Tag: february 2018

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Explores Andrew Cunanan & Jeff Trail’s Complicated Friendship

Last week’s episode of American Crime Story introduced Finn Wittrock as Jeffrey Trail—a sometime-close friend of Andrew Cunnan’s—just moments before a jealous Cunanan brutally murdered him. This week, as the show’s reverse chronology continues, Episode 5, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” delves into Trail’s backstory, his troubled time in the Navy, and how he first came to befriend Cunanan. We also return to Minneapolis to chronicle the last few days before Cunanan’s murder spree began. Spoiler alert: they are excruciating, and not for murder reasons.

And after two full weeks away from the Versaces, this episode reintroduces their storyline, paralleling Trail’s experience with the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy with Gianni’s groundbreaking decision to come out as gay in The Advocate—much to the consternation of Donatella, who’s concerned this will negatively impact the business.

Here are five talking points from The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Episode 5, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

1) Andrew Cunanan pre-murder spree is somehow more unsettling than actual murderer Andrew Cunanan.

Look, I know this might seem like a weird stance, but at least once Cunanan flipped into murder mode, there was no ambiguity about what we were dealing with. In the four episodes we’ve seen so far, he’s a murderer, but in “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” he is merely the most extreme Stage Five Clinger ever witnessed onscreen. His ability to completely ignore social cues and boundaries is breathtaking and deeply stressful. The portions of this episode that I spent hiding behind my hands were not the ones you’d expect; Trail trying to cut off his own tattoo is grisly, sure, but I’ll take that any day over Cunanan’s proposal of marriage to a horrified Madson, or his desperate attempts to insert himself into Madson’s life. When he yelled “Friend? I’m more than a friend!” I actually tried to crawl inside my chair. It became hard to tell the difference between Prints the dog’s whimpering and my own.

In any case, we learn that Cunanan winds up in Minneapolis because he’s run out of money in California and is living in a very creepy hovel injecting heroin between his toes. He goes to Trail because he knows Trail feels indebted to him, for reasons that become clear later in the episode. He’s also determined to lock down Madson, who he calls “the man I want to spend the rest of my life with,“ but Madson wants no part of him, for reasons that also become clear later in the episode.

Ultimately, Trail lets Cunanan stay at his apartment for one night of Cunanan’s Minneapolis trip, while Trail is out of town on "business"—i.e., avoiding Cunanan while staying with his sister. In a deeply disquieting scene that also leads us into a flashback to Trail’s days in the Navy, Cunanan sneaks into Trail’s bedroom, goes through his closet, finds his old uniform, and just puts it on. He also steals Trail’s gun, which he will ultimately use to kill Madson, Reese, Versace, and himself. Wearing Trail’s full regalia, Cunanan watches a videotape of an old CBS News documentary about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, in which a soldier—his face in shadow—describes a harrowing experience. He saved a “closeted gay sailor” from being beaten to death, but now regrets it, because it made his colleagues suspicious that he is gay.

2) The scenes depicting Trail’s time in the Navy are some of the show’s saddest and most brutal.

Cut to two years earlier, with the revelation that that soldier speaking in the video isTrail. The opening moments of this episode have already made it clear that Trail harbors a lot of anger about leaving the Navy; in a scene from 1997, he flips out at an unsuspecting co-worker when asked why he left the Navy. Later in the episode, we see Trail save the closeted soldier from being killed, then comfort him with a hug—a moment witnessed by a mustachioed, homophobic fellow soldier. From that moment on, it’s clear to Trail that he is a target.

After hearing that another gay officer was offered an honorable discharge on the condition that he give the Navy a list of identifying tattoos on the men he’d been involved with, Trail tries to cut his tattoo off his own leg. It’s a truly harrowing scene, matched by one shortly after, in which Trail tries to hang himself, but changes his mind at the last moment. It’s seemingly right after this awful moment that Trail takes a walk into town, and ends up at a gay bar—where he meets Andrew Cunanan.

3) This episode shows us, for the first time, a genuinely charming Andrew Cunanan.

Seeing Cunanan in the past also illustrates how far he’s fallen in the present. The only thing he ever had to offer was being entertaining and charismatic, and it got him a long way. Now that he’s making everyone around him deeply uncomfortable, there’s really no way back for him.

But in this bar, it’s completely clear why Trail would be drawn to Cunanan. He’s intriguing and fun and worldly without being intimidating, and he gently makes fun of Trail’s admission that this is his first time at a gay bar. Before they start talking, Trail is so overwhelmed that he almost walks right back out of the bar, but Cunanan makes this muscular, aggressively neon-lit world seem welcoming. When Trail thanks him for “stopping this night from being a humiliation,” Cunanan responds, “I feel like I’m part of your history. You’re going to remember this moment.” Not inaccurate.

4) Gianni Versace returns… but only as a framing device for the Trail/Cunanan storyline.

We’ve all pretty much accepted at this point that despite its title, this is not a show about Gianni Versace. And after two full weeks without a single Versace on screen, Gianni’s storyline is woven back into this episode, but only peripherally. After years of never having officially confirmed his sexuality, Gianni wants to come out as gay publicly in an interview with The Advocate. But Donatella is hostile to the idea, and initially blames Gianni’s partner, Antonio D’Amico, accusing him of being publicity-hungry. He claps back: “I know my place. Unlike you.”

Donatella tries to convince Gianni that coming out will impact their business both abroad—in countries where homosexuality is still illegal—and at home, where rock stars and royalty may no longer want to be associated with him. “At least we keep Elton, no?” Gianni responds, because everyone is really on their clapback game in this scene. “You live in isolation, surrounded by beauty and kindness,” Donatella tells him. “You have forgotten how ugly the world can be.”

But Gianni is determined, and so we see The Advocate interview intercut with Trail’s CBS interview; one as triumphant and moving as the other is unceremonious and bleak. Strange though it feels to agree with Cunanan on anything, he’s not wrong in what he says to Trail about his CBS interview. While the homophobic soldiers who don’t want gay people to serve in the military are in their uniforms, facing the camera proudly, Cunanan notes, the gay soldiers like Trail have to be interviewed “in the shadows, with your face distorted, like a criminal.” This is crushing because it’s clear Trail didn’t get the catharsis he hoped for from the interview. In fact, it likely made things worse for him.

5) Between this episode and Get Out, Froot Loops may now officially be the chosen cereal of villains.

Cunanan is just chilling with a bowl of Froot Loops while waiting for Trail to come home. He’s not eating the cereal separately from the milk, like Allison Williams’ truly deranged Get Out character, but nevertheless, this has been a rough year for Froot Loops onscreen. Do only sociopaths enjoy this beloved cereal?

6) Trail and Madson both have specific reasons for turning on Cunanan.

The fact that Cunanan is creepy and demanding and has no boundaries played a role, probably, but we also learn two new pieces of information this week, which shed light on why these relationships soured.

Madson is getting increasingly uncomfortable with Cunanan, who ultimately proposes to him in this episode—much to Madson’s discomfort.

Trail, meanwhile, is angry at Cunanan for sending a postcard to his father which effectively outed him—it was signed “Drew xx,” and while Cunanan claims it was an honest mistake, Trail’s not buying it. Given his lack of boundaries and desire to control Madson’s life, neither am I.

Additionally, Trail seems to blame Cunanan for the way his life has turned out, specifically the dissolution of his military career. The details of exactly why are vague—probably because there are a lot of gaps in the known facts about this relationship—but Trail tells Cunanan that he wants his life back and wants nothing to do with Cunanan. “When I found you that night at the bar, I was there for you. I saved you,” Cunanan yells, to which Trail responds: “You destroyed me. I wish I’d never met you.” But the real kicker is when Cunanan tries to declare his (past tense) love for Trail, and Trail spits: “No one wants your love!” This, more than anything, seems to be the line that tips Cunanan over the edge into violence. A few hours after this exchange, he shows up at Madson’s loft, coerces Trail into come over by revealing that he has the gun, and then waits behind the door, claw hammer in hand.

‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’ Explores Andrew Cunanan & Jeff Trail’s Complicated Friendship

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 5 Review: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

This episode gave a much-needed look into Jeff Trail, Finn Whitlock’s evocative character who we saw abruptly killed at the beginning of the previous episode. While this necessarily meant another look at David Madson, Jeff is the real focus here.

So far, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” makes the single best case for why the story of Cunanan’s spree killing belongs in the canon that Murphy suggests it for by including it in American Crime Story. There are many wrongs committed here long before Andrew Cunanan picks up a hammer. Episode by episode, Versace has turned its gaze onto various systems that marginalized LGBTQ folks in the 90s – many of which still do to this day. The military rightfully receives detailed, unflinching criticism.

If it weren’t a true story, so much about Jeff and this episode would seem completely unrealistic. Right off the bat, the inclusion of a member of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell-era military feels like a gift to the message Ryan Murphy wants to send with his story. The fact that he was an officer, from a military family, and well regarded makes him a perfect case study for why removing or banning gays from the military is so ridiculous. But the fact that Jeff gave an anonymous 48 Hours interview on the subject is mesmerizing.

The image of Jeff carefully putting on his dress whites before attempting to hang himself gives a deep portrait of this man: he saw little other way to resolve his dual identity as a gay man and an officer, a military man born to a military family. That our country gave him no other real option is clear. The fact that he and so many other men like him found a way to create a life for themselves anyway is a testament to their grit and courage.

The harsh reality of being gay in the 1990s is inescapable, from Jeff cutting off his own tattoo to keep from being identified to the way Andrew outted Jeff to his father, and then had the nerve to play it off like a mistake. Here, though, that move feels like a betrayal and a sick game, but not a preamble to murder. Perhaps the tallest order this show has written itself is to explain the unexplainable, who would do this and how. The first half of the installment has pretty successfully explained that, and the back half needs to explain how someone becomes that person.

Even more so in the previous two episodes, Andrew feels like a supporting player. He recedes in importance in the episode, and in Jeff and David’s lives, and he is painfully aware of it. Like with David (but thoroughly unlike with Lee, where it feels destined or at least predetermined), Andrew seems to tilt toward rage when he is called on his lies. Jeff skewers him neatly, calling out that Andrew has no honor, that he doesn’t even know what Andrew stands for. Neither does Andrew, other than being known and being memorable, it seems. Here again, as with Lee’s drawings, Cunanan pawing through Jeff’s uniform feels like a violation.

His fixation on those memorable moments – real or imagined – and being remembered, continues. Andrew says Jeff will remember their first meeting (he does, and without it Jeff would’ve cut him off long ago), and he tries to force a feeling of unforgettable on David during their night at the Polka place two years later. When Jeff talks about being interviewed, Andrew dismisses him saying he isn’t famous, so no one will care what he says. The moral fiber of the two men, and their fundamental guiding principles, is stark, even at a point when their lives aren’t so different.

It’s jarring, in a way, to see Andrew come upon Jeff nervous and uncertain after going into his first gay bar. The kindness and camaraderie Andrew showed Jeff is consistent with many accounts of those who knew him, particularly when he was younger. It isn’t until the episode loops back around to Andrew’s Minneapolis trip that the sneering, pretentious pretender we know reemerges. The Andrew who makes Jeff feel at home is someone who could be more easily seen as a lonely, self-conscious kid in over his head with his lies and looking for a friend. The challenge – and the strength – of the remaining episodes is how well they convince us of the transition from one man into the other.

Gianni’s story comes back, in a rather useful parallel between his “coming out” interview with The Advocate and Jeff’s interview with 48 Hours. It can be hard to remember just how risky this move really was, though I wish the show had tried. Gianni name drops Elton and only Elton, and in truth there were few other living, publicly out celebrities at the time. Donatella mostly speaks to how it will affect the business, and it’s clear that while she sees this as a company decision for Versace, Gianni sees it as a personal one.

While there’s certainly bravery in Gianni’s choice, the juxtaposition with Jeff’s story is a stark reminder of the way Gianni’s wealth, control of his company, insulated him from feeling the full force of his decision. As Donatella reminded him, not everyone lived as surrounded by beauty and kindness as he did. Jeff, too, had other privileges in his favor, like his race and the fact that he wasn’t visibly queer.

Many episodes of this installment of ACS have been disturbing, but this one falls more on the side of heartbreaking. The final image of Jeff’s sparse apartment as his mother leaves message after message on his answering machine is haunting. It’s made all the worse by the content of her messages, which remind us how excited Jeff was to be an uncle.

★★★★½ 

The Assassination of Gianni Versace Episode 5 Review: Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Versace: Watch Jeff Trail’s Real-Life Interview About Being Gay in the Military

Wednesday night’s episode of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace features two very different coming-out scenes. In one, set in 1995, Gianni Versace openly discusses his sexuality with a reporter from The Advocate, even introducing his longtime boyfriend Antonio D’Amico during the interview. This refreshing, meaningful moment is intercut with a scene during which Jeff Trail—an ensign and a Gulf War veteran who was later murdered by Andrew Cunanan—risks his career to participate in a segment for CBS news magazine 48 Hours called “Gays in the Military.”

Reporter Richard Schlesinger, who interviewed the real Trail in 1993, later recalled that the U.S. Naval Academy graduate “chose to speak to us because he thought it was the right thing to do.”

The segment coincided with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and a change in the policy on gay people serving in the military.

“He did the interview in silhouette but he was still taking a tremendous risk with his career,” said Schlesinger. “He had absolutely nothing to gain by doing the interview. Yet he took the risk and spoke out.”

Trail warned Schlesinger, “You’re going to weaken our national defense if you remove gays from the military. And you’ll never be able to do it 100 percent, it’s just whether or not you’ll continue to hunt us and force us to fear.”

Asked whether he felt comfortable speaking from the literal shadows to protect his identity, Trail said, “There is nothing I would like more than to be lit up [here] and tell you who I am and show you who I am. But I am not allowed to do that… It’s [only] comfortable for me because I know I will be able to continue to serve my country and do my job and do it right. That’s what I care about most.”

To prepare to play Trail on American Crime Story, actor Finn Wittrock told Vanity Fair’s Still Watching podcast that he watched footage from the 48 Hoursspecial on repeat: “That was my bible. I would watch that and listen to that every day.”

Wittrock said that when he first read the scripts for the series in the summer of 2017, he thought that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was such a “dated” concept.

“‘I don’t know if people are going to be able to relate to that,’’’ Wittrock remembered thinking. “Then a week later there was the transgender military Trump ban…Suddenly I thought, ‘Oh wow. How many steps we take forward and how many we take back.’ So suddenly I was examining the whole story in that way. How relevant is this still? Sadly, so much of it is still relevant.”

Wittrock, who is not gay himself, said that he prepared for the role by speaking to gay men who were “in their 40s or 50s and lived through this period when they weren’t [out].” Ultimately though, Wittrock was struck by how much he had in common with Trail: “Besides my sexuality, I could be Jeff Trail. There’s very little, I found, that separates us in that way.”

Versace: Watch Jeff Trail’s Real-Life Interview About Being Gay in the Military

American Crime Story: Versace: How Penelope Cruz Became Donatella

One of the biggest joys of watching a Ryan Murphy series—at least, the ones based on real life—is seeing exactly how it physically transforms stars into the characters they play. On The People vs. O.J. Simpson, impeccably dowdy wigs morphed Sarah Paulson into Marcia Clark. On Feud, perfectly defined brows and a careful swipe of eyeliner turned Jessica Lange into a dead ringer for Joan Crawford. And on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Penelope Cruz has pulled off one of the most drastic transformations yet, taking on the role of her friend Donatella Versace.

How much hair and make-up did that take—and what, exactly, is going on with her plump upper lip? We spoke with the show’s costume designers and hair and make-up team to find out.

THE CLOTHES

The costume team for Versace consistently worked at breakneck speed due to production constraints, yet their work perfectly captures the Versace era—both the world of high fashion and the grungier elements of the 90s, through the parallel story of Versace murderer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss). This was no small feat, considering the team had no help from the Versace family.

When it came to capturing Donatella’s iconic look, costume designers Lou Eyrichand Allison Leach started with the basics—specifically, that tiny waist.

“I feel that a big part of the silhouette for Donatella was the corset, to get that really structured waist,” Eyrich said. “That tiny-waist look was a big part of it, and then the bodycon… And Penelope has a rocking figure as well, so as far as getting that same silhouette, that was easy. And then once Ana and Massimo added the wig and the makeup, Penelope would just magically transform.”

One of the signature Versace looks the two were most excited—and nervous—to recreate was that notorious bondage dress, which Donatella famously wore to the Met Gala in 1996. Leach said recreating that memorable look was both “very exciting and harrowing.”

“It is such an iconic dress, and it it was scripted that it definitely needed to be that dress to tell the story of her coming into her of her own stardom,” Leach continued, describing a scene the series depicts in episode 7. “Just from a construction standpoint and materials, it was such beautiful leather dress that had to fit perfectly—and all these different angles that the neck and the you know skirt had to swath just, just right.” That dress, Leach said, was one of the most challenging items on the show’s list—but also the most rewarding.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Donatella on Versace is how her appearance changes after her brother’s death. Each department made its own contribution to that effort. For costumes, it meant keeping things somber. Though Leach and her team kept the character’s clothes fitted–and of course designer—they also avoided low-cut necklines, and kept Cruz a little more covered up in scenes set after the murder. “I would think that she would feel, you know, maybe safer in those layers,” Leach explained. “And, you know, there’s always elements of jewelry and stuff, but sometimes we downplayed it a little bit to make it more appropriate for the tone of the scene.”

THE FACE

Perhaps the biggest challenge in turning Cruz into Donatella was morphing her face—an effort spearheaded by Cruz’s make-up artist, Ana Lozano.

Lozano said thatshe and Cruz did a lot of their make-up tests back in Spain, before they even got on the plane to film. Together, they sifted through photos of Donatella’s looks, calibrating smokey eyes and contouring to get just the right balance. And if you’ve been wondering what, exactly, is making Cruz’s upper lip so plump on the series, the answer is more obvious than you’d think: it’s an instrument literally called “Plumper.”

“It’s a kind of dental prosthetic to make her lips bigger,” Lozano said. The effect also gives Cruz a slightly different-looking face. “Penelope has enough lips in reality,” Lozano clarified, but in real life, they are a different shape than those of the woman she plays. Lozano also used contouring to finish the look and further define Cruz’s lips—as well as to lightly massage the rest of her features into a more Donatella-like illusion.

Lozano tried using prosthetics for Cruz’s eyebrows, but in the end, it was simpler and more natural-looking to simply bleach them and give them a thinner shape. Then came the eyes—those smoky, smoky eyes. As Lozano notes, smokey eyes have changed over time; in the 90s, they had a rounder look, rather than the more cat-like approach that’s become popular now.

Like the costume team, Lozano worked to make sure Cruz’s “Donatella” physically changed after her brother’s death. She made her skin a little paler, and made her eye make-up just slightly less perfect—“just to make the impression that she was crying and she was not sleeping.” (Lozano adds that she particularly likes Cruz in slightly destroyed make-up, as it “gives more importance to the look.”) For the scenes set after Gianni’s death, Lozano also contoured Cruz a little more aggressively, making her features just a little sunken.

Cruz, Lozano said, was constantly practicing, working to get her portrayal just right; sometimes, Lozano even recorded the actress so she could review her facial expressions, or the way she gestured. “At the end,” Lozano said, “it’s like you press a button; it’s like, Wow. She is Donatella.”

THAT HAIR

Like Lozano, Cruz’s hair stylist Massimo Gattabrussi started working with Cruz in Madrid before making the final wigs for the series. When Cruz called Gattabrussi about the project, the stylist recalls he “remained silent for a few seconds.” Once his excitement for the challenge took over, he said, “I understood that it would be brilliant.” He used a photo book Donatella produced in 2016—Versace—to become more acquainted with the icon’s past.

Gattabrussi and Cruz tested color, hair quality, and style with about nine prototypes to ensure they got the right balance of characteristics. The stylist has long collaborated with the historical Italian studio Rocchetti-Rome, which allows him to participate in the construction and finalization of the wigs—which, he said, “is very important for me because of my close knowledge of Penelope and its physical and gestural characteristics.” In the end, they narrowed down their choice to three pieces, all of which made it on the series—two with bangs, one golden and the other platinum, and the third without bangs, with longer hair to give the illusion of extensions. As Gattabrussi put it, he’s “always looking in a line between real and fiction.”

How did Gattabrussi help the show’s Donatella express her grief after losing her brother? That’s what the third, bangs-less wig was for. 1997, he said, “was a sad year to represent.” In addition to tailoring the wig to fit the time’s fashion trends—longer, heavier hair without bangs—Gattabrussi said he “paid attention to detail like having increased the regrowth of dark hair to the root.” That, he said, helped the wig offer a more realistic image, and slightly lowered “the flash of platinum” that’s always been associated with Donatella’s powerful and iconic image.

American Crime Story: Versace: How Penelope Cruz Became Donatella

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A Meditation On Here & Now At Exactly 11:11

The panel plus Joe Reid try to stay zen about Alan Ball’s latest HBO drama, plus Arrested Development for the Nonac and a very novel Game Time! | 14 February 2018

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Behind the Title: Encore (and Ryan Murphy) Colorist Kevin Kirwan – Randi Altman’s postPerspective

HOW HAS THE VISUAL STYLE EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS AS YOU AND RYAN HAVE WORKED TOGETHER?
It’s a show-by-show thing. Shows like Glee, or something like the new series that we just started, 911, are pretty straightforward, nothing stylized, good contrast, nice poppy colors, don’t go too dark, feature the performance, make sure you can see into the actors’ expressions… that sort of thing.

American Horror Story is a different creature each season. These anthology series are fun because even though it’s technically the same show each time, the seasons all have their own theme. The look is much more tailored to fit the individual story. Season 2, which was called Asylum, was my favorite in terms of look. Very desaturated, dark and moody. It was a grungy, forbidding vibe that I really had fun with.

We just finished the second season of American Crime. This one was The Assassination of Gianni Versace. It’s very warm and colorful, especially when we were in Miami, but as we descended into Andrew Cunanan’s world it got a bit dirty, and we got to play a bit.

The first season of American Crime, The People Vs. OJ Simpson, was pretty gritty. It had a really tight look and a nice period feel.

Behind the Title: Encore (and Ryan Murphy) Colorist Kevin Kirwan – Randi Altman’s postPerspective