Advertisement
R.J. Cutler & Anna Wintour Put Out The September Issue
You don’t have to wear Prada to recognize Anna Wintour—Vogue‘s legendary editor-in-chief, who is always centerstage (sunglasses firmly in place) in the front row at the world’s top fashion shows. But how many people actually know Wintour? That’s the question R.J. Cutler asks—and answers—in his new documentary, The September Issue.
Just before the film’s DVD release, the Emmy-winning documentarian took some time to speak with MM about his moviemaking philosophy and what it takes to gain the trust of your subjects.
Jennifer Wood (MM): Research can be a moviemaker’s best friend or worst enemy. While you want to get a general sense of who the person you’ll spend the next several months of your life with is, you also don’t want to be influenced by what others have said/written about her before. How much research did you do on Anna Wintour before you started shooting?
R.J. Cutler (RC): Actually, blissfully little. The advantage I had going into this film— as counterintuitive as this may sound—is that I knew next to nothing about the fashion industry and very little about Anna and the folks who worked at Vogue. I had a general sense of who they were and what they do, but that was more than enough for me. I did not want to enter with preconceived notions or expectations, because I wanted everything I saw and experienced to be new and fresh and I wanted to draw my own conclusions and have the benefit of my own observations and experiences. So, in this case, I really did close to no research and I have to be honest, I really believe it was to the benefit of the whole filmmaking experience.
MM: I know that it was Anna herself who suggested focusing the film on the September issue of Vogue. If your initial meeting with her had been an arm wrestling competition, who would have won?
RC: With all respect to the hypothetical posed by the question, it wasn’t an arm wrestling contest and we weren’t adversaries with conflicting objectives; it was a meeting of two people who thought they might want to work together on a project. I can only tell you my experience, Anna would have to tell you hers, but as I got to know her during that initial meeting I thought this is somebody I would like to make a film about, this is somebody who I’d like to spend the better part of a year filming and getting to know and answering very simple questions. Who is she? What does she do? How does she do what she does? Who does she do it with? I was compelled and there were a lot of things that compelled me about her. Of course her track record and reputation, but also her presence in the room and the fact that when I told her ‘I’m going to need to have final cut if we do this,’ the way she responded, her understanding of that. She said, “That’s not going to be an issue. My father was a journalist, I’m a journalist and it’s not going to be a problem.” I was certainly grateful to her for supporting me and supporting the fact that if we were going to make this film, I was going to have final cut. But i was also stuck by the fact that she was talking about her father. This reputedly impenetrable, sphinx-like figure was talking to me about her father. I saw in that a window in—a thread that I could pull on that might lead me somewhere. And as you know from seeing the film, it did lead me somewhere.
MM: I find it amazing that Anna agreed when you told her you’d have final cut—but I imagine it’s also difficult to balance the job of getting a subject to feel comfortable enough to open up to you and being the guy who could reveal their deepest, darkest secrets to the world. Do you have any sort of “unwritten rules” about what you will or will not shoot or include in a film?
RC: Well you’re putting your finger right on the key issue; your question is at the central issue of the process of making a film like The September Issue. That is that there must be trust between the subject and the filmmaker. The subject must trust the filmmaker, must trust the director, must trust the cameraman, must trust the sound guy. It’s an absolute requirement. Not only the main subject, Anna Wintour, but everybody that we were filming with must trust us. That was our experience. Even once you’re invited in, really the invitation—the access—is an invitation to earn trust, it’s an opportunity to earn trust. So I had to earn Anna’s trust, I had to earn Grace’s trust, I had to earn André’s trust, even Elissa Santisi, Sally Singer, Tom Florio… people that aren’t in the film that much, but that are part of the day-to-day bloodstream of what happens at Vogue. People had to trust us and our entire approach is based on that.
It becomes absolutely critical that we are who we say we are, that we act consistently with our commitment to them and our commitment is based on the foundation that the story doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to them. It’s my movie, but it’s not my story. It’s Anna’s story and it’s Grace’s story and I have to respect that, so everything we do kind of follows from that. We’re not there to get in the way of the fact that they have a magazine to produce, we’re not there to sort of sneak around the corner and steal shots or film when we say we’re not filming, we have to act in a trustworthy manner and be who we say we are. We find that if we’re consistently who we say we are and who we are is a filmmaking team that wants to see who these people are, what they do, how they do what they do and who they do it with, then we find if we keep to our word, then we will earn the trust of our subjects and they will share with us everything in their lives. It will no longer be about us saying ‘Can I see this?’ It will be about them saying to us, “Please, I want you to see this, I want you to know this about me” and that’s what happened over the process of making this film.
MM: It’s clear that one of Anna’s greatest talents is her ability to intimidate all those around her. As much as the film is about Anna, audiences really “discover” her through the people around her—her daughter, Vogue‘s publisher, her staff (most notably Grace). Did it take a while for people to open up to you in this way?
1 of 2 |
SHARE THIS STORY |
TAGS |
Digg
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Del.icio.us
Reddit
YahooAdvertisement
COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
posted 05.25.12
posted 05.22.12
posted 05.15.12
SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS
