The Times of Bill Cunningham

The Times of Bill Cunningham is slight, but that's an element of design, not a flaw.

This well-researched dive into mid-century social history treats viewers to a cornucopia of delicious photographs to accompany Cunningham's narration, plunging us into a world that feels both immediate and heartbreakingly gone forever.

This movie never begins to dare to know him better.

It's fair to assume one reason is that even in so modest a super fan of the sartorial as Cunningham, his recognizing that life, like fashion, is both monumental and fleeting was enough to get a passionate witness talking, sometimes through tears.

Far-reaching but concise.

A less than illuminating documentary.

Its real juice lies in stories about how Bill's staunchly Catholic upbringing may have impacted his later decisions, which are eye-opening and heartbreaking in equal measure.

Because the basis of the documentary is a video interview that [Bill Cunningham] did in 1994, the interview looks extremely dated. However, the documentary does have a treasure trove of archival footage, which is one of the main reasons to see this movie.

Reader, we enjoyed screening this film, but we felt somehow complicit in its elbowing the earlier documentary aside, without really getting the reason why.

A style that some of us love as much as we love the city itself.