Crowd-pleasing documentary on 90-year-old, famed New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham.
"Cunningham, well into his ninth decade, has two weekly columns in the ‘Style’ section of the New York Times: ‘On the Street’, where he identifies fashion trends as he spots them emerging on the street; and ‘Evening Hours’, his coverage of high society charity benefits. His work constitutes a long-running chronicle more reliable than any catwalk of fashion as expression of time, place and individual flair. This documentary introduces us to a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own lovely, graceful generosity." (NZ International Film Festival 2010)
Bill Cunningham New York may just be the perfect documentary. It’s a heart-warming insight into one man’s extraordinary life, a window to the fabulous veneer of the Big Apple and a must-see for anyone interested in the creative process. The New York Times photographer has for decades recorded fashion trends, photographing the city’s most stylish and whittling down the multiple images to a playful editorial narrative. In the process he’s become one of New York’s most unlikely yet loved social anthropologists. You don’t need to care about clothes to enjoy this. It’s a joy just to watch the sunny Cunningham in action, flitting between snapping the haute-couture Upper East-siders who appear to adore him, to the larger-than-life transsexuals and street-smart hipsters, who are mostly happy to pose.
It’s not just Cunningham who provides the entertainment. From the unusually upbeat Vogue editor Anna Wintour to the hilariously camp style fixture Patrick McDonald to designer Michael Kors, the film bursts with the famous, the outlandish and the downright eccentric, all of them waxing lyrical on the photographer’s legacy and integrity.
Cunningham himself acts as a kind of social prism, through which the winds of change – fashion, technology, society – are refracted. In some ways he’s a relic, an old guy in a boiler suit who rides around on his pushbike, shunning celebrities unless they fit his stylish brief. He’s still on analogue and files every image he’s ever taken in huge cabinets stacked in his tiny apartment; he’s perhaps the least glamorous, yet most important person at New York Fashion Week.
Yet throughout the film Cunningham finds himself confronting change, whether it’s accepting the inevitability of his living situation, or the painful truth of his personal life. Filmmaker Richard Press maintains as respectful a distance as the photographer does with his subjects. His life might be all about the clothes – well that’s how Cunningham would modestly put it – but it makes for one hell of a story.
By Rebecca Barry Hill, Flicks.co.nz
Suffused with happiness and modest charm, Bill Cunningham New York offers a touching, gently humorous portrait of its subject without invading his jealously guarded privacy.
A character study into the kind of person that devotes their life to something with a religious fervour. I found it both happy and sad.
...then this is a movie for you. it reminds you of all that is good about America: that it has cities and a culture and institutions (the NY Times) that allow individuals like Bill to be their wonderful selves. This film is a celebration of one warm, talented, kooky, passionate man. You'll love it.
I was very nicely surprised with this documentary. I must admit I wasn't that excited about a documentary on an 80something fashion photographer from N.Y. ; but this film was a delightfull breath of fresh air. It is not only about a man and his passion, but also about a chronicle of the times. A great doco about a great man in an interresting city.
Bill C is definitely his own man. He has lead a most interesting life, but there does seem to be something missing. A real study not just of the life a man, but of the life a city, New York.
It's no insult to say that the fine documentary Bill Cunningham New York resembles one of those minor profiles found in The New Yorker's "Talk Of The Town" section: a slight, glancing, yet subtly wrought slice of New York life. And it seems likely that the exceedingly modest Cunningham would want it that way.
Here is a good and joyous man who leads a life that is perfect for him, and how many people do we meet like that? This movie made me happy every moment I was watching it.
This fascinating documentary about famed photographer Bill Cunningham features interviews with Vogue editor Anna Wintour, author Tom Wolfe and New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
If the film suggests that there's something bittersweet about a life dedicated to a single pursuit cultivated with an almost religious fervor, it also stands in awe of its subject's seemingly inexhaustible, self-abnegating capacity to remain attuned to the expression of others.
Man in the street
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 7th Jul 2011.
Release date: July 7th 2011.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
