Summary: Bill Cunningham has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirees for the New York Times Style section in his columns On the Street and Evening Hours for decades. Presented is a delicate, funny, and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace.
Video Librarian Reviews
Richard Press' documentary offers an affectionate portrait of photographer Bill Cunningham, whose snapshots of fashion shows, high society events, and distinctively dressed people on the street have graced the pages of the New York Times for years. What makes this film particularly noteworthy are Cunningham's contradictions. While the octogenarian shutterbug is fanatic about unusual dress—he spends his days on the city streets, scampering around to shoot passersby whose clothes pique his interest—his personal wardrobe is utterly functional. Cunningham moves easily among pampered celebrities, but he travels around on his 28th bike (the previous 27 having been stolen). The shutterbug admits to never having had a serious romantic relationship, but enjoys a bevy of friends, and while he's at home in rarefied social circles, he lives a positively spartan existence, occupying a tiny rent-controlled Carnegie Hall studio lacking kitchen or private bath and almost bereft of furniture aside from the file cabinets where he stores the negatives of all the pictures he's ever shot (at least until he's evicted and forced into a larger place). Cunningham's lifestyle is partially explained by his indifference to money; the photographer has frequently turned down payment in order to maintain his prized independence. Press' approach to his subject is laidback, benefiting from interesting interviews with the voluble Cunningham, his colleagues, and myriad friends and associates. A film about single-mindedness of a cheerful, contented sort—a genial surface beneath which one can glimpse something rather poignant—this is recommended. (F. Swietek) Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2011.
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