Model on AllMovie

Entering the world of fashion models, model agencies, print ads, and TV commercials, documentarian Frederick Wiseman examines a type of filmmaking very much in contrast to his own -- as fantasy and fashion intersect with business, advertising, television, and photography. This 1980 documentary, a 129-minute glimpse of models at work, received the CINE Golden Eagle Certificate. Male and female models are shown at work on fashion shows, TV commercials, magazine covers, and ads for various products -- designer collections, furs, sports clothes, and cars. During sessions, the models work, talk, play, and kill time. Differing fashion and product photographic techniques and styles are shown. Inside model agencies, prospective models are interviewed, and the business aspects also involve career counseling, arranging portfolios, meeting clients, and planning trips. Model was shown at the 1980 London Film Festival, the 1980 Festival Dei Popoli (Florence), and the 1981 Goteborg Film Festival. Mary Frazier, writing in London's Times Literary Supplement, observed, "We have all the fascination of looking into another world and none of the annoyance of being told what to think about it."