Vidal Sassoon
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Vidal Sassoon

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While it may not sound like it ought to be, Vidal Sassoon: The Movie, a documentary charting the life and times of legendary hair revolutionist Vidal Sassoon is both engaging and entertaining, while offering an educational insight into an evolving industry. Though Sassoon may now be synonymous with his super successful hair care products, the London born California based artist and innovator has lead far from an easy existence. Born into relative poverty in 1920s London, director Craig Teper was already aware when Gordon approached him about the Sassoon project that, “his life story was so intriguing and that a person he was so charming and vital as a person, that I thought it would make a good subject for a film.”

“He is such an inspirational person, even outside of his success in business.” While Sassoon is without question one of the world’s most infamous hair stylists, little is known by the public of his personal trajectory. While he and his ex-wife Beverley may have enjoyed fleeting moments in the spotlight, with their own television series a long time before reality TV became the norm, Vidal Sassoon: The Movie is far from a sensationalised idol worship documentary. With the main focus and through line Sassoon’s professional endeavours, it never shies away from dealing with the personal, especially given Sassoon’s ability to rise from adversity to success. Teper continues, “Because he was dealt such a difficult hand as a very young boy, he made a very conscious decision as a very small child to not let the circumstances of his life destroy him. He made a very conscious decision early to rise above it and do something great. I think it is inspiring to anyone in life, but I think his story is inspiring particularly to creative people who are endeavouring to find out what it is that their work is about and how to approach it.”

Though Teper never once doubted his need to be involved with the production, as a documentary maker, he knew he had to escape his own personal involvement and connection with Sassoon in order to create a work that would fascinate and entertain his audience. “Even though it is not a film, it is a documentary; I want to use all the tools of cinema that are available to scripted and narrative film makers in a documentary. I always start with an interview that encapsulates everything that I want to say, so I have the main subject. The initial idea for this film was to only have Vidal speaking on camera, we weren’t going to do any third parties.” However, all good plans need modification and soon Teper realised that his intentions didn’t full justice to the Sassoon story. “We did an interview with him for about a week at his home in Los Angeles, we covered all the ground of the film then we set out to create and choose archival footage to visually tell that story. The more we worked on the film, the more we realised the film would benefit from speaking to third parties that were then when all these events were happening.”

Upon reflection, Teper realises that the project was somewhat of a breeze. “It was kind of a dream project to make as a film. First of all the film was funded by Michael Gordon, the producer, so we didn’t have to fight for funding. Vidal was open to us, so we didn’t have to fight with our subject.” However, it was once the decision had been made to include third party accounts that it all seemed like a doddle. “We literally had people begging us to be interviewed to talk about Vidal. We didn’t have to struggle for people to speak to to fill out the story. It was difficult to find anybody who didn’t want to help with the film or who had a single negative thing to say about the man.”

Equally Teper soon found that his whole vision for the piece would need altering. “Interestingly when we started making the film, my initial reaction was that we should change the chronology of the film, to try and do something clever moving back and forth in time, but the more we looked at it, the more it became clear that because his life is such a classic rags to riches story, it really works well chronologically.” With Sassoon’s life almost a fairytale in stature, his story was both a gift and hindrance when it came to Teper adding his stamp to the version of events in his tribute. While he would have liked to lose himself in a series of intertwining stories, Sassoon’s steady growth as a professional was so true to form that to alter the events would nullify their impact.