Bill Cunningham New York
Village East Cinema, August 2, 2011
Movie #51 for 2011
I don’t care about fashion, but I’ve always liked a good fashion documentary. Mostly because the good ones are not actually about fashion at all. Such it is with Bill Cunningham New York, the story of one of the mainstays and most influential men in New York fashion, the 80-year-old ‘photographer’ for the New York Times.
Cunningham has three regular gigs for the NYT - he photographs society events, catwalks and people in the street. He never photographs famous people unless they’re wearing something ‘interesting’. And he treats women in the street who catch his eye like catwalk models or socialites. He’s been doing so for decades and his photographs have become an invaluable cultural history of a city and its people. What Bill really cares about is the clothes.
He’s a bit of a conundrum, though. He’s clearly passionate about street fashion and creativity but he himself has a very limited and highly functional wardrobe. In addition, everyone knows who he is, but very few people know anything about him. In the documentary, he comes across and generous and engaging, but he offers almost no information about himself.
At one point he calls fashion an armor against the world - he is referring to other people, but his throw away line is revealing of himself. That’s about all you get, but it’s enough to know that not only is his work his joy, it is also his refuge.
Bill Cunningham New York is a documentary that pretends to be about fashion, but is actually a tender and generous portrait of a tender and generous man.
