I was watching
Bill Cunningham New York today at my dads while my stomach cramps subsided. Bill is definitely a fascinating fixture of New York, a man who has faithfully and obsessively documented fashion on the streets of New York since the 60s and will do until he dies. You get to know a lot of things about Bill as the cameras follow him all over New York and even in Paris, all places any New Yorker would recognize. There is even footage of interviews with him as a younger man. But he never reveals anything personal about himself. And when Richard Press tries to question those in his circle, they don't know anything either. They have guesses but nothing concrete. A couple of things become obvious to me though as I watch. The one easiest thing to gather is that his family was probably pretty well to do. He turns down money for his photography left and right because he says he doesn't want to "be owned." Very commendable. He lives out of an office in the Carnegie Hall building which has been trying to get rid of the old artistic tenants for years now. He hangs his clothes from the handles of his file cabinet drawers. The other thing that becomes obvious is that he is gay.
But the one thing we don't know, and may never know is has he ever had a romantic relationship of any kind. Engrossed and engaged as I was in learning more about Bill I became a bit obsessed with wanting to know if this man ever found someone to love, had ever loved or been touched by love. Apparently so did Richard Press because he very politely and respectfully asks him somewhere near the end of the documentary. Richard says that Bill doesn't have to answer the question. Bill discloses with some laughter that he is gay without really saying it. Bill is 80 years old at the time this was made and he laughs a lot. He is very quick to laugh. He says he knows that his family would have been ashamed if he had admitted his homosexuality.
When asked if he has ever been in a relationship he quickly replies that he never has, has never had the time, has alway been working since he was a boy. Okay, but never? And then Richard brings up something we learned earlier in the doc which is that Bill who doesn't really care about food, doesn't go to the movies and has never owned a television, goes to the Church every Sunday, "for the music" he says. Bill puts his head down and I lean in closer to my dads wide flat screen television waiting. But nothing comes. Bill sits and shakes a bit. But still says nothing. And I feel very sad suddenly, so sad. Richard says, "We don't have to talk about this." Seconds go by that feel like like minutes. I start to think about what Bill may have seen and felt in his life that he never allowed himself to realize or act on and then he looks up again, breaks into his smile and laughs and starts talking about how when he went to church as a boy all he noticed were the woman's hats.
If he had said the things that went through his mind during those long pregnant seconds, his pain could not have been more obvious, more sharp or poignant. It could be PMS but I don't think so.
