How do you stay at Carnegie Hall?

Bill Cunningham New York

Crit

There is one sad moment in this extravagantly joyful film about an extravagantly joyous man: when intersecting questions of sexuality and Catholicism bring Cunningham up short for a moment, and make us contemplate the sorry denial that has been the price of his lifelong love affair with fashion and his camera. But come on: who wouldn't sacrifice almost anything to get to love what you do every day, every week, to age 80 and beyond? It's a lot to give up, but it's a lot to have, too.

OK, wait, I lied: there's one other moment that might qualify as sad: when a hardworking real estate agent shows Bill (being forced out of his nothing-special upstairs rooms by the bastards at Carnegie Hall) a Central Park South apartment, on the 10th floor or so, with northern views from multiple rooms. Imagine being a Manhattan real estate agent showing an apartment to someone completely unimpressed by a view like that--and by a large-by-Manhattan-standards kitchen and a dining area ("Who wants a kitchen and a bathroom?" he asks earlier, at least 90% seriously).

One of those films on a subject in which I have no interest but which I couldn't have enjoyed more if it were about a jazz-playing, fiction-writing baseball star.