CINEMA
New York’s Fashion & Social Camera
Mark Bozek pays aff ectionate tribute to Bill Cunningham
BY GARY M. KRAMER
Bill Cunningham, who died
at age 87, in 2016, was a
legendary New Yorker.
A fi xture on the social
and fashion scene, he was always
on the shooting end of the camera
lens. A photographer whose fashion
photography column, “On the
Street,” ran in the New York Times
from 1978 until his death, Cunningham
was the subject of Bill
Press’ terrifi c 2011 documentary,
“Bill Cunningham New York.” Now,
with the release of Mark Bozek’s
affectionate documentary, “The
Times of Bill Cunningham,” fans
can revisit this humble man who
still feels like an old friend.
Bozek builds his fi lm around a
single interview he conducted with
Cunningham back in 1994. The
subject is extremely self-effacing;
he doesn’t understand the interest
people have with him. Bozek’s
modest talking-head approach,
however, captures Cunningham in
a way that makes him irresistible.
What Cunningham expected to be
a 10-minute chat ran much longer,
and Bozek assembles a narrative
— delivered by Sarah Jessica
Parker — about Cunningham’s life,
illustrating it with many dozens
(perhaps hundreds) of Cunningham’s
unpublicized photographs.
The documentary provides a trip
down memory lane.
For those unfamiliar with Cunningham’s
life story — and the
photographer was very private —
he grew up in the Boston area in
a conservative Catholic family. He
had a job at Bonwit Teller’s, and
eventually moved to New York to
live with his aunt and uncle and
work in the advertising department
at Bonwit’s. But he started a
side hustle making hats.
Cunningham designed under
the name William J. so his family
name would not be associated
with this work. Bozek nobly tries
to get Cunningham to discuss the
reasons why there were concerns
about his career in fashion — his
family tried to steer him away from
“women’s work” — but the subject
COURTESY OF GREENWICH ENTERTAINMENT: HAROLD CHAPMAN / TOPFOTO / THE IMAGE WORKS
Bill Cunningham shooting a Paris fashion show in 1971.
does not discuss it. (Viewers can
connect the dots here and infer.)
Here, Cunningham reveals himself
to be a gentleman of a certain
age and from a certain time, where
certain things were just not spoken
about.
The fi lmmaker does, however,
get the self-proclaimed “fashion
historian” to discuss how he eventually
ended up living in the Carnegie
Hall studio apartments as
well as amusing anecdotes about
Marlon Brando hiding out in his
apartment and an encounter with
a nude Norman Mailer.
“The Times of Bill Cunningham”
also addresses Cunningham’s
time in the Army, and how he often
went to Paris — to attend fashion
shows — and discovered the work
of designers Jacques Fath, Balenciaga,
and others. This education
helped him in his work with Chez
Ninon, a salon in New York, designing
for Jackie Kennedy (among
other celebrities) and his breaking
into covering fashion, as when he
reluctantly penned acolumn for
Women’s Wear Daily that started
his career in journalism.
Cunningham emphasizes
throughout the interview that he
really just wants to capture how
women on the street wear clothes,
as that says everything about society
and politics in America. He
is unimpressed with Hollywood
actresses, and dishes about the
lack of personal style women like
Joan Crawford, among others, had
in their daily lives. He also has
some interesting comments about
meeting the Duke and Duchess of
Windsor.
These catty moments are fun,
but Bozek understands his subject
well enough not to probe too deep
for gossip. There is a great story
about how and why folks tried to
keep him from meeting the fashion
legend Diana Vreeland.
Cunningham bonded with other
artists, such as the out gay fashion
illustrator Antonio Lopez (himself
the subject of a fantastic doc).
Lopez gave Cunningham his fi rst
camera and it was “a revelation”
that jump-started his career.
He also cites photographer Harold
Chapman as being a big infl uence
on his work. A 1978 photo of
Greta Garbo in a nutria coat got
Cunningham into the pages of
Yhe New York Times, but the fi lm
misses the opportunity to discuss
how that photograph landed him a
regular gig that became an institution
in The Times Sunday Style
Section.
Instead, “The Times of Bill Cunningham”
delves into its subject’s
own personal style, which was
cobbled together, he explains, from
thrift stores and the wardrobes of
his female friend’s late husbands.
Cunningham is absolutely frugal
when it comes to himself, and he
cares more about getting a photograph
than what he looks like. As
reported in the fi lm, Cunningham
would pack his clothes in plastic
deli bags when he travelled to Paris
to cover designers. He famously
wore a blue workman’s jacket,
modeled after a French sanitation
worker’s uniform, as he rode
around the city on his bicycle.
It is easy to appreciate Cunningham
for his ethics — he would not
accept so much as a glass of water
while working the society parties
— and his largess. Bozek touches
a nerve when he asks Cunningham
about what saddens him,
and after pausing and collecting
his thoughts he eventually replies
the AIDS crisis. The fi lm reveals he
quietly donated to many charities,
and there is a particularly amazing
story where he helped an artist
friend by making a generous purchase.
There are many other insights
about Cunningham’s work and
fashion packed into the fi lm’s nimble
75-minute running time. However,
the best moments in “The
Times of Bill Cunningham” are the
series of images of his photographs
that celebrate the beauty he captured
with his camera. These
sequences, which include some
fantastic images from New York’s
LGBTQ Pride Parades, which the
photographer never missed (and
waxes eloquently about), display
Cunningham’s unerring eye.
In this age of Instagram, Bozek’s
fi lm honors an original, whose
work remains as infl uential as it is
inspiring.
THE TIMES OF BILL CUNNINGHAM
| Directed by Mark Bozek |
Greenwich Entertainment | Opens
Feb. 14 Angelika Film Center, 18 W.
Houston St. at Mercer St.; angelikafi
lmcenter.com/nyc
February 13 - February 26, 2 30 020 | GayCityNews.com
/nyc
/GayCityNews.com
