Review of Bill Cunningham New York (2011) by Walter M — 16 Sep 2012

As a creature Bill Cunningham exists not just in New York but could only exist in New York. Only The Big Apple would provide an environment supportive of an someone obsessed with photographing what people are wearing.

Certainly, the Los Angeles area provides a sustaining environment for huge populations of paparazzi but they survive by taking photos of celebrities and only by extension the clothes they are in (or more accurately the clothes they are mostly out of).

Cunningham's visceral need to bike around NYC's streets and snap photos of what folks on the street are wearing in addition to his paparazzi duties wouldn't pay in other towns. And it is his obsessiveness that gives this documentary of his life its fire.

Watching him interact with other people in the film is interesting because they seem to be talking with a cartoon character come to life. If Bill is the Road Runner (or Wile E Coyote, your choice) then New York is the cartoon canyons they compete in.

Bill actually lives at Carnegie Hall (answering the age old question on how you get there - you move in when it was still residential and rent controlled and fight their efforts to evict you.) Like a cartoon canyon, Bill's New York is simplified down to a pantomime background.

Bill's work limits itself to just the glamorous, well-tailored residents and beautiful spaces of the city making the streets seem like one massive catwalk. But in the same sense that Bill does not see the need to define himself further than photographer, his documentary does not need to define the city greater than a stage.

The only major shortcoming of the movie is the question of whether it carries substantive enough material to have warranted a theatrical release. This could have easily been a two-part PBS special and it would not have seemed to have pushed the boundaries of televised entertainment.

In short, if you enjoy New York or fashion r biography, this light documentary is for you.