On Bill Cunningham, New York, and Being Good
Last month (bad blogger!) I popped over to the Film Forum in the midst of the three-week limited run opening of Bill Cunningham New York. I had been dying to see the documentary for months, and I snagged a ticket for the one o’clock, minutes before showtime. The theater was packed, but I squeezed into an empty center seat in my favorite row (row 8), between an elderly couple dressed in their Sunday best, silently staring straight ahead, and an older woman filling out the Sunday Times crossword. “This is so New York!” I thought to myself, smiling that one day I might be an older woman, going to movies alone in New York City. The four of us stayed like that until the lights went down—the couple staring straight ahead not speaking, the woman contemplating her crossword puzzle, me trying not to fidget in my seat—all crammed together but no one acknowledging anyone, never alone but always on your own.
And then my internal tug-of-war with this city snapped on.
Sometimes the detachment in New York gets to me. It’s something I hate (I’m big on community) and love (anonymity can be lovely, and, at heart, I am an introvert) about this city. And every once in a while, when I’m feeling extra frustrated, I get fed up with the people here, and it seems like the city’s 9 million inhabitants are all over-ambitious, do-anything-to-get-ahead, out for themselves. Sometimes I feel like New York has turned me into an overaggressive, overly defensive person who constantly has to be thinking of my next step, in fear that if I don’t evolve I’ll be trampled over and left behind.
All these New York emotions before the film about Bill Cunningham, a New York institution if ever there was one, flicked on. As the documentary unfolded, I learned, that just like most people, Bill Cunningham was nothing what I expected. Until he was recently evicted, he slept on a cot held up by crates. He didn’t have a private kitchen or bathroom in his unit. And at 82 years old, he thinks nothing of biking the length of Manhattan, sometimes multiple times a day. Although he interacts with some of the most powerful people in fashion (as one fashion PR person exclaimed wildly, “He’s the most important person in the world!”), his daily uniform consists of a $20 street sweeper’s smock, which he duct tapes together when it tears.
More than anything, Bill Cunningham is a man of integrity, a religious person, and someone who genuinely loves people, a trait I truly admire. He reminded me so much of my grandma, my personal role model, that I balled through nearly the entire movie. Towards the end, Cunningham speaks the most heart-hitting, never-been-truer words: “I just try to play a straight game and in New York that’s very…almost impossible. To be honest and straight in New York… that’s like Don Quixote fighting windmills.”
Immediately I was inspired, ready to continue on fighting the good fight in this crazy city I love and call home.
When I exited the theater onto Downing, a line of eclectic people stretched down the street. A sign proclaimed the next several showtimes were sold out. What funny fate that I missed the assumed line for my showing and squeaked right in. Little did I know when I entered the theater just how much I needed that dose of positivity, and proof that good people are always all around you—and that it’s possible to be a good person, too—even in a crazy city like New York.
Please go see this movie.
