I can’t say I adore the films of Carlos Reygadas, but I’ve always found them bracing and serioso with subcurrents and shit. (And occasionally horrific.) I won’t be seeing Our Time until next Monday, but Silent Light, This Is My Kingdom and especially Post Tenebras Lux established Reygadas as a respected first-ranker.

But this sweater, man…c’mon. Not quite Cosby-level but fairly grotesque. How can a first-rate visual artist wear a garment like this?

I had a similar thought when Robert Eggers took the stage following the first Cannes screening of The Lighthouse. Eggers is a brilliant filmmaker and obviously standing on the mountaintop right now, but God, look at him…jerkwad sneakers, white socks, black chinos with cuffs above the ankle, an oversized Target sweatshirt and a dorkmeister whitewall haircut. Look at Rbatz and Willem Dafoe — they obviously know what decent-looking threads are about but Eggers is a geek-squad guy.

Remember that pathetic light green Army-Navy winter jacket with the orange lining that Stanley Kubrick wore during the shooting of Eyes Wide Shut? Why does Steven Spielberg always seems to dress like some older suburban home-owner on his way to the hardware store? Where are the directors who wear tight jeans, expensive leather jackets, Italian lace-up shoes, nice scarves and whatnot?

Is being a terrible dresser more the rule than the exception when it comes to gifted directors? The only helmers who seem to have an interesting sense of film-set style are Steven Soderbergh, Jim Jarmusch, Alejandro G. Inarritu and…you tell me.

Eric Von Stroheim was a serious clothes horse in the ’20s; ditto D.W. Griffith, Victor Fleming, Howard Hawks, Cecil B. DeMille, etc.


Carlos Reygadas

(l. to r.) Robert Eggers, Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe following first Cannes screening of The Lighthouse.