Bill Cunningham New York

At first I found myself dulled by BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK. It has all of the trademarks of the recent documentary that I had thought had been stomped out by 2010's explosion of great documentaries. But this film proved me wrong, and I saw the same old formula applied to making a documentary. The craft seems to be to first find a good and interesting subject. Good, now you've got an interesting subject, now there's no need to exert any effort on making a good and interesting film! And so I was dulled. Most of the storytelling in BILL CUNNINGHAM seems to be from the standpoint of watching Cunningham, an 80 year old (at the time of the film's making) fashion photographer for the New York Times, go about his work. In boring shots of a giddy Cunningham swooping like a mad bird to capture the women on the streets, we slowly learn of Cunningham's life, which, it turns out, is wholly devoted to his craft. Like most great artists in fact, Cunningham only considers his art to be a craft, and spends every day all day working on his columns. He knows his stuff, and is a fine photographer. Cunningham and his personality actually seeped into me more than the film ever could have. The man is to be admired as he lives for his pleasure. He has no kitchen, has never had a relationship, and doesn't seem to have any close friends whom he converses with on any regular basis. Instead he works methodically and well, like an old man of the land. But can I really forgive the documentary, which is so timid as to actually tell Cunningham he doesn't have to answer two of their only questions of the whole film? I suppose I have to, for I loved Cunningham so much, and liked how he grew on me as the film carried on.

★★★ out of Five