4 gibbles out of 5

Director: Richard Press

If you don’t care about photography – like me – then you’ll probably need someone else to point you in the direction of this documentary.  So point I shall, because you listen to every word of mine you read, and ‘Bill Cunningham New York’ is definitely worth your time.

So Bill snaps photos of fashion for The New York Times, something he’s been doing since the late 70s.  I’d never heard of him prior to this documentary, but apparently if you know Bill, you know Bill.  You know that he rides his bicycle everywhere, and that he’ll leave you in the middle of a conversation to go snap a picture of a skirt that’s caught his eye.  You know that he doesn’t seem to be able to discriminate between what’s “hot” and “not,” or that he doesn’t care about age, profession, or status, as long as the clothes you’re wearing do something for him – show a trend, show something new – he’ll snap your picture quickly and unobtrusively, then turn away or smile politely before looking for another shot.

The man was born sometime in 1928 or ’29 and he seems tireless, having discovered a particular pursuit that works for him and dedicating every day to it, except Sunday when he goes to Church.  His small apartment is cluttered with his ever-expanding portfolio and not much more.  He left a magazine at one point because they used his pictures to say that one form of dress was better than another, which was inherently wrong to Bill, who just sees it all as fashion, neither good or bad.  When he’s hired to work an event he treats it as work – no royalties, no sampling the menu, no *water*.  You’d think he was insane if he wasn’t so good natured and full of genuine cheer about what he does.

Richard Press stays mostly out of his way for the documentary, taking a typical biography structure of showing people’s responses to / opinions of the man, and then exploring his past before returning to modern times.  In this it suffers from the same dearth of material that a lot of documentaries have – unless the subject’s life is truly packed to the brim with moments that require review, your understanding and feelings have been established by the midway point, and so the director just has to delay whatever opinions he or she may want to get across until the film’s end.

But it helps that Bill is a stultifyingly unique character for his simplicity.  When some impactful questions are asked in sequence, it notably affects Bill, wiping the smile from his face for one moment of the film.  Comments on this range from how sad it is – implying a life of denial that these questions attempt to expose – to trying to decipher what his response “means” in some secret way.  But Mr. Cunningham has achieved something that’s close to a dream for many of us: found something he enjoys, has been successful with it, and has dedicated almost all of his energy to it.  There will always be regrets in life, and there will always be a question to catch us off guard, to make us wonder if we should be where we are.  But Bill recovers moments later with a smile, the same pure smile he wears most of the documentary, and you know he’ll  be back to what he enjoys as soon as he can.

That sneaky bastard.