Cole Haan Celebrates the American Dream With James Marshall, Isabella Rossellini, Elettra Wiedemann & More
From left: Isabella Rossellini with her daughter, Elettra Wiedemann, at the Cole Haan event on Tuesday night.
“This isn’t the first dangerous boys trip I’ve been on,” teased filmmaker (and husband to model Elettra Wiedemann) James Marshall of the voyage behind The American Dream Project, the mini docu-series Marshall created and premiered with Cole Haan, and presented by Blackbook magazine, at Gramercy’s Gansevoort Park Avenue last night. The series follows Marshall and a friend as they motorcycle cross-country, leaving New York with just $250 for the 5,000-mile trip and the hope that strangers will help them out in exchange for labor along the way. Of course, they met “a few nutcases on the journey,” said Marshall, but more presently, “people opened up their homes so liberally.”
The idea for the pair was to highlight nationwide stories–and the continued relevance–of the American Dream. “I fell in love with America as a kid, and especially the American dream, and when I came here, I was kind of saddened to read so many headlines about why America is a bad place and why it’s dangerous and why we’re all so different from each other, and also the American dream is dead,” explained Marshall after the first two segments of his film—which show the friends hitting the road and reaching out to individuals via social media in Pennsylvania and Wyoming—screened. “As a foreigner here, I just didn’t feel that,” he continued. “I could see through that. That was just a facade and if you dig deep, we actually have a lot more in common than not.”
James Marshall.
The crowd—gathering to sip on tequila cocktails and flip through the newly re-launched Blackbook magazine (with a somewhat controversial image of the Pope blessing a lesbian marriage on the cover)—were quick to comment on the project. “It’s kind of homely, and it is very respectful of America,” said photographer Mick Rock from by the bar. “It had nothing to do with my American dream. I’ve lived here over 30 odd years, but my American dream mostly involved the stories I’d heard about the American girl.”
Wiedemann, who was came out to support Marshall, along with Andy Cohen, Isabella Rossellini, and more, had perhaps the most direct experience with the project outside of Marshall and his fellow motorcyclist. “My husband has always been a little bit crazy and adventurous,” commented the model. “Since I’ve married him, he’s climbed Mount Blanc, ran across the Sahara desert, and decided he wanted to do this project, and so it wasn’t totally crazy of him to bring up something of this magnitude. But he had a corporate job for a long time and was the number one guy in his company, and its been so incredible –he decided that he wasn’t happy and he quit and decided, ‘I really just want to do what I’m passionate about’ which is filmmaking and producing things and he has totally managed to turn his whole life around in two and a half years. Its just been so inspiring.” For some- certainly Marshall-, the American dream is very much alive–or at least it is what you make it.
