Chava Pearl LanskySeptember 16, 2024 3:22 pm

When filmmaker Rick Minnich first met Martin Greenfield in 2017, the celebrity tailor was 88 years old and still hard at work at his factory, Greenfield Clothiers, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

“He had this amazing charisma to him,” Minnich recalled. “He was really a smiley person. Whenever he was in a room, you could feel his energy.” 

That vivacity is evident throughout “The Presidents’ Tailor,” a 39-minute documentary about Greenfield, who learned to sew while interred at Auschwitz, and went on to make suits for U.S. presidents and celebrities. The film has its North American premiere Tuesday at the Upper West Side’s Marlene Meyerson JCC. The one-night screening will be followed by a week-long run at Greenwich Village’s IFC Center. 

Though Greenfield, who wrote a 2014 autobiography, “Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents’ Tailor,” is endlessly compelling, the film arrives at a particularly poignant time: Greenfield died in March at age 95. 

“The Presidents’ Tailor,” written and directed by Minnich, follows Greenfield at work and at home in Long Island. As he sits in his factory office, Greenfield tells the incredible story of how he went from surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald to dressing celebrities, members of the mob and American presidents ranging from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama. 

For many, the outline of Greenfield’s story is a familiar one: He was called “America’s greatest living tailor” by GQ and CNN in 2009 and 2014, respectively, and was profiled in Vanity Fair upon the release of his memoir. 

But when Minnich — an American documentarian based in Berlin whose work has covered topics ranging from hillbilly musicians to the fate of Lenin statues in Eastern Europe — first heard about Greenfield in 2017, he wanted to take a different approach. “I wanted to get a little deeper,” said Minnich, who endeavored to highlight Greenfield’s wildly successful family-run business, and his relationship with said family. “That was my first goal.”

Greenfield’s remarkable, oft-repeated anecdotes — like how, as a teenaged prisoner in Auschwitz, he learned to sew after accidentally tearing an SS officer’s shirt, or how he’d slip notes on policy ideas into the pockets of bespoke suits for Eisenhower — are a natural focal point for the film. But they’re contextualized in a rich tapestry of footage that shows the chasm between where Greenfield’s life began and where it ended. 

Greenfield’s early life is shown through the eyes of his son, Jay Greenfield, and Jay’s two adult children, who go to Europe to track down their patriarch’s roots. (Martin Greenfield had already been back to Europe with his other son, Tod Greenfield, 20 years earlier.) The trio visit Pavlovo, the village formerly in Czechoslovakia, now in western Ukraine where Greenfield — then named Maximilian Grünfeld — was born in 1928.

In the quiet, pastoral town, they trek through overgrown grass to reach the Jewish cemetery. Near the former synagogue, they meet an elderly woman who remembers Greenfield, and who recalls what it was like watching the Nazis cart away the village’s Jews —  including Greenfield, his parents, two sisters, and brother. Greenfield was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust.

These shots are juxtaposed with a very different chapter of Greenfield’s life: his 90th birthday party at the Friars Club in Manhattan. The star-studded soiree was attended by many of Greenfield’s clients, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. (At the party, Powell begins his toast to Greenfield in Yiddish, asking him “vos machst du?”— “how are you?”).

Later in the film, Minnich follows Greenfield and his wife, Arlene, to the White House for President Donald Trump’s 2017 Hanukkah reception. After the party, Minnich asks Greenfield — who generally tried to stay out of politics — if Trump was wearing one of his suits. “I couldn’t tell, because he didn’t look so good dressed,” Greenfield said, laughing.

“The Presidents’ Tailor” also captures Greenfield during more intimate moments with his family and friends, like at one Passover seder where a group looked at old photographs and drank Slivovitz together. We also see Greenfield at work in his factory where, in impeccably shined loafers, he shows off the techniques behind the company’s motto: “quality with intrinsic value.” 

Minnich, 56, has lived his entire adult life in Germany. His New York cameraman, Tom Bergmann, is German but lives in Brooklyn. When asked if Greenfield was at all apprehensive about this, Minnich said no. “All these horrific things were done to Martin, but I didn’t get the sense that he held it against these young Germans today,” Minnich said. “It seemed to be also, from what his sons were telling me, a bit of a healing process for Martin to go through making this film with us.” 

Greenfield died before “The Presidents’ Tailor” was finished. However, Minnich said that his family loves the film. They’ll be joining Minnich at the JCC premiere and at the first IFC screening.

Greenfield’s sons Jay and Tod now run Greenfield Clothiers; his grandson, David Greenfield, works for the company as well. After the IFC run, Minnich plans to show “The Presidents’ Tailor” at festivals in the hopes of it being considered for film industry prizes. 

Should you attend one of the openings, keep an eye out for Minnich, who will be wearing a custom gray Greenfield Clothiers suit. “I can’t wait for people to see Martin’s message of tolerance and resiliency, along with the fine men’s tailoring,” he said. “If our film can help preserve his legacy, then that’s the best thing that could happen.”