I talked about fashion movie earlier, but I missed this one out. If <Beautiful Fall> penned the decade of decadence, <Eyes of Laura Mars> has to be the one that captured and visualised it – at the time, in 1978. 

A lot of people consider <Bonnie & Clyde> or <The Thomas Crown Affair> as her iconic fashion movie, but to me, this is the one. A fashion thriller based on the eponymous novel. I was first recommended by my former editor boss five years ago who loaned me the DVD. It wasn’t so much about featuring designer clothes, but in fact the fashion, the 70s Studio 54 style and the specific photography that accentuated it. As Fred Astaire ‘n Audrey Hepburn’s <Funny Face> was about Richard Avedon in the 1950s; <EoLM> reflects Helmut Newton’s 1970s- the peak era of the master’s body of work. Although his work was featured in the film, but ironically the photos he contributed were not satisfactory. The director wanted scenes of blood and corpses which were of no interest to Helmut. He defended his fashion photos as erotic rather than violent. Barbra Streisand was the initial choice of the main role, she was dating Jon Peters, the producer of the movie then; but eventually decided not to take the role because of “the kinky nature of the story”. It would have made a huge difference if she did.