Martin Scorsese recently cast Timothée Chalamet to star in a 90-second commercial for Chanel. He’s, of course, parfait for the role. The actor is young, half French, a model, and a talented international celebrity. In fact, they made him the product’s ambassador. How’s that for ascending to the golden pantheon of pop culture?
None of this is surprising. What raised my eyebrows is that Scorsese has taken on this project. Or is it exactly like a director like him would do?
What he made, I think, will be up for a Clio. It’s big little piece of film-making.
The commercial begins with Chalamet playing Chalamet, the way he’s usually portrayed in his opening shots as the protagonist: face down in a bed preferably hugging a pillow.1
We quickly understand that this is a day in the life—he’s overslept—and the soundtrack is none other than the 1983 classic, Rockit, by Herbie Hancock and Bill Laswell. Noo Yawk mutherfuckn, jet-settin’ movie-star music. Very apt indeed. Just the right tone of mock-pretentiousness to match the smash cuts and wide angle close-ups. It’s got the same filming energy you find in Amores Perros and Snatch (2000), but let’s give credit to the movie that made the style popular: Chungking Express (1994).2
Once in his limo, Chalamet looks up through the sunroof at the train overhead. It’s packed with morning commuters, and he seems puzzled. A fleeting bit of snark there. But the timing makes it funny, and the humor builds as it turns self-deprecating. He’s rushed through the corridor of the backstage area, where a woman he greets reacts saying, “Oh, not you!” and slams the door in his face.
The second act transitions smoothly back to his apartment where he sees himself on TV and then a billboard. It’s the idea of celebrity and seeing yourself everywhere. That’s probably what made Ryan Gosling exclaim once that he was “sick of himself”. You would be too. Next, he sees himself on a billboard outside the floor-to-ceiling window. (Again, Amores Perros. Coincidence?)
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Chalamet looking at himself pensively, and a subplot emerges about a enigmatic woman, muse or conquest, a smokey-eyed Asian beauty. His facial expression is ambiguous, but in a good way. Remorse? Disquiet? Frustrated desire? We don’t know, but it’s intriguing.
In the next few frenetic shots, we see him on stage in the interviewee chair, talking about his character and his apparent bone fractures or injuries. The Asian mystery woman hands him a note and disappears unsmilingly into a subway car.
This is when the interviewer asks the question, “When you’re inside a role, do you destroy who you are?” Chalamet’s response serves as the takeaway for the ad itself. Anna Freud would be proud.
“No, you reach into yourself and you find yourself. And only after that are you free to be who you are.”
Ha! That old chestnut.
For his finale, he takes off (literally flying through the air) after the Asian babe, and we have to assume he’s going to score, but not because of his Pop Demi-god status. Oh, no, no. It’s the GD perfume. What unites every man on the planet with Timothée Chalamet? Yeah, that.
The need to not smell bad.
So, okay, the message is straightforward. Like really straightforward. Textbook. Just look up Anna Freud, and while you’re at it, be sure you watch this great documentary called The Century of the Self. This is all I will say about the marketing aspect of this commercial because it’s all there, and will give you a lot to chew on. Much more than the quote about finding yourself.
What interests me right now is the way film and other long-form arts like literature are endangered by current trends across the world, be it through the preponderance of dopamine culture or the specter of AI. We seem to be headed for catastrophe that will take place across multiple facets of our world. In The Peripheral, William Gibson calls it “The Jackpot”. The arts, our precious humanities, you could say, are the canary in the coal mine. We are losing the ability to tell stories on a large scale, not because we’re running out of storytellers, but because the public is being trained away from what it takes to enjoy a good story: attention. (Not to mention taste, but that’s an idea for another article.)
I will zoom back in now to talk about Mr. Scorsese, who seems to have turned his attention to the minuscule. At this point in his career, one would assume it’s the allure of a new approach, to think differently that attracted him to this project. The first Scorsese commercial for Chanel with Gaspard Ulliel, who, sadly, died two years ago, is already fourteen years old. When interviewed about it, Ulliel said this was a new way of making commercials, more like a short narrative film than an ad.
The slogan “Be Unexpected” could refer to the wearer of Bleu de Chanel, or the director himself.
Martin Scorsese is comfortable with making movies in the three-hour range, so filming a story sixty seconds long is, by his own admission, difficult because every frame counts, every shot is designed, and each decisions taken is crucial. For example, whether it should be static or moving. The experience of this kind of work is much more intense. As a side note, I love that he references things like the chase scene under the train trestle in The French Connection (1971) and the Fellini short, Toby Dammit, (1968).
And so now that micro-fiction, anything fifty to a hundred, to five hundred, and a thousand words is a burgeoning genre, I am looking forward to seeing more film-makers play around with say, ten or twenty minute films. Brevity, if well done, can be very impacting. For example, The Plastic Bag (2009), by Ramin Bahrani, and narrated by Werner Herzog. A mere eighteen minutes and more eloquent than films five or six times longer. I would like there to be a bigger market for this kind of film to rival or even undermine the likes of ‘Reels’ and, FFS, TikTok. There is an interest. For example, I hope you’ve had a chance to watch the Netflix series, Tim Miller’s Love Death & Robots, three seasons and counting. It’s like reading an anthology of short stories.
I’m not implying that feature films are no longer viable, but this might be the perfect moment for more experimentation.
E.g., The King (2019), Dune 1 (2022), Dune 2 (2024) - ( face down in the sand) It has occurred to me that the director is taking a mischievous swipe here.
Of course, none of this is possible without Sergei Eisenstein. I mean he wrote the book, but let’s focus on his grandchildren. :)