The Gospel According to André
For the last four decades, André Leon Talley has sat in the front row at the world's most important fashion shows. He may seem an unlikely candidate to become a style icon and tastemaker in a world that's overwhelmingly white and cosmopolitan: Talley is a six-foot-six gay black man from the segregated American South. While no feature-length film could fully capture his big, fascinating life, The Gospel According to André gives us some good glimpses. I'd mentally linked Talley with the excess of the 1990s supermodel scene and the cold snobbery of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. (Talley has worked at Interview magazine, Women's Wear Daily, W, the New York Times, and Vogue, and been a judge on America's Next Top Model, among other fashion endeavors.) While Talley fits in with that crowd—he calls everyone "darling"—he's also caring and generous. This documentary is bedazzled with fashion stars who have nothing but glowing things to say about him, and also friends of Talley's from high school and college who also have glowing things to say.
by Elinor Jones