The Great Unsaid

Vive le Punk is an intriguing film of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren talking at the retrospective of their work in 1993 at The Horse Hospital. I went to the Horse Hospital on Tuesday night to watch the film with Paul Gorman, Caz Facey and El Vez. Strange to view the piece in the very space it was filmed. You find yourself flicking your eyes from screen to surroundings as Vivienne leans against a pillar, thinking, is that the one? The film is a gem. To have Westwood and McLaren in a room together is a rarity in itself, since apparently they don't communicate any more and hadn't for several years previous to this meeting.



Dressed in similar gentlemen's overcoats and regarding each other with much suspicion it's an incredible study in awkwardness and the unsaid.....Vivienne Westwood spends the first half of the interview smoking, wincing at McLaren's incessant narrative, drinking her way through several glasses of red wine and barely being given the chance for a word in edgwise. Both are incredibly eloquent and brilliantly eccentric and Vivienne gets the last word in an amazing comment the young.....I don't know if there are plans to realease the dvd, it needs considerable cleaning up as there's a lot of irritating background scrapings and fidgeting, but it would be worth doing I reckon.

We had an intelligent discussion following the screening....

....and Paul chose to demonstrate his impressive wink...I'm always impressed with this as my face and mouth have to go into a state of animated shock to coax a wink, but as you can see, Gorman is a natural...

Great to spend time also with the wonderful El Vez, he is the Mexican Elvis impersonator but so much more...check out his En El Barrio video here....

And check out Madame the Giant here....

El Vez is not tiny as this picture suggests, I was just clutching him to my chest to show I like him!!

Madame x