A new movie called “Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s” will have a limited release this weekend.
The documentary by director Matthew Miele will surround the store’s 111th anniversary, which it celebrated in October 2012.
“Making the documentary was an opportunity to pause, and look reflectively both forward and backwards at ourselves, and all the special people and at the underlying ethos which makes us tick,” Linda Fargo, the store’s fashion director, told the New York Times in an e-mail.
While Miele was granted nearly unlimited access, he showed a rough cut of the film to Bergdorf Goodman managers and subsequently agreed to cut a scene depicting Occupy Wall Street protesters marching up Fifth Avenue past the store.
“It made it look like they were protesting the store, which they felt was unfair, and I agreed,” he said.
However, he said, “I held firm on a number of other things that made them a little embarrassed” – such as information about large staff salaries and occasionally acerbic commentary from long-time customer Joan Rivers.
The Goodman family, which long ago sold the business and the store’s name to the Neiman Marcus Group (Dallas), still owns the building on Fifth Avenue in New York. And Andrew Malloy, a descendant of original co-owner Edwin Goodman, financed the documentary along with a group of friends.
I thought it would be a nice legacy piece for my kids,” said Malloy, who is the managing director of a Denver investment firm.
The next project for Miele and Malloy is a documentary film on Fifth Avenue across-the-street neighbor Tiffany & Co., which last year celebrated its 175th anniversary.