The September Issue (2009)

just watch it!

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I loved this documentary: clearly, Anna Wintour wears Prada. In the flesh. Whether or not you have any interest in fashion, this is a relevant piece that delves into the inner-workings of a POWERHOUSE of institutions...& how she runs a fashion magazine. This work is undoubtedly a labor of love, an obsession, a life, a religion, an undeniable passion that demands a sacrifice of self. Anna Wintour IS Vogue. She takes care of business like she was born to do it -- & unlike anyone else. It is awe-inspiring how much ONE PERSON can influence/change the world. Witnessing that, alone, makes this film worth the time to watch.While the movie unfolded, it was difficult to refrain from comparing Anna Wintour to the character of Miranda Priestly, for obvious reasons. Anna Wintour's Vogue turned out to be much more interesting to me than any bit of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. There was nothing condescending about Anna Wintour's countenance, comparatively. She is stoic, unwavering, steady, certain, respectful, honest, demanding, strict, serious -- yes. But not demeaning. HOW TO SAY "NO" WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY has nothing on Anna Wintour! Long live the Queen.

The September Issue is a superficial look into the making of the September 2007 issue of Vogue. Many of the shots consist of various photographers, art directors and members of the editorial staff behaving in a groveling and subservient way around editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. The one exception is stylist Grace Coddington, a confident and gifted woman who does superb creative work and isn't afraid to stand up for herself. Her work really is the backbone of the magazine. Once she leaves, Vogue is on a fast ride downhill. Wintour's insights, as she looks at and discusses potential fashion spreads, seem fairly prosaic. She must have gotten the job by game-playing and the usual machinations of the business world. Outside of standing back somewhat and letting Coddington do her work, I don't see what she contributes to the magazine except for making her staff feel compulsively insecure. I enjoyed the few scenes that show her with her twenty-something daughter, who wants to be a lawyer. She clearly has the ability to "get" to Wintour that no one else in the film does. Good for her. Wintour talks about her father and siblings, but neglects to mention her American mother, an interesting omission. Wintour is a lonely character, in a way. There's a revealing scene of her in the back of a town car clutching a Starbucks coffee and staring straight ahead. She's off in her own world most of the time. As is to be expected, no one on the Vogue staff actually wears the outlandish clothing featured in the magazine. Wintour wears flattering silk dresses, Coddington dresses in various frumpy black outfits and the staff and photographers wear practical work clothes. The exception is Leon Talley, the only member of the staff who truly buys into the fashion myth. Since Wintour reveals so little of herself and the filmmaker is as deferential to her as the rest of her intimidated staff, ultimately "The September Issue" is an elegantly made film with no emotional heart.

The world of fashion is glamorous, absurd, and nowhere more so than at Vogue magazine, where legendary editor Anna Wintour rules with a famously frosty demeanour. 'The September Issue' follows the creation of Vogue's largest ever issue - which sounds as if it should be interesting, but which actually feels like a lost opportunity. There's no analysis of the finances or logic of fashion; no discussion of Vogue's rivals; or any attempt to debunk the myth of Wintour as ice-queen. Maybe this is because the myth is reality; but there's also a strong sense that director R. J. Cutler hasn't tried very hard, that he had his story before he started and was quite happy to shoot it deferentially. Wintour herself provides few real clues in some unrevealing interviews, and while she is plainly tough, she glides through an affluent world apparently insulated from anyone in whose interests it might be to answer her back, so it's a limited sort of toughness. Certainly Cutler doesn't challenge her; and his film, though watchable, ultimately has very little to say.

How can one woman hold so much power in a multi-billion dollar industry? The September Issue shows all the mind-blowing meticulous and uncompromising work that went behind the biggest issue of American Vogue, the September 2007 840-page phone book-thick fall fashion bible. If you thought Meryl Streep in Devil Wears Prada was, well, a devil, then the real-life pope of international fashion whose word on all things sartorial is doctrine and canon will leave you speechless as she makes the most famous and esteemed designers nervous like little girls who doubt that they know even a single thing about clothes, puts into trash $ 50,000 worth of fashion editorial work, and dictates to major retailers what the rest of us are going to wear.However, the more profound aspects of this documentary are the less notorious driving or hindering forces of multi-million-copy-selling Vogue. Anna Wintour, aka "nuclear Wintour," has chinks in her armor. After all, every deity is a human first, and Anna is a mother to a daughter who thinks that the fashion industry is "amusing," a sentiment shared by Anna's three other siblings. To the commander-in-chief of couture and prêt-a-porter, this seems to send an unwelcoming weakness. Juxtaposed with Anna is creative director Grace Coddington, the apparent warmness to Anna's iciness. Pushing each other has been the norm for their 20 years of working close together. The dynamic between the two is exciting, frustrating, and a necessary endeavor to produce the pages of fashion's most revered reference. Fashion people will eat up this film. However, normal people/fashion outsiders will not regret seeing this insightful piece about how it is to be supremely powerful, what it takes to be at the pinnacle, and the costs of this might and glory.