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mallorys_cameraWatched The Queen of Versailles, the documentary about the Timeshare King and his consort, how they lost all their money in the Great Recession so that they were unable to finish their dream house, a 90,000 square foot replica of the Versailles palace right across the swamp from the nightly fireworks at Disneyworld.
I wouldn't call it an example of great documentary filmmaking.
Nevertheless, it is a totally fascinating documentary.
The director really lucked out. She began filming at the exact moment when David Siegel and his wife were at the zenith of their trajectory. It was all downhill from there, and that downhill has the irony of a Greek tragedy, particularly in the scenes where Siegel is complaining about how greedy banks had tempted him to take out advantage of loans he couldn't afford to repay, since that's exactly what his company did to thesuckers customers it sold "vacation intervals" (love that euphemism) to.
Thing is that Siegel's trophy wife, far from being a Real Housewives sexbot, is actually pretty endearing. She was born in Binghamton. Binghamton! That IBM company town that went straight to hell when the company moved out and is now a minor concert stop on the Great Crack Cocaine Tour of upstate New York. She was blonde, regular featured and guileless-looking. She was good in school too.
"In those days," Jackie Siegel explains early in the movie, "IBM was the only place to work, and you had two choices. You could be a secretary and have someone order you around, or you could be an engineer. So I decided to be an engineer."
Jackie got her computer engineering degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology, a pretty decent school actually. She snagged her job at IBM.
One day, she got into work early and found her boss working on a computer program.
"What's that?" Jackie asked.
Her boss explained it was a computer program designed to calculate down to the minute and the second how much longer her boss was going to have to wait until he could retire. "Because that's when my real life will begin," her boss said.
That was all Jackie needed to hear. She quit, moved to New York City, began a modeling career. Got married to a Wall Street type who whisked her away to Orlando, Florida. Got involved in the Mrs. America pageant. Won the Mrs. America Pageant. Got physically abused by her husband. Divorced her husband.
In the early 1990s, she attended a party where billionaire David Siegel was another guest. He saw her, thought, Blonde shiksa! My next trophy wife! And was instantly smitten. She was in her 30s; he was in his 60s.
"It took me a while to fall in love with him," Jackie says early in the movie, her heavily Botoxed brow wrestling with the complexities of paralyzed neuromuscular junctures.
Eventually, however, she did, and they married. One does rather get the sense that she actually does love him and that he actually does not love her.
Over the next 12 years, she proceeded to give birth to seven children.
"When I was growing up," she confides in the camera, "I thought maybe I would have one kid. Maybe. But that's before I knew about nannies!"
The Philiipina nannies are everywhere in the household. They're the one servant class the Siegels can't let go of when they reduce their house staff.
The Siegels lose all their money practically in a matter of days. Siegel's obsession, his rosebud, is this monstrous looking timeshare palace in Las Vegas that looks like the model for Peter Jackson's CGI Mordor effects in the Lord of the Rings movies. (By the way, you would have to drag me by my hair into a theater before I would see The Hobbit. Or Les Mis, for that matter. I do hate Andrew Rice and redacted JRR Tolkein so fucking much.)
Siegel won't let it go. He can't let it go, despite the fact that everyone in his life is telling him that letting it go would right the tilted ship, restore the positive cash flow, give him back the lifestyle he lost.
"The banking stuff," says Jackie, trying to frown again. "I don't understand it. The banks got all that free money from the government. Shouldn't they be spreading it around? I'm not stupid, but nobody's telling me anything. You can't understand what's going on if nobody tells you anything."
And I believe her. She's not stupid. She's a placid, upbeat farm girl type who's ready to go where the tornado takes her. Raymond Carver's Big Blonde.
I do have to wonder though: What is it with rich people and their dogs? Don't rich people know about housebreaking dogs? In every one of these looks inside the true life MacMansions of the Rich and Wannabe Famous, the floors are always covered with dog shit. What's that about?
###
Lots more going on, but no time really to write. RTT was supposed to come down here after Christmas, but he didn't. Big blizzard in Ithaca; too hazardous to drive.
Of course, he's welcome anytime, but I haven't heard from him since then, he's not picking up his phone and he's not answering any of my emails. I track him through B who says he's holed up in his bedroom, sleeping all day, staying up all night.
Obviously, RTT needs some kind of counseling intervention. I have to assume this idea has occurred to B. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do at this distance, particularly if RTT is incommunicado.
I wouldn't call it an example of great documentary filmmaking.
Nevertheless, it is a totally fascinating documentary.
The director really lucked out. She began filming at the exact moment when David Siegel and his wife were at the zenith of their trajectory. It was all downhill from there, and that downhill has the irony of a Greek tragedy, particularly in the scenes where Siegel is complaining about how greedy banks had tempted him to take out advantage of loans he couldn't afford to repay, since that's exactly what his company did to the
Thing is that Siegel's trophy wife, far from being a Real Housewives sexbot, is actually pretty endearing. She was born in Binghamton. Binghamton! That IBM company town that went straight to hell when the company moved out and is now a minor concert stop on the Great Crack Cocaine Tour of upstate New York. She was blonde, regular featured and guileless-looking. She was good in school too.
"In those days," Jackie Siegel explains early in the movie, "IBM was the only place to work, and you had two choices. You could be a secretary and have someone order you around, or you could be an engineer. So I decided to be an engineer."
Jackie got her computer engineering degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology, a pretty decent school actually. She snagged her job at IBM.
One day, she got into work early and found her boss working on a computer program.
"What's that?" Jackie asked.
Her boss explained it was a computer program designed to calculate down to the minute and the second how much longer her boss was going to have to wait until he could retire. "Because that's when my real life will begin," her boss said.
That was all Jackie needed to hear. She quit, moved to New York City, began a modeling career. Got married to a Wall Street type who whisked her away to Orlando, Florida. Got involved in the Mrs. America pageant. Won the Mrs. America Pageant. Got physically abused by her husband. Divorced her husband.
In the early 1990s, she attended a party where billionaire David Siegel was another guest. He saw her, thought, Blonde shiksa! My next trophy wife! And was instantly smitten. She was in her 30s; he was in his 60s.
"It took me a while to fall in love with him," Jackie says early in the movie, her heavily Botoxed brow wrestling with the complexities of paralyzed neuromuscular junctures.
Eventually, however, she did, and they married. One does rather get the sense that she actually does love him and that he actually does not love her.
Over the next 12 years, she proceeded to give birth to seven children.
"When I was growing up," she confides in the camera, "I thought maybe I would have one kid. Maybe. But that's before I knew about nannies!"
The Philiipina nannies are everywhere in the household. They're the one servant class the Siegels can't let go of when they reduce their house staff.
The Siegels lose all their money practically in a matter of days. Siegel's obsession, his rosebud, is this monstrous looking timeshare palace in Las Vegas that looks like the model for Peter Jackson's CGI Mordor effects in the Lord of the Rings movies. (By the way, you would have to drag me by my hair into a theater before I would see The Hobbit. Or Les Mis, for that matter. I do hate Andrew Rice and redacted JRR Tolkein so fucking much.)
Siegel won't let it go. He can't let it go, despite the fact that everyone in his life is telling him that letting it go would right the tilted ship, restore the positive cash flow, give him back the lifestyle he lost.
"The banking stuff," says Jackie, trying to frown again. "I don't understand it. The banks got all that free money from the government. Shouldn't they be spreading it around? I'm not stupid, but nobody's telling me anything. You can't understand what's going on if nobody tells you anything."
And I believe her. She's not stupid. She's a placid, upbeat farm girl type who's ready to go where the tornado takes her. Raymond Carver's Big Blonde.
I do have to wonder though: What is it with rich people and their dogs? Don't rich people know about housebreaking dogs? In every one of these looks inside the true life MacMansions of the Rich and Wannabe Famous, the floors are always covered with dog shit. What's that about?
Lots more going on, but no time really to write. RTT was supposed to come down here after Christmas, but he didn't. Big blizzard in Ithaca; too hazardous to drive.
Of course, he's welcome anytime, but I haven't heard from him since then, he's not picking up his phone and he's not answering any of my emails. I track him through B who says he's holed up in his bedroom, sleeping all day, staying up all night.
Obviously, RTT needs some kind of counseling intervention. I have to assume this idea has occurred to B. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do at this distance, particularly if RTT is incommunicado.
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Date: 2012-12-28 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-28 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 05:48 pm (UTC)I found it interesting that Siegal began his time share career by essentially stealing the idea from some guy who was going to buy property from him. Siegal promptly tells the guy "no sale" then turns around and develops the land for time shares. He displays pride at snookering someone out of a somewhat mundane, limited idea. I have no sympathy for him. But her, I like - she's a survivor and will no doubt find someone else like hubby once his heart explodes.
Those friends of mine? Well, he got his head blown off by a disgruntled employee that he screwed out of unemployment bennies and she ended up with the hotel empire which she promptly sold off and is now living out her days in a cavernous house near Port Aransas TX. The employee/ murderer disappeared across the border and has never been prosecuted.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 07:47 pm (UTC)These days it's meth. God, what a depressing place to grow up. As they say, it's a great town to be from; Far, far AWAY from.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 08:08 pm (UTC)Meth for the white folks. Still crack cocaine among the African Americans.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-29 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-30 10:31 am (UTC)But who knows, right? :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-31 03:01 pm (UTC)