While I admire the man’s work tremendously, I thought the style evinced in this interview was questionable. The bold is The Globe interviewer; the regular print is Sart’s answer:
You look fit – just not big like a quarterback.
I’m pretty good at the sex. And pretty good at picture taking. That’s about it. Garance is pretty happy. And the hotel-room neighbours are pretty pissed. You can write that; that’s totally fine with me.
You want people to know you’re good in bed?
Yeah. Yeah.
Man’s got two young daughters with a wife he apparently left for Garance, and although I know very well that marriages and families are complicated, and people fall in and out of love for all kinds of reasons, and stories have two sides and, above all, that we really can’t judge private relationships by public manifestations of them, this kind of gratuitous preening seems thoughtless and unnecessary. I’ve sat through too many tearful sessions with GFs to not mind this comment.
Perhaps he thought that The Globe, while a national newspaper, was the national paper of a country too small to matter . . .
Still going to check his blog out daily though!
Yeah, that's pretty classless (and clueless). I wonder if The Fame has gone to his head?
Questionable is right.
We experienced something along parallel lines last night on UK television: Rupert Everett presenting the first of two programmes on Lord Byron. Much hyped beforehand so should be interesting, I thought. How wrong can one be? Rupert E presented himself, more or less, as Lord B's alter ego; the whole thing was unbelievably tacky and self-indulgent, with Madonna's Best Friend, repeating (ad infinitum) crude comments attributed to the poet. And then he added a tasteless remark of his own (about a photo of the Queen) for good (or bad) measure. It was obvious to anyone who bothered to watch after the first few minutes that Mr E wanted everyone to know that he, like Lord B, was a very, very naughty boy indeed. Sooo tedious. But it wasn't just me; this is what Nancy Banks-Smith, the doyenne of TV critics here in the UK, had to say about it in the Guardian:
guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jul/28/scandalous-byron-everett
I hope that 'The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron' (AKA 'The Boring Antics of Rupert Everett') will not be inflicted on Canada but, if it is, I'd give it a miss.
I like to think that I'm an open-minded liberal but am getting mighty tired of so-called celebrities behaving as if they were on a different planet from the rest of us mere mortals. And I suppose that 'celebrities' must now include well-known bloggers . . .
And wow, after reading the whole interview, I have to say that he comes across as pretty arrogant and full of himself. Ick!
I totally agree. I have always thought he was a little arrogant, but this shows that he's worse than that. Arrogant, tasteless and thoughtless (of his children and ex-wife). Not a winning combination in my book, no matter how talented a photographer he is. I think his fifteen minutes has really made him take himself too seriously.
Well, hello. He only ever featured women under 30 or in sky high heels. Duh.
Pseu: Yes, a definite Ick factor here.
60/16: Oh dear! Perhaps Mr. Everett could wait for others to proclaim that he has talent comparable to Lord Byron's rather than drawing a line of comparison based on a supposed brotherhood of naughtiness. Sounds like something I would be glad to pass up.
Tiffany: I suppose some of the showy bad-boy stuff is meant to drive sales of his soon-to-be-released book. I'm going to pass!
Dana: Ruffled as my feathers are by his comments in The Globe, I can't agree that he only photographs young women and only those in heels. I've appreciated his eye for street style very much over the last two or three years, and I will continue to try and separate the man's professional work from his personal life — in this case what irks me is that he's deliberately thrusting (oh dear, that's such an unfortunate verb here) his personal life into the professional, and it's really not professional at all.
Eww. Too much information even if he was trying to be cute.
Nancy: Exactly!
dana, he has published some middle aged and older folks, which I've appreciated!
Just because someone has talent does not make him a kind, generous, discreet person- a gentleman.
I also love the interview technique of asking questions, standing back and watching the person hang himself.
Duchesse: I've appreciated that as well.
Interesting that this interviewer didn't even have to ask a question (or, at least, not an obviously relevant one) to garner this response. In a very ungentlemanly manner, Mr. Schumann spilled his info with no particular care that he might be hanging himself. I do suspect that this may have something to do with promoting his book, as I mentioned.
And I do think it's important to separate someone's talent from their character/personality — I've long been frustrated by people who won't read Atwood because they don't like how "cold" she sounds in interviews. I actually see more relationship between Schumann's behaviour here and his work because he photographs and writes about style, and I see an overlap between dress and interview "style." Still, I'll keep visiting his blog, as I said.
Sounds like an insecure man in the middle of a mild mid-life crisis. I don't understand why any confident man would keep emphasizing his sexual prowess. Sad for his ex-wife and children.
Christine
His need to share his prowess has the same effect on me as seeing in a man in a high-powered sports car. It seems sad, pathetic and an enormous compensation for something.
Christine and LBR: Exactly — if one is truly confident, one tends not to boast. Sad indeed.