Actor Vincent Cassel, star of arthouse and multiplex alike, is one of the most distinctive and compelling talents working in cinema now. In a career spanning twenty-five years and counting, he has carved out a niche playing complex, troubled and often sensuous characters in critically acclaimed films such as La Haine and Irreversible, alongside box-office hits including Jason Bourne. Having helped to regalvanise French cinema in the long shadow of the nouvelle vague, and after taking Brazil as an adoptive home, he talks to Port’s George Upton in Paris for the cover story of issue 23 about the journey to where he is today, and the joie de vivre he has found in and outside of his work on the way.
Elsewhere, photographer David La Spina captures street life in New York City in an extraordinary exclusive portfolio, introduced by the New York Times Magazine’s Kathy Ryan; 200 years of expertise in saddlery and showmanship is put to the test at the Saut Hermès, Paris; Christopher Turner profiles the godfather of modern Italian design, Gio Ponti and photographer Tobias Harvey explores the forgotten secrets of military history, hidden in plain sight on the Suffolk coastline.
Fashion director Dan May and photographer Rudi Geyser bring an extended fashion story from Cape Town, South Africa; Rose Forde styles new season Manolo Blahnik, plus a photo story from Düsseldorf, 1984 and Scott Stephenson curates the new season collections.
Commentary comes courtesy of Steve Martin, Will Ashon and Don Morrison, alongside an exploration in translation in which Zadie Smith, Ma Jian and Tash Aw translate Giuseppe Pontiggia. In The Porter, Fergus Henderson cooks a warming autumnal blood lunch, Konstantin Grcic remembers an unlikely style icon in Joseph Beuys, Carlotta de Bevilacqua talks light inspiration and Michel Roux Jr celebrates the humble table crumber.
