home
web journal
journal archive
www.rogovoy.com | seth@rogovoy.com

| Concert Calendar | Cultural Calendar | About This Blog | About Seth Rogovoy |
| Live Appearances and Lectures | The Rogovoy Report Archive | South Berkshire Minyan | Disclaimer |


   rogovoy.com    Web   
5.29.11
This is an Archival Site
There is now a new Rogovoy Report home



5.18.11
Weekend Preview May 19-24
Bob Dylan tributes, Deborah Voigt, Tom Paxton, Bill Kirchen, John Kirk and Trish Miller



5.18.11
Celebrating Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday in Style
Paying tribute to the greatest rock songwriter ever



5.17.11
FILM REVIEW: In a Better World and Of Gods and Men
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.17.11
'LIKE' The Rogovoy Report on Facebook
Click 'LIKE' to Receive Facebook feeds from The Rogovoy Report



5.12.11
Deborah Voigt Headlines Mahaiwe Gala
Opera star to sing arias, show tunes on Saturday, May 21



5.15.11
Famed Spiritual Teacher to Speak on Nonviolence
Mother Maya in free talk at Sruti Yoga in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday May 20 at 7pm



5.12.11
Special Effects Wizard to Be Honored by Film Festival
Doug Trumbull to be Feted by BIFF



5.11.11
Weekend Preview May 12-16
Cultural Highlights of the Berkshire Weekend



6.4.09
Talk about a small world
Elaine and I grew up together, but only just recently met....



5.8.11
Berkshire Living to Cease Publication
A Farewell from Publisher Michael Zivyak



5.8.11
twiGs Branches Out
Lenox boutique launches new e-tail site



5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.8.11
[MUSIC REVIEW] Avalon Quartet in Close Encounters at Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy



5.7.11
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York
Review by Seth Rogovoy





every article is indexed here
journal archive
[FILM REVIEW] Bill Cunningham New York

5.7.11



Bill Cunningham New York
Directed by Richard Press
Starring Bill Cunningham
Featuring Anna Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Annette de la Renta, Iris Apfel, Brooke Astor, Arthur Sulzberger

Running through Thursday, May 12, at the Triplex in Great Barrington, Mass.

Review by Seth Rogovoy

How often do you see a movie that makes you want to have a do-over of your life? That’s what happened to me as I was watching Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about the unique title character who has been a fashion, society, and street photographer at the New York Times and at other publications for over half a century.

I’ve been a lifelong reader of the Times. One of the best things my parents did as parents – although they probably didn’t see this as a parenting thing (hell, there was no such thing as “parenting” when I was raised) – was to get daily home delivery of the New York Times and the local paper (that local paper wasn’t shoddy, either – it was Newsday, and for most of my life growing up on Long island it was an afternoon newspaper, something that has gone the way of the dinosaurs, which is really sad).

Getting these papers delivered to our house every day, and sitting at the breakfast table with my father every morning and sharing the Times with him – typically he’d hog the business section (in which I had no interest at the time) and I’d beggar the sports section to see what my woeful Mets were up to – instilled a lifelong habit that continues to this very day of reading hard copies of newspapers (three a day, still) delivered to my doorstep. It also was in small part responsible for my becoming a writer and a journalist in particular, along with early subscriptions to Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, and being very conscious of carrying on the legacy of my ancestor, the great Yiddish writer and journalist I.L. Peretz.

But what does all this have to do with Bill Cunningham New York and redoing my life all over again?

Well, simply put, for the forty-plus years I’ve been loyally reading the Times – or so I thought – I’ve paid virtually no attention to anything Bill Cunningham contributed to the paper. After all, his three main areas of coverage – fashion, street style, and high society (which more generously could be called “philanthropy,” for which Cunningham makes the case in the film – were of virtually no interest to me up until last night, when I saw the film.

But as it turns out, apparently I have been overlooking one of the most unique, talented, singular, quirky and eccentric voices not only of the Times, but really of anyone chronicling my beloved New York during my entire lifetime. Cunningham is one of those odd figures who seemingly no one knows – no one in the general public, that is – but who as it turns out has been a seminal cultural chronicler and influencer throughout the vast changes and upheavals that have wracked Gotham for the past 50-odd years.

Bill Cunningham New York follows the reporter/photographer, who really is as much or more a reporter who uses pictures (he admits that he’s not really a great photographer per se), in the course of a year or so of his work, shooting charity galas, fashion runways, and, most interestingly, street style – just capturing the vibrancy of ordinary people in New York who make people-watching so much fun.

The film takes us behind the scenes so we see how Cunningham works and lives. And not surprisingly, the two are one and the same. Cunningham’s life is his work. He was one of the few artists who up until recently lived in a studio above Carnegie Hall, but his “studio” was merely a room populated by filing cabinets with a cot wedged in so he could catch a few z’s, although Cunningham seemingly never sleeps.

(At the time of the filming, Cunningham, and the few remaining artists still living at Carnegie Hall, were being amicably evicted, and we see him visiting new digs that Carnegie apparently had found for him. Like everything else in his life that had nothing to do with his work, Cunningham seemingly didn’t really care where he lived.)

Cunningham is portrayed as something of an oddball, riding around the city on an old Schwinn bicycle, Nikon film camera strapped around his shoulders (he apparently has no interest in the techniques of photography nor does he develop his own film), although not without being an accomplice to that portrayal. He’s a bit of a friendly curmudgeon with his colleagues at the Times – a distinction he undoubtedly earned given the years he put in, and we even see him being honored by the French with an Order of Arts and Letters Award (putting him in the company of the likes of Bob Dylan, T.S. Eliot, Clint Eastwood, Patti Smith, Michael Caine, Vaclav Havel and Roger Moore). He's apparently sexless, friendless, and has lived alone his entire adult life, only really interacting with people and the world through his camera lens and his contributions to the Times and other publications.

A host of famous people are interviewed paying tribute to the cultural significance of Cunningham’s work, which almost seems to have been accidental – an editor once called him and said, “Bill, there’s a bunch of hippies in Central Park, quick, get your camera and go take pictures of them.” And hence, a career was born.

So, getting back to my original point, I have spent my lifetime apparently ignoring one of the most fascinating elements in the New York Times. It’s too late now to go back and review them from this vantage point – that would be like reading old news. Cunningham’s work is the kind you want to read and see in real time. And chances are that it’s too late, really, to get on that train. So my only hope is to relive my lifetime of reading the New York Times and this time around paying attention to Cunningham’s work.

And that is what the terrific documentary film, Bill Cunningham New York, has left me wanting to do.



Seth Rogovoy is an award-winning cultural critic, editor of The Rogovoy Report, and the official film reviewer for the Triplex in Great Barrington, Mass.




5/9/2011
You may have overlooked Cunningham, but every editor I ever worked for (except, of course, at the Times) ordered me to find him/her another Bill Cunningham. By comparison, Ahab's quest was a lark.

From IP address: 69.195.53.154





...sites that work