Last night at the advice of a friend I went to see a movie called Bill Cunningham New York which is a film by Richard Press. It is playing at the Cinamatheque in Winnipeg until September 15, 2011. I loved this movie… Bill just seems to glow with happiness and passion for his work and he has a beautiful, simple approach to life. I would highly recommend it.
“The “Bill” in question is 80+ New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham. For decades, this Schwinn-riding cultural anthropologist has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirées for the Times Style section in his columns “On the Street” and “Evening Hours.” Documenting uptown fixtures (Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller—who all appear in the film out of their love for Bill), downtown eccentrics and everyone in between, Cunningham’s enormous body of work is more reliable than any catwalk as an expression of time, place and individual flair. In turn, Bill Cunningham New York is a delicate, funny and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace.”