With producing credits for films such as “The Mind of a Chef” and “A Cook’s Tour” under her belt, you would think that Director Lydia Tenaglia would know everyone of importance in the food industry.
But there is one chef who somehow managed to weasel his way out of her frame of knowledge—Jeremiah Tower, the chef said to have jumpstarted the very idea of food as an experience. This mystery man was the perfect subject for Tenaglia’s next project.
“There were just so many layers to this person,” she said. “Food really was almost in the background.”
And so began the year-and-a-half-long journey into the mind of “Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent.”
“[Tower’s] need to be in the public eye, but his desperate need to be left alone—it’s an interesting dichotomy,” Tenaglia said.
Many who know the man have described him as a private person—hard to read and hard to get to know—and the film relates that character.
“I have to stay away from human beings because somehow I am not one,” he states early in the film.
And perhaps he really does feel that way. From his childhood, when he escaped his parents’ “moneyed neglect” by surrounding himself with refined eatery, to the dramatically charged role he played at the restaurant, Chez Parisse, we watch the slow progression as his circle of acquaintances begin to regard him as something more than human—a culinary god, if you will—born with a silver fork in his hand.
“Before I read books, I read menus,” he muses.
And he has the ego to match his supernatural guise.
After drama stirred between Tower and the staff at Chez Parisse, he moved on to create his own masterpiece—the theatrically inclined restaurant, Stars, where eating out became about more than just food, but about entertainment. Derived completely from Tower’s fantasy and orchestrated to reflect the safe haven he created as a child, Stars was truly the place where his god status was cultivated and cemented. Then, abruptly, Jeremiah Tower disappeared from the public eye.
Stylistically, the film is a dream. Tower’s life is shown through four dynamic threads, weaved together to create Tenaglia’s masterpiece.
First, there is the footage of Tower in his hideaway home in Merida, Mexico, walking by the ocean and inspecting old buildings to purchase and rebuild, and then there are the dramatizations. Initially, due to a lack of archival pictures, Tenaglia shot a series of scenes recreating Tower’s memories, actually structured to feel like memories.
“To really get a sense of Jeremiah’s character, what he was literally and figuratively able to bring to the table, you had to viscerally, visually understand his formative memories as a child, good and bad,” said Tenaglia.
The result is a rare, beautiful and ethereal cinematic landscape interlacing these expressive, visually articulated dramatizations throughout the story, thereby foregoing the “follow-doc” feel of a typical documentary and allowing the scenes to breathe.
It wasn’t until two-thirds through editing that Tower unearthed some old 8-mm films while cleaning out his mother’s basement, and the entire visual paradigm of the film shifted. Suddenly, the question was how to marry archival information with memory-driven recreation. Again, the result called forth a dream-like quality that is sure to captivate audiences.
This leads to the fourth thread—the unexpected finale, which takes place in 2015 when Tower makes a comeback by moving to New York to add his artistic touch to the barely afloat restaurant, Tavern on the Green. Suddenly, the film becomes a follow-doc—a tantalizing question of whether Tower can make the comeback he deserves, or if that dream even still needs to be realized.
“[We have] an opportunity to see Jeremiah roll up his sleeves and work the way he’s always done,” said Tenaglia.
This is a shining moment, when you can see both Jeremiah’s incredible strength and profound flaws on display, his ego struggling for complete control in a job that doesn’t allow for it. But here we see the true Jeremiah Tower. As Tenaglia puts it, he is simply “an artist who is seeking, even from early on, some means of expression. The kitchen was just his canvas.”
You can see the result of Tenaglia’s finesse, and a more complete rendering of Jeremiah Tower than this review could possibly include, at Midtown Cinema starting June 2. Don’t miss this incredible documentary.
Special thanks to Lydia Tenaglia for agreeing to an interview.
MIDTOWN CINEMA JUNE SPECIAL EVENTS
Superhero Summer Series
“Batman” (1989)
Friday, June 2, 8 p.m.
Saturday, June 3, 2 p.m.
“X-Men” (2000)
Saturday, June 3, 7 p.m.
Sunday, June 4, 2 p.m.
Down in Front! Presents
“Howard the Duck” (1986)
Saturday, June 3, 9:30 p.m.
National Theatre Live Presents
“Rosencratz & Guildenstern Are Dead”
Monday, June 10, 7 p.m.
3rd in the Burg $3 Movie
“Deadpool” (2016) Friday, June 16, 9:30 p.m.
Faulkner Honda Family Film Series
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (1990)
Saturday, June 17, 2 p.m.
Saturday, June 17, 8 p.m.
Sunday, June 18, 12 p.m.
Outdoor Film Series
“Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988)
Friday, June 9
“Superman” (1978)
Friday, June 23
Down in Front! Presents: “I Was a Teenage Werewolf” (1957)
Friday, July 14
“Jaws” (1975)
Friday, July 28
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (2011)
Friday, August 11
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (2015)
Friday, August 25
All outdoor films start at dusk, with a rain date of the following day.
Author: Sammi Leigh Melville
