Review at National Board of Review web site
Originally posted on April 7, 2011
Thomas W. Campbell
Bill Cunningham is nearly 82 years old and still travels the streets of New York on his bicycle–taking pictures by day of street fashions (regular people dressing up) and by night of the most elite members of society (rich people at charity and social events). Bill Cunningham New York, directed by Richard Press and released by Zeitgeist films, displays Cunningham’s life in a way that reveals a quirky, principled, talented artist who follows a single idea to it’s most interesting conclusion. For Cunningham, fashion photography is a continuous and lifelong love affair with the unique and the individual.
The film begins with Cunningham taking his dependable Schwinn bicycle from an overstuffed storage closet and leaving a building that we will soon learn is Carnegie Hall. Setting off, he navigates the bumpy streets of New York City, on the prowl for the something unusual to train his lens on. “The best fashion show is always on the street,” he says. “Always has been, always will be.” A bouncy jazz soundtrack–drum and saxophone music by the downtown artist John Lurie–adds momentum to a montage of colorful, odd, and often outlandish street clothing that he has shot for his New York Times “On The Street” column. Cunningham waits for the world to pass in front of him, stalking the street for fashion unknowns, immortalizing a chosen few each week.
Just as the viewer begins to wonder “Who is this guy?”, Press introduces the same question into the film. Everyone in the fashion world seems to know who he is–but nobody seems to really know anything about his life. Bill Cunningham might have one of the most interesting and individualistic careers in the world–and may also be one of the least “known” photographers working today.
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