Reposted from The Hoot Blog:

Thwarting all attempts to do homework on a beautiful Saturday, blog director Rubii Pham, blog contributor Andrea Shang, and editor in chief Noel Duan headed downtown to watch the Bill Cunningham documentary, Richard Press’s debut feature film. Noel contributes her thoughts on the film about the greatest street style photographer ever to roam the streets of New York and Paris.

Once upon a time, I was standing in line at a fashion show in New York, when I saw a girl about my own age screeching on the phone, “There’s an old guy in front of me.” The “old guy” she was speaking about was Bill Cunningham — and as spoken by someone in the film, when Cunningham is trying to prove his identity to a clueless PR girl, “Please. He is the most important person in the world.” In the film, Cunningham is led promptly to the front row, where he takes his seat amongst pouty fashion editors. Unlike the rest of the front row, he smiles when he likes a look — almost jumping up and down with his camera. It is a voracious energy and hunger to capture the moment that transcends his formidable age of about 80.

As most fashion, street style, photography, and/or New York Times enthusiasts know, Bill Cunningham is a fashion photographer for The New York Times. And yet, I am sure I am not the only one who did not know that he lived in a small studio in Carnegie Hall, stuffed with file cabinets and about three articles of clothing. Or that he has never had a romantic relationship. Or that he spoke French. Or that he was a Harvard dropout who became a milliner.

Anyone can watch the film and appreciate it in their own way, but I’ll just share my favorite aspects of the film — the parts of the film that made me silent during the subway ride back to campus. Within these moments, I do believe there is something Columbia students can all learn, whether or not we see the same sort of beauty on the streets that Cunningham does.

• Cunningham used to shoot photos for the original Details magazine, before it was sold to Condé Nast. Yet, every time Details tried to pay him, he would ceremoniously rip up the check. When Condé Nast bought Details, he also ripped up the check from S.I. Newhouse. “If you don’t take their money, they can’t tell you what to do,” he says.
• He owns about three shirts, which he hangs on one of the handles of his file cabinets. Ironic for a man who shoots some of the most beautiful people and parties in the world. He wears a $2 parka in the rain, which he repairs with duct tape when it rips. In Paris, he picked up a bunch of $20 disposable windbreakers that the street cleaners wear because his camera equipment would ruin a beautiful jacket. When he accepted his chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture, he wore his $20 windbreaker, which the medal was pinned to. “He who seeks beauty shall find it,” he says at the podium, bursting into tears. “It is because he doesn’t think he deserves the honor that he deserves it even more,” someone says.
• Lit Hum enthusiasts take note: “I just try to play a straight game, and in New York that’s almost impossible. To be honest and straight in New York, that’s like Don Quixote fighting windmills,” he says at the end of the film.
• “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life,” a young Cunningham says. This is self-explanatory.

Frankly speaking, we cannot all live with the same sort of monastic devoutness as Cunningham — but we can seek beauty. And we can try to play a straight game. And we can treat each other with kindness. If there is one thing that distinguishes Cunningham, it is his graciousness and humbleness towards everyone — from the PR girl who does not recognize him to the late Mrs. Astor.

Bill Cunningham New York is in limited release in theaters around the United States, including Film Forum and City Cinemas Cinemas 123 in New York.

—-

On a side note, this movie actually made me really sad. Sad because I don’t think I could ever live with such unbridled passion and freedom. I mean, I’d like to try. There is a reason why I loved The Catcher in the Rye as a child — it was because Holden Caulfield didn’t take any BS. And neither does Bill Cunningham.

But if I can’t be as monastic as him, I can learn to be as kind. And to smile when I see a look I like walk down the runway.