The September Issue

 

My response to this documentary was rather different than to Bill Cunningham’s. I thought that Anna Wintour, editor in chief of fashion magazine Vogue, was a great subject choice given her famously cold demeanor but I also thought that it lacked a certain connection. I was drawn to the documentary mainly through my own curiosity as to what she was actually like, wondering if the stories I’d heard were true and if Meryl Streep had depicted an accurate portrayal of her in the movie The Devil Wears Prada. However after the first half an hour of the documentary all my questions relating to her personality had been answered, and I found myself getting bored. What I think might have sustained interest more effectively was if the subject was more accessible and more humane so that viewers could relate to her and feel for her.

There is the recurring theme of fear, and Anna mentions at the start that a lot of people are scared of fashion, it has a way of making people nervous and so most people just drop it. I think this statement rings true for the audience experience with this documentary too. Anna’s character is hard and cold and uninviting, and once the viewer gets over the novelty of getting to know this about her, it quite quickly gets boring and her demeanour simply makes the viewer uneasy. The focus on Vogue’s production process, including following the team on shoots to Rome and Paris, helps spark interest at different points of the film but isn’t enough to sustain it. One of her co-workers at Vogue makes the comment that “she’s not accessible to people she doesn’t need to be accessible to”, and while this might work in the fashion industry I think it is the death of this documentary. Because the main subject isn’t accessible to the viewer, the documentary fails to incite any emotion or feeling, or make me care about the story. This contrasts greatly with Bill Cunningham New York, where I found myself falling in love with the little old man’s eccentricities and views on life. I found myself thinking after watching the documentary that I would absolutely love to just sit down with Mr Cunningham and have a conversation with him, listen to his stories and absorb the wisdom he always seems to impart through conversation. After watching The September Issue I have no desire whatsoever to ever meet Anna Wintour, or even be in the presence of her on-screen self again.