Bill Cunningham New York (2011)
Bill Cunningham New York (USA) Directed by Richard Press
Fascinating and engagingly human portrait of New York Times fashion/society photographer Bill Cunningham, an octogenarian whose regular photo columns, On The Street and Evening Hours, have been mainstays for the publication’s print and online versions for over thirty years. Cunningham is a unique character, fascinated with documenting the fashions displayed by NYC pedestrians since the early sixties, maintains his incredible collection of photos in multiple file cabinets that dominate his meager, longtime apartment at Carnegie Hall. During the making of the film, Cunningham is, along with the few remaining elderly resident artists remaining in the building, evicted from his home. We observe Cunningham as he does his duties for the paper, riding his bike day and night along the streets of Manhattan. The photographer long ago chose a kind of spartan, monk-like existence, his time devoted by his work. Throughout the film, he expresses his nearly lifelong passion for clothes, claiming a complete lack of interest in the celebrity that surrounds the industry. Through the years, Cunningham has built a solid reputation in the fashion world as someone with an encyclopedic historical knowledge with the ability to keenly spot recurring trends and make connections with the past. It is his odd sensibility, however, that is perhaps most interesting - a disdain for any and all luxuries, a lack of interest in his own clothes, and an overall refusal to take any money beyond what he needs to live. He is so principled that he has never even taken a snack at the swank events he covers, and says he wouldn’t know what to do if he went to a fancy restaurant. His refusal to compromise his strict set of moral codes once led him to leave a solid position with Women’s Daily Wear. Raised Catholic in a conservative Massachusetts household, he is a genteel soul with an abhorrence for anything he considers not nice. At the same time, he maintains a sense of humor about himself and his own habits, his conversation often punctuated by a unique giggle. Director Press was once a Times employee, who only managed to get his subject to agree to the film because they knew one another previously. The painstakingly shy Cunningham seems genuinely befuddled as to why it is being made in the first place, and was reportedly reluctant to continue at various times throughout the filming. Ultimately, the film’s most poignant moments occur during the director’s last interview with his subject, when he carefully asks the very private Cunningham about his sexuality and past romantic relationships. It is here where we see get a glimpse into the full depth of a complex man who has carried on a love affair with fashion for the entirety of his life, but may have given up some in the process.