We all have dreams of revisiting our childhoods, but how many of us have the opportunity to reconstruct them with the help of an Oscar-winning director? That’s exactly what Brunello Cucinelli, the 72-year-old son of Italian farmers who went on to build a multibillion-dollar global luxury fashion empire, did with the hybrid biopic. Brunello Cucinelli: the generous visionary, Written and directed Cinema Paradiso Director Giuseppe Tornatore.
Earlier this week, Cuccinelli hosted a celebratory screening of the film (which will be released in theaters this summer) at the lavish David H. Koch Theater at New York’s Lincoln Center. Before the film began, Cucinelli stood on stage and addressed an audience filled with media giants of celebrity fans, many of whom were wearing his clothes, the equivalent of wearing a rock band’s T-shirt to a concert. The audience included Oscar Isaac, Naomi Watts, Katie Holmes, and Joshua Jackson (who reunited with his family). Dawson Creek costars Katie Holmes), Martha Stewart, Ryan Seacrest, Grace Gummer, Allison Williams, Jay Ellis, Darren Star, Shonda Rhimes, Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch and Vanity gallery Editor Mark Guiducci.
“I wanted a poet to tell my story,” Cuccinelli said of Tornatore. “Because poets are the greatest men on earth.”
The noble sentiment was classic Cucinelli, a fashion mogul who preferred to talk about anything but fashion. In his telling, the raw materials that form the heart of the Cucinelli brand are not just luxurious fabrics, but art, literature and philosophy. It would be easier to reject such a lofty mindset if he didn’t live it fully.
The heart of Cucinelli’s operation is the rural village of Solomeo in Umbria, where his wife, Federica, grew up. After building his fortune, Cucinelli acquired much of the village and surrounding lands and restored them into a manifestation of his vision of the world, a made-in-Italy fantasy steeped in high culture, La dolce vita and La Grand Belleza. He tore down the dilapidated factories and replaced them with vineyards and olive orchards (which supplied, respectively, the wine and olive oil on the tables at the reception that followed Tuesday’s show). He built a theater and a Borges-style “universal library,” and surrounded himself with marble busts of people — mostly men — who inspired him, including Socrates, Hadrian and Barack Obama.
Even as he made his billions, Cucinelli continued to pay homage to his humble rural past, and never more poignantly than in this film. Unlike Citizen Kane, he manages to hold on to his rosebud. Five years ago, he bought the farm he grew up on at the top of the hill, where he and his family worked the land. The farm serves as a picturesque setting for the film’s semi-scripted early scenes, which are reminiscent of Tornatore’s. Cinema Paradisoand was photographed with a similar eye of nostalgia.
In conversation the next morning at Casa Cucinelli, his New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue, Cucinelli was particularly animated, shrugging my shoulders, getting up from the couch, and pacing the room talking about movies, history, artificial intelligence — anything but fashion.
I grew up in central Italy, in a deeply rural environment. The first time you saw the ocean was when you were 14 years old. When was the first time you watched a movie?
I was 12 years old at the parish youth center. It was Ben HurWith Charlton Heston. As the carriages in the Roman amphitheater hurtled towards the camera, we flinched as if out of the way. For many people, this was their first time watching motion pictures. We didn’t have a TV at home.
How did this collaboration with Giuseppe Tornatore begin?Giuseppe and I are about the same age. My favorite movie is Cinema ParadisoBecause I lived the same kind of life. So when I thought I wanted to do something for my grandchildren, the ones who will come after me. I wanted to leave a small memorial. You have the theatre, you have the winery, these are monuments and landmarks. But I wanted a poet to create it. He filmed me for 60 hours. It is truly Giuseppe’s masterpiece.
What was behind the idea of combining written storytelling with traditional documentary?
It was Giuseppe’s idea. He had an idea that I would be part of the reconstructed scenes, but he didn’t say anything beforehand. So, on the first day, he told me, come to the house in the country tomorrow morning – it’s the house I grew up in, it’s mine now, I bought it five years ago. Nothing has changed in all those decades. nothing. The bedroom remained as it was.
It appeared, and there were bulls plowing the land. There was the actor who was playing my father, and the boy who was playing me, and there I was in the middle of this scene. But I didn’t know Giuseppe was filming. I entered the kitchen – My kitchen — All the actors sitting at the table were eating, and they were calling each other by their characters’ names, the family members I grew up with: there was Giovannino, Umberto, my uncle, my grandfather… I can’t even tell you how confusing it was.
Steven Spielberg described similar feelings in making his biographical film the fabricmans, When he rebuilt his childhood home. Very few of us are given the opportunity to travel into our past in this way.I spent two beautiful years researching and talking about myself. I participated in the acting process as well. Giuseppe then spent one year editing. He kept asking me, “Would you like to look at some shots?” I said, “No, nothing, I don’t want to see anything.” It was a risk, because I shot for 60 hours. A month before the December premiere, he said: “It’s done, let’s take a look at it.” “You have to look at it with grace,” he said. I couldn’t sleep the night before. He gave me a notebook and said, “Just write down what you want to change.” At the end of the movie I returned the notice board. It was empty. I said: Don’t change anything.
In a movie, you talk about your product without ever talking about it.
Not even in life I talk about the product.
So how does poetry – and all these noble ideas you espouse – find their way into clothes?
It takes the human touch. Jean-Jacques Rousseau always said that you are creative when everything around you is balanced with creativity. If I treat you with respect, this respect generates a sense of responsibility, and this responsibility in turn generates creativity. We never allowed employees to work from home because they would miss team creativity and co-creation. And if you think about it, today all remote work is at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence. That’s why I say, never allow people to work from home, because maybe one day you’ll get the message that your services are no longer needed.
Is artificial intelligence something you strongly resist?Not at all. We just launched a new website generated by artificial intelligence, which several Silicon Valley giants — Reed Hoffman, Marc Benioff — said was very creative. So I’m not afraid of AI at all. Because when you think about artificial intelligence, it’s something rational and scientific. a reason. Zero, one, zero, one. But what it lacks is this touch of foolishness and madness. Within us, we have Apollo and Dionysus. We have Voltaire and Rousseau. So I’m not afraid at all.
I was surprised to see Reed Hoffman being interviewed in the film. How did that relationship start?I started having discussions with him in 2015. I went to Silicon Valley, met Benioff; Kevin Systrom, founder of Instagram; Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow… We had a dinner party together. They asked me to talk about humanity. I said that you and your wives have your cell phones, and no one laughs or talks. So there must be a problem. That’s when the relationship started. So, every two years at Solomeo we have a meeting with all these geniuses. I ask, who among you will be able to bring the human touch into technology? Who among you will be the Leonardo da Vinci of our time?
However, Silicon Valley’s ethos of “move fast and break things” They seem at odds with what Brunello Cucinelli’s brand is all about, which is the idea that quality requires slowness, patience and deliberation.
Yes, but it must be combined with innovation. You don’t have to be fast, but you do have to be quick. In Italian, these are different concepts. You must be contemporary, keep up with the times.
After your first venture into cinema, do you have any desire to make more films?
No, no, no. I told Giuseppe Tornatore, if you think of a love story — but it’s really a love story — one of those movies is like Out of Africa or love storyOne of those movies that makes you wipe away your tears, I’ll support you. Because I think movies are so cruel these days, we all crave something like that. But I don’t want to make any more films.
