‘Bill Cunningham New York’ looks at the man behind the camera

Bill Cunningham has documented the style trends on the streets of New York City for decades. His iconic photographs of beautiful ladies and handsome men elegantly traipsing around the Big Apple are legendary additions to The New York Times.

Who knew that the man behind the camera is just as interesting as the subjects he captures in color.

Cunningham is wonderfully unconventional. Until recently, he lived in one of the last studio apartments in Carnegie Hall. Although saying that the photographer “lives” anywhere is misguiding. The octogenarian lives and breathes his work for the newspaper — there’s not much time for anything else.

Based on Richard Press’ impressive documentary, this man gets up in the morning and heads to the sidewalks. He stays up until the early hours of the morning shooting philanthropic soirees. Throughout his marathon days, he continues to click, click, click.

His apartment is filled with filing cabinets with negatives from his many years of work. There’s so much history packed into the room that Cunningham would make a great candidate for A&E’s Hoarders. He has no kitchen and sleeps on top of his files (I may have spotted a mattress).

Even though this man has studied fashion and style first-hand, he’s far from fashionable himself, at least not in a flashy way like his subjects. He wears a simple blue jacket that he buys in Paris for the equivalent of $20. He tapes his ponchos when they rip.

Cunningham bikes around New York City and has never had a romantic relationship in his life. He’s a devout Catholic who attends church on Sunday and is known on a first-name basis with many fashion icons and magazine editors.

Press, who directs Bill Cunningham New York in a noninvasive manner, knows that his subject is fascinating. Just seeing him run around the sidewalks, ducking out of the way of careening taxis, is interesting to behold. He’s a man so devoted to his profession that he has sacrificed everything else in life to tell the stories of the clothes on the street.

There’s no annoying voiceover to set up the footage; so much of the plot feels organically progressive. We simply watch as days unfold, inspecting how this photographer works endlessly to fine-tune his craft. Cunningham is a stickler for details when it comes to laying out his Sunday photo essay in the Times; he’s also a frequent presence on runways during Fashion Week in New York City and Paris. But he doesn’t fit the usual bill of a paparazzi or even fashion photographer.

Case in point: He sits to the side at fashion shows, choosing to photograph the models from all angles. At a party where Catherine Deneuve showed up, Cunningham didn’t photograph her because the famous French actress wasn’t wearing anything worth shooting.

What makes the documentary so fascinating is not just because this man is so fascinating. Instead, the brilliance of the film is that it smartly allows its subject to live and breathe before our eyes. It never tries to hijack the story or set Cunningham on a cultural pedestal. Yes, there are some talking heads, but they truly add to the portrait, rather than detract. When you get Vogue editor Anna Wintour to gush about a person, it must be special.

Cunningham is a true American icon, and this new documentary from Zeitgeist Films does him justice. Here’s a man who tracks trends in real time, like a ever-watchful microscope.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Bill Cunningham New York

• 2011

• Directed by Richard Press

• Featuring Bill Cunningham

• Running time: 84 minutes

• Rating: