Mark Bozek had a no-brainer opportunity when he landed an interview with Bill Cunningham, the New York Times street photographer and self-described “fashion historian.”
Cunningham was renowned for his eye and his minimalist personal style — a signature blue French worker’s jacket — and his bicycle, replaced dozens of times over the years, that enabled him to shoot on the go. This talking-head footage is a promising start that ultimately leads to a less than illuminating documentary.
Bozek built this movie around that interview, from 1994. It finds its subject animated, punctuating his sentences with a toothy grin as he talks about his Roman Catholic upbringing, his early days at the fashion house Chez Ninon and his humble apartment in the old Carnegie Hall Studios. The film is peppered with rare archival photos — including many of Cunningham’s own — and narrated by the New York fashion icon Sarah Jessica Parker (a too on-the-money choice), whose voice-over delivery here lacks her playful “Sex and the City” wink.
Bozek’s first feature, which he started working on right after Cunningham’s death in 2016, comes nearly a decade after Richard Press’s superior vérité-style profile, “Bill Cunningham New York.”
While “The Times of Bill Cunningham” touches on many of the same topics, it makes one startling departure with this speculation: “While the attention that was brought to him via a growing number of accolades and a popular documentary in 2011 may have brought him some degree of lifetime achievement, it is more likely he regretted it,” Parker says in the film. In an attempt to distinguish his documentary from the other, Bozek delivers what feels like an unnecessary low blow.
The Times of Bill Cunningham
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 14 minutes.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
