Review No.13: Bill Cunningham New York

In my opinion a great documentary film needs to do two things tell you something about a subject you don't know about and present these facts in an entertaining way. Thankfully Bill Cunningham New York, which tells the story of the New York Times' most prolific photographer, does both of those things. I think that us Brits who aren't part of the fashion culture have probably never heard of Cunningham because I know I certainly haven't. Following Cunningham on the days leading up to his eightieth birthday he takes on our tour of the streets of New York for his more famous and aptly named column On the Street. Over almost forty years former milliner Cunningham has captured some of the fashion trends of the time and as Vogue editor Anna Wintour tells us everybody gets dressed for Bill and are upset if they don't get snapped. Bill is someone who is only interested in fashion and sees it as another form of art work using bright colours and styles to express yourself. Similarly when he photographs the socialite world, for his other column Evening hours, he doesn't focus on the celebrity instead just taking photographs of what these people are wearing often not even being aware of who they are.

The message here seems to be that Bill is of the old New York as we see he is one of the last residents in the apartments at Carnegie Hall which are about to be torn down in favour of new call centres. One of the most fascinating stories of the film is about this Carnegie development and the fact that the new owners of the hall want to focus on making it more of a centre for the arts but at the same time some of the old studios are being torn down in favour of call centres. Cunningham's eccentric apartment and those of his quirky neighbours are being vanquished which is a shame as they add character to a city which is seemingly becoming more and more bland. Cunningham is a character and he also is also about capturing the characters some of whom serve as talking heads here remincising about when Bill first took their pictures and their relationships with him. The film tries to get to the heart of a very private man who doesn't reveal too much about his personal life until the final stages and even then he looks fairly awkward. As you can tell I really enjoyed this film I had a couple of minor quibbles in that I felt some parts of the film were repeating themselves and also the captions telling us who the talking heads were was too small so while these characters were all entertaining I didn't really know who they were. But overall this was a fascinating portrait of a man who shys away from the spotlight and likes to be the one taking the pictures and someone whom I had previously never heard of by someone who's work I will look into more thoroughly which is a sign that this film is a success.

Verdict: A great documentary film that explores a fascinating character I think I'll have to award it 8/10