
Casting
Cinematography
Costumes
Hairstyling
Makeup
Editing
Sound Mixing
Music

Possible Nominations

Edgar Ramirez – Supporting Actor
Jon Jon Briones – Supporting Actor
Finn Wittrock – Supporting Actor
Judith Light – Supporting Actress
Production Design

Will Emmy Luxuriate in the Riches of ‘Versace?’ – Awards Daily

TV Review : THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY | SEAT42F

THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY, the second season of the franchise, kicked off its run this week with episode one, “The Man Who Would Be Vogue.” Set in both 1990 and 1997, we see the eventual killer, Ander Cunanan, as he first encounters the legendary designer, as well as the murder and its aftermath. The mostly non-fiction story apparently seeks to examine the relationship between the two men, as well as the manhunt for Cunanan, and how Gianni’s sister, Donatella, steered the company following her brother’s death.

That’s a lot to cover, but it doesn’t seem like too much for nine hours of television, which is how many episodes this will run. By keeping the story focused to only four leads (the three above plus Versace’s long-time partner, Antonio D’Amico), it avoids the sprawling that some such dramas get into, and provides a cohesive narrative, even as the timeline jumps back and forth.

THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY feels very Ryan Murphy. What I mean by that is, like other Murphy properties, there are strong, colorful characters, sometimes understated, at its center, the direction and design are artsy while remaining relatively grounded, and the pacing is slow but purposeful. There’s a certain tone and style that has become a Murphy hallmark, and even with most of his familiar band of recurring actors absent from this outing, his fingerprints are noticeable on the work.

As usual in a Murphy show, the casting is spot-on. He brings back Glee’s Darren Criss as Andrew Cunanan, who appears to be the lead character in the first episode. Criss is a talented man, and this role stretches him. Cunanan is a habitual liar, acting his way through life, and it’s hard to gauge his sincerity, even in the moments where he is alone. Criss balances this while still showing us why people would fall for Cunanan’s falsehoods and charm. It’s a complex and difficult performance, and Criss nails it.

The other leads are Edgar Ramirez (Gold) as Gianni Versace, singer Ricky Martin as Antonio D’Amico, and an almost unrecognizable Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) as Donatella Versace. Ramirez doesn’t have a whole lot of chance to show his skills yet, almost being set dressing in his own show, but Martin and Cruz prove themselves right away.

They are joined by a whole bunch of great recurring players, including Will Chase (Smash), Dascha Polanco (Orange Is the New Black), Jay R. Ferguson (Mad Men), Max Greenfield (New Girl), Jose Zuniga (Snowfall), Joe Adler (Grey’s Anatomy), Annaleigh Ashford (Masters of Sex), and more, with Judith Light (Transparent) and Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story) slated for later this season. So the troupe should be solid.

The setting itself is necessarily opulent. Versace did not live simply, as one might expect, given what he’s known for. And Miami Beach in the 1990s was not a boring place. This makes for a locale that looks almost Hollywood glitzy, but is true enough to the reality. It makes one think of the trappings of wealth and celebrity, and the murder itself shows how none of that protects anyone from the darkest parts of the human soul. I don’t mean this to sound overly metaphorical, because it’s not; it’s a grounded show.

The frequent back-and-forth time jumps aren’t my favorite way to tell a story, but are the right choice for THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY. There’s really no other way to depict both the lead up and the aftermath without it feeling like two separate shows. By splitting it in this manner, it helps with overall cohesion.

TV Review : THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE: AMERICAN CRIME STORY | SEAT42F

Darren Criss revives a monster in ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ – The Boston Globe

Are you watching “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”? I’m loving it for a number of reasons, not least of all the performances. It begins with Darren Criss’s Andrew Cunanan shooting Gianni Versace on his mansion steps, then moves backward across the season to chronicle his previous four murders.

As Cunanan, Criss is surprisingly good — surprising, if you only know him from “Glee” as the openly gay student Blaine, who went on to marry Kurt. He’s creepy and slippery as the killer who, Mr. Ripley-like, pathologically lies his way into the lives of wealthy gay men, many of them closeted. He’s a primping, rabid social climber who carefully studies and researches his prey, with Versace — with whom he has a date years before the murder — as his big goal.

I can’t say Criss humanizes Cunanan, even as he removes layer after layer of Cunanan’s armor as the script moves back to his formative years. And that’s a good thing; we get to see what may have contributed to his devolution, and the way he is a creature of homophobia as well as an exploiter of it, but we are never asked to see him sympathetically. He’s clearly a grandiose monster of bottomless insecurity. But then Criss also allows us to see how Cunanan managed to con smart men, how he remade his hatred into a kind of aggressive come-on in certain situations.

Criss delivers an energetic, committed, and thoroughly macabre turn that holds the nine-episode series together. In “Glee,” he was dreamy; in “Versace,” he’s the stuff of nightmares.

Darren Criss revives a monster in ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ – The Boston Globe

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Premiere Sets Up Promising Season

Following in the success of the season before it, season two of FX’s anthology series American Crime Story premiered on Jan. 17 to mostly positive critical reviews, despite a series-low number of viewers. Each season of American Crime Story is self-contained and acts like a miniseries; there’s no overlap between season one, The People v. O.J. Simpson, and the newly-premiered season two, The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

The recent rise in true crime media likely has a positive correlation with the interest millennials show in dark humor and morbid or macabre topics. Podcasts such as My Favorite Murder and The Last Podcast on the Left, web series and films like 2017’s My Friend Dahmer, and the upcoming film starring Zac Efron as serial killer Ted Bundy have all enjoyed recent success due to this widespread fascination. American Crime Story is no exception to that: season one won nine Emmy awards.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace is executively produced by Ryan Murphy, known for American Horror Story, Feud, and Glee. The Assassination of Gianni Versace is just another example for what is expected to be extremely successful television by Murphy.

It isn’t without its flaws though, and those are hard to ignore. First and foremost, viewers need to remember that this depicts something that happened to a real person. Real lives were ruined and many families were affected by the events in the series. The line can be blurred because it’s not documentary and these are actors, not the real people affected and involved.

The Versace family issued a statement opposing the show, stating that it is a work of fiction, since the non-fiction book it is based off, Vulgar Favors by Maureen Orth, was not and has never been authorized by Versace. Murphy responded to the controversy by stating that Vulgar Favors is a vetted book that has been acclaimed for two decades.

All of that being said, The Assassination of Gianni Versace is off to a fantastic start. It’s visually stunning, and is telling the story in an interesting style, starting from the end, rather than the very beginning.

The first episode opens with a sweeping score and juxtaposing shots of Gianni Versace (portrayed by Edgar Ramirez) and Andrew Cunanan (portrayed by Darren Criss, who is half-Filipino, like Cunanan was) beginning their day in different locations in Miami

About halfway through the episode, viewers are introduced to Penelope Cruz portraying fashion icon and Gianni’s sister, Donatella Versace, as she immediately establishes her new control over the Versace company and brand.

The style and storytelling of The Assassination of Gianni Versace are both equally outstanding, but one of the most outstanding aspects of the pilot, at least, was Criss’ acting. Criss rose to fame as a standout on Murphy’s Glee, but this is not the Criss that Glee fans will recognize and love. This is a visceral and twisted career-defining performance unlike anything Criss has ever done on screen or stage.

Cunanan had four victims before his final victim, Versace. Each of them will get a moment during the nine-episode series, which promises to explore issues such as homophobia, the AIDS epidemic, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It is an interesting approach to storytelling where ultimately, the killer is the one viewers are following, though it’s safe to assume the Versace murder will continue to be an invisible thread; everything will circle back to it, especially when Cunanan’s subsequent downfall is still to come.

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Premiere Sets Up Promising Season

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – The Man Who Would Be Vogue – Review

A new season with a brand new story, American Crime Story is back! This time the story centers on the death of Gianni Versace. This installment is pretty different from its predecessor as it actually shows the crime happening and the events leading up to it. This installment moves out of the courtroom and actually focuses on the major characters at play there were involved in the crime.

This installment has a lot of hype to live up to. First of all there is a whole new cast and it has been highly publicized that the story is not supported by the real Versace family. Whoever is the casting director for this show needs a major round applause because the resemblances between the actors and the real life people they are portraying is uncanny. The series stars Edgar Ramirez in the title role and Ryan Murphy protégé Darren Criss as murder Andrew Cunanan. Then we have Ricky Martin playing Versace’s boyfriend and Penelope Cruz portraying Donatella Versace, which I’m sure, will be a major player in future episodes.

The series opens up with the actual murder taking place and then flashes back to how Andrew and Versace met. Criss’s portrayal of Cunanan is so creepy and a major departure from his Glee days. Did he give anyone else nightmares or was I the only one? He is the definition of a pathological liar and it seems like the person he is lying to most is himself. After bothering Versace at the club, Versace invites Cunanan as his guest at the opera. Versace seems to have some sort of admiration for Cunanan and it seems that they are teasing that two were involved in some sort of relationship. Maybe he was one of the men that police were referring to when talking to Martin’s character? I know he denied it but hey anything is possible.

The episode then returns to the present and we get to see how Cunnan escaped. It turns out that he was wanted for five murders and the FBI was really doing nothing about it. That is until now he is the most wanted man in America and I’m sure he won’t be able to hide for much longer.

The press circus at the Versace mansion is insane, no one is doing damage control. That’s where Donatella comes into the fold, as she arrives at the mansion and goes into full on girlboss mode. She is more concerned about the fashion company than actually morning her brothers death. They are presenting a pretty stone cold Donatella if you ask me. No wonder the family wasn’t happy with the series, I wouldn’t be either if showed me more concerned about the company going public than being upset over my brother’s murder!

Overall the series looks promising and the performances have been pretty spectacular (especially from Criss). I was not really aware of this story, as I was only a year old at the time, so I am deciding to let this show inform me. After this installment wraps I’m going to do my research and see if the series was accurate as they say.

Side Notes:
-I wonder which gleek Murphy will bring into the franchise next? Lea Micheles show just got canceled so maybe we’ll be seeing her soon?
-How weird was it not seeing Sarah Paulson in this season? She’s usually in all Murphy’s FX shows.
-I wonder if Criss will be competing in lead or supporting actor when it comes to the award show season? I say he deserves lead.

What were your thoughts on the first episode? Who do think gave the best performance? Do you miss any of the previous actors and actresses from the last installment? Comment below!

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story – The Man Who Would Be Vogue – Review

Darren Criss Finally Found His Killer Performance

dcriss-archive:

The star of the newest American Crime Story talks to GQ about playing a notorious murderer and the subtle ways homophobia led to one of the most notorious killing sprees of our lifetime.

The first thing you notice about American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace is that it doesn’t spend much of its time with the famous fashion designer in its title. The second thing you notice is the person the show does follow for most of its run: the man who murdered him. As Andrew Cunanan, the darkly charismatic and deeply disturbed man who killed Gianni Versace, Darren Criss is the unquestionable star of the show. Of course, he wouldn’t blame you for not knowing that from the start. After all, neither did he.

“I knew as much as most people know about it,” Darren Criss tells me during lunch while promoting Versace in New York. “But I’ve spoken to a lot of people… and they said, ‘I didn’t even know he was killed!”

At first, you might not know what to make of Criss’s performance as the notorious murderer. He spends much of the show’s premiere evading capture after having killed one of the most prominent figures in the fashion world and largely getting away with it. As the show stretches back into Cunanan’s history, the overwhelming completeness of Criss’s transformation becomes remarkable. He shifts from sinister gunman to a darkly enchanting boy genius, a guy who belts the lyrics to Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” as he arrives in Miami to kill Versace, wining and dining victims and cohorts alike with a chilling talent for cycling through whatever emotion or approach will get him what he wants.

It’s a huge shift for the energetic and irrepressibly pleasant actor who became an overnight teen idol for playing Blaine Anderson on Glee—a role that put him in the orbit of Ryan Murphy, who years later, would reach out to Criss with the role that will doubtless cause many Blaine fans great distress.

“Andrew is kind of the stuff of urban legend, especially in the gay community. I had a friend who told me, ‘Oh you’re playing the gay boogeyman?’” Criss tells me. “And I was like, really? This was a guy who was a young man in the ‘90s, and he was like ‘Oh yeah, we would joke about it, like, Oooooo Andrew Cunanan is gonna come get you,’ obviously very irreverently.”

FULL ARTICLE | GQ.COM

Darren Criss Finally Found His Killer Performance

American Crime Story reminds us why we need period dramas

In the opening scenes of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, we are greeted with a sense of foreboding. We see the late fashion designer (Edgar Ramirez) beginning his day, leaving his mansion, greeting friends on the street. The sun is bright, the day looks warm, his life seems lovely. And it is in stark contrast to images of his killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) who’s preparing to gun him down on the steps of his home; scenes in which Cunanan walks into the ocean and screams before vomiting in a public restroom. It is a juxtaposition that is unnerving, upsetting, and inescapably pulls you in. And then, with the sound of a gunshot and Versace’s quiet “no,” it comes to an end. And we’re transported to another time, another place, and a year even further back in time.

Period dramas are nothing new. Between PBS and the BBC, most of us have sought refuge in the comforts of Jane Austen adaptations and the trials and tribulations of Lord Grantham and his family. 11 years ago, AMC debuted Mad Men, and with it, an over-romanticization of the society and decade it was criticizing. From that sprung series like The Playboy Club, Masters of Sex, and Pan Am (only one of which surviving more than one season), as well as HBO series like Vinyl and Boardwalk Empire (again, only one of which earning critical acclaim). Our zest for the past has always existed, but our current cultural climate has seen an even deeper dive into history. Likely because it feels safer there.

1997, the year in which Gianni Versace was murdered by Andrew Cunanan, feels much closer than the two decades that exists between us and that fateful morning. But we still use those twenty years to fuel an odd sense of comfort. As Versace begins his day, it’s easy to break from the anticipation of tragedy to notice his era-appropriate outfit (white shorts and flip-flops), as well as one bystander’s instinct to grab a Polaroid camera so he could document the crime scene. The wardrobes stand out, the lack of technology, the way the public learned of his death through TV anchors, not smartphones. ACS becomes less a dramatization than a case study, giving us a false sense of wisdom we use to comb through an event that happened long ago. And then believe that through understanding it, we’re in control of … something.

Because that’s the merit of a period drama. We get to watch under the guise that we’re advanced, we see what they didn’t. During series like The Crown, we pat ourselves on the back for knowing better; for living through the Meghan Markle era (a wonderful era!) instead of watching a young woman be denied her true love. In The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel we watch as a woman navigates the hurdles that accompany the world of stand-up, as though comedians (and women in general) today aren’t dealing with as much sexism and scrutiny (just while outfitted differently). Meanwhile, Halt and Catch Fire took us through a journey of technological evolution, that was mesmerized, even if we were fully aware of how history would turn out. Period dramas give us the illusion of superiority, of being certified (armchair) sociologists. We tell ourselves that they didn’t know, but now we do, while escaping a reality that will fuel period dramas for years and years, decades down the line.

Why wouldn’t we escape someplace that feels comforting because it’s familiar (regardless of how problematic that time and era was)? Why would we willingly plunge into the present?

And who can blame us? Everything feels bad. The news is a tire fire. The American presidency gets worse by the day, and our weather’s proving how little control we have over our own planet and futures. Why would we want to spend our free time delving into more of the same? Why wouldn’t we want to escape into the arms of Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and The Washington Post during the Nixon administration, where for a fleeting second we can remember what it feels to be motivated and inspired instead of wanting to curl up and nap all the time. Why wouldn’t we want to seek refuge in The Crown which is beautiful to look at and played out in a way that makes you feel equal parts angry, empathetic, and comforted? Why wouldn’t we tune into American Crime Story to lose ourselves in the late 1990s when everything felt so futuristic but was still so stuck and so limited and so small? Why wouldn’t we escape someplace that feels comforting because it’s familiar (regardless of how problematic that time and era was)? Why would we willingly plunge into the present?

So bring on the period dramas. Give me 1997, give me late fifties New York. Let me forget about the present by examining a very contained section of history and with it, the notion that with perspective comes a better understanding (or an end) to specific frustrations and pain. Let me tell myself that it’s different now, and that many of the same problems don’t exist in the same way — or better still, that we’re not regressing and ushering even more damage. Let me treat my TV like an escape vessel or a type of virtual reality. Let me think I’m at least slightly in control because it is 2018 and I don’t think anyone would use a Polaroid camera to document a crime scene.

American Crime Story reminds us why we need period dramas

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ is flashy but empty

Season one of FX’s “American Crime Story” capitalized on last year’s O.J. craze with a gripping, well-acted depiction of one of the most significant events in American cultural history. Although the assassination of legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace is not quite as ingrained in the country’s mind as the Simpson saga, “American Crime Story” tells its story in an ornate, operatic and elegant way, much like the man himself.

The story starts with the titular murder, as Andrew Cunanan (University alum Darren Criss, “Glee”) shoots Versace (Édgar Ramirez, “Zero Dark Thirty”) in front of his Miami mansion. Through a series of flashbacks interlaced with the subsequent FBI investigation, the show pieces together the life of the enigmatic, troubled Cunanan and what led him to commit a crime of passion.

While the stories themselves are intriguing, much like season one, the acting breathes life into characters who have been endlessly analyzed, making the show less of a criminal investigation and more of a deep, powerful drama. Criss’s portrayal of Cunanan paints the picture of a man who lacks any sort of human empathy yet seems to also have a complex set of emotions bubbling at the surface. He is an enthusiastic and effective liar, able to draw the audience into the web of fiction he creates in his mind. Ramirez, on the other hand, portrays Versace as an intensely charismatic man with a true zeal for life, as well as the courage to live as openly gay during a much less progressive time. Even Ricky Martin’s portrayal of Versace’s boyfriend Antonio D’Amico is believable and effective, albeit a one note performance since he displays the same anguished expression every time he appears onscreen. Versace’s sister and eventual ruler of the Versace empire Donatella (Penelope Cruz, “Murder on the Orient Express”), arrives towards the end of the first episode, stylishly clad in black and more ruthlessly pragmatic than her romantic brother.

The opening scene is the episode’s most memorable, with stunning shots of Miami and Versace’s grand, opulent mansion and little dialogue. Strings play in the background, growing more and more tense as Cunanan prepares himself for the deed. Everything, from the details of the mansion to Versace’s dead body, is presented as channeling beauty — ranging from traditional to morbid. Yet one can’t help feeling that unlike season one, the show is choosing to sacrifice substance for style. While some scenes such as Cunanan and Versace’s conversation after an opera viewing are strong, the dialogue at several points feels stilted and cliché, failing to convey the true emotions the characters are feeling. Because of this, quite a few of Criss’s strongest moments come from entirely non-verbal actions, whether it is swimming fully clothed into the sea to let out a primordial scream or painfully trying to imitate human emotion.

The show also does a solid job of contrasting Versace’s unique romanticism and how his vision interacts with the capitalistic nature of the society he lives in. In one scene, he explains that he makes his clothes to make his subjects happy and how every dress he makes follows the first he made for his sister.

“American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace” is visually gorgeous and shaping up to be an intriguing character study. Hopefully, the series manages to truly analyze the crime and its impact on society, rather than exploit a set of dramatic clichés.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ is flashy but empty

American Camp Story: Did Versace’s Murderer Really Kill That Dove, Too?

“The world of the heterosexual,” Aunt Ida shudders in John Waters’s justifiably straight-hating magnum opus, Female Trouble, “is a sick and boring life.” American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace is not heterosexual programming, thank God, which means it’s neither sick nor boring—only deeply stylized, so that it succeeds in making murder look like the narrative focal point of a perfume commercial. Like all good stories, it begins with a location card reading “Miami Beach, Florida.” Like a number of good films, it has the beach’s signature electric lushness, its too-lurid color: red lights, blue skies, green palms, a candy-pink silk-satin robe.

Ryan Murphy’s latest season of his pop procedural anthology, American Crime Story, covers the 1997 shooting of Versace in nine fifty-minute episodes; and yet so un-boring is the pilot that we see the murder seven minutes in. The twinky killer, Andrew Cunanan, is a fantasist played with a cold and twitchily unreal demeanor by the android-perfect Darren Criss. Introduced as an unreliable narrator, then a Ripley-esque savant at social climbing, he creates two big impressions: one in a scene that shows him covering his mouth in a pantomime of horror when he’s really smiling, and another that’s a bona fide showcase for his ass. He’s closeted around his straight friends, gay around his gay friends, and completely unashamed to say out loud that his objective is to “tell people whatever they need to hear”—a primo marker for a sociopath. By July of 1997, he has killed five people in a span of six months, one of whom is Gianni Versace, and he is a very wanted man.

The timeline leaps from the murder scene to 1990, and the killer’s would-be-courtship of Versace—whom he tells about his plan to write a book, provoking one of the all-time greatest burns on the laziness of writers ever televised: “I wish I had the patience to write a novel, but my mind is always moving"—and then back again. (Whether the two men actually met at all before the shooting has, I ought to say, been subject to debate: last week the writer Maureen Orth, whose book about the killing, Vulgar Favours, is the inspiration for the show, insisted: “There is no doubt in my mind that those two met.” What we see here is that lack of doubt played out for the very best angle; so that what might be erotic, a seduction at the opera, only ratchets up the audience’s dread.) We’re introduced to Penelope Cruz as Donatella circa 1997, stepping off a jet in mourning leather and affecting a faultless accent, less Italian than idiosyncratic Donatella-ese.

Because the Versaces are a family represented by an image drawn from the myths of ancient Greece, it’s fitting that they’re rendered at an also-mythic scale for television: murder, feuds and three-or-more-ways figure heavily immediately. That famed Medusa branding, says Gianni in the pilot, came to pass because as children, he and Donatella “used to play in ancient ruins where we grew up, and one day I saw the Medusa’s head…. I know that many people call it pretentious, but I don’t care. How could my childhood be pretentious?” Versace’s use of the Medusa head has always seemed to me deliciously ironic, since the myth of the Medusa is that she began her life as a beautiful woman, and was turned into a monster to repel men. No Versace woman ever knowingly repelled a man; where fashion in its highest form is these days happy to perform like a Medusa spell—to make the wearer into something hard to see for heterosexual male suitors—Versace is a brand where simple sexuality, the nakedly extrinsic, rules.

The show so far is likewise fascinated with both architectural interiors and personal exteriors, equally baroque. It’s fascinated with Versace’s Greco branding as a visual signifier: of the dead man’s love of glamour, his association with locales that, culturally, read as sultry and as torrid with both words as synonyms for “hot” and “scandalous.” By minute fifty, we know where we’re going but are unsure as to how we’re getting there, except in style.

A final note on certain accuracies and inaccuracies: when Gianni’s shot, we see a dove shot alongside him, so that the white and pretty bird—a single punctuation mark of red, a single flaw—ends up as evidence. How could a death be pretentious? Evidently, far more easily than one might think: the dove was real, a casualty of Cunanan’s first bullet. Less real is the woman who is seen to soak a print Versace ad in blood from the crime scene, making something both so chic and so immoral, so completely ghoulish and indebted to the capitalist status quo, that it can only be completely perfect; there could not be a more elegant or necessary lie.

American Camp Story: Did Versace’s Murderer Really Kill That Dove, Too?