I got chance to read through the issue today, and the photographic portfolio is by far the weakest part of the issue. And inside, the magazine barely makes mention of the cover girls, and they end up seeming like non-entities in comparison to the personalities featured in the articles - Jon Peters, John Hughes, Scorsese & De Niro - people who are rich, successful and insane, or complicated-yet-productive, or in the case of Ali McGraw, someone who was seemingly too damn nice for their own good.
I wasn't fond of the cover in the first place, and now that I've read the articles and saved the ads, I have no further need for this issue, because I don't feel like I'm looking at anything important, whereas many previous Hollywood covers felt more momentous. As I said before, those shots had gravitas and glamour, but this year, people are sitting in a field because that's somehow young and fresh. But it doesn't capture what we expect Vanity Fair to provide in this issue, the sight of stars in full control of their celluloid image - expensive artifice and structured posing. Let's ring up Lauren Bacall and ask her to sit in a field, and see how Hollywood that is.
