The September Issue
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Movie Reviews of The September Issue
Movie Review: Viva La Vogue!
Summary: 4 Stars
Vogue's September Issue is the most important issue of the year. Anna Wintour may have inspired the Devil Wears Prada character Miranda Priestly (played deliciously by the phenomenal Meryl Streep in an Oscar nominated performance) but she's not the devil. In fact, she's quite a modern day example of what a woman should be aiming for not only successful in professional but personal as well. We know Anna is a divorced mother and we meet her daughter, Bee Shaffer, in the documentary. While Anna makes the final decision and her influence is powerful juggernaut in the industry, she maintains a shyness, a need for perfection, a coolness, and style to be envied and imitated by others.
Anna lives quite well between her New York City townhouse and her Long Island country home. The documentary talks about the making of the September Issue months in advance and the process. Anna's not alone in this endeavor of running fashion's top magazine. Anna's sunglassed face is usually spotted at the must see fashion shows.
Anna's team includes the wonderful Grace Coddington who has heart and soul that comes through in this documentary. As the fashion creative editor, Grace is passionate about her work even disagreeing with Anna at times. Despite their bickering, they mutually respect and understand each other in this all-consuming career. Both Anna and Grace came to Vogue in the 1960s and have stayed. Grace's story was more interesting to me about how she came from North Wales, her modeling days, and a tragic car accident. Even though she had plastic surgery from the accident, she returned to Vogue. Anna and Grace have Vogue in their blood.
Then there is Andre Leon Talley, a flamboyant editor at large, who has been with Anna and Grace for years at Vogue. Andre is often seen around New York City and even in reality shows like "Kell on Earth" and Tyra Banks' "America's Next Top Model." He works day and night but not at the office rather on the road in New York City from designer to designer.
Anna, Andre, and Grace are only three of the editors at Vogue to mention here in this documentary. Each of them are worthy of a documentary. They work as a team and are often seen at the fashion shows beside the runway.
When Anna recommends a fashion designer to a major fashion house, it's a huge honor and blessing. She becomes Mother Anna. Her influence isn't just to the magazine but to help aspiring fashion designers get opportunities otherwise not afford them.
The documentary fails to have a French subtitles on them but I'm not complaining that much. My only problem was that it was too short in my opinion. I think they could have done 2 hours easily. The extras were fine.
I hope that Grace Coddington's name is on the Queen's Honours List for her services to the Fashion Industry. She deserves the same recognition as Anna does. The two women make an excellent team with Andre. It's amazing to see strong, independent, intelligent women like Anna and Grace to be friends without animosity like in reality shows. They are friends, colleagues, and fashion icons. It's not just Anna's show. She couldn't do Vogue without Grace's genius and Andre's outgoing nature.
Movie Review: Glamour, Glitz, Grace and Passion
Summary: 4 Stars
Just saw this yesterday, and enjoyed it very much. There is something uplifting about the aspiration of beauty, even when it reaches unattainable heights of personal beauty (digitally enhanced) or sartorial splendor (that may or may not ever materialize in your local department store, let alone on the runway). "The September Issue" soars with beautiful fashion photography as well as an almost undetectable level of tension and interpersonal cruelty, or percieved cruelty, coming from the dion of fashion, Anna Wintour.
Partnered with (and sometimes opposing) her long-time co-worker Grace Coddington, Wintour pushes to produce the annual "bible" of the fashion industry, the September issue of Vogue magazine. That tome, alleged to be as thick as a phone book, drives her and the whole office to deeper and deeper levels of concentration and higher and higher levels of stress throughout, as we tag along and watch her making Svengali-like decisions that (very) frequently slap down her staff--almost in the style of Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." Devotees of that fictional comedy will be amused to see that the two women's offices are nearly identical, and may chuckle (or gasp) as Ms. Wintour abruptly dismisses a younger woman with an incongruous "thanks!" after clearly and firmly explaining that she's not getting what she wants from the somewhat devastated layout designer. Ms. Streep, in "Prada," famously ended her icy critiques with the airy, dismissive "that's all."
In another scene, just after arriving in Paris with Ms. Coddington, Ms. Wintour seems to cringe and flinch ever-so-slightly, as if waiting for a confrontation after removing a lavish chunk of remarkable photography from the September planning (a series of photos supplied by Ms. Coddington herself). But Ms. Coddington is too good a soldier to provoke a confrontation before the camera, which further attests to the power and respect her boss commands.
The movie becomes something of a "how-to" story of one woman's fierce leadership of a world-renown publication, though Ms. Wintour's decision-making is often opaque, maintaining an aura of mystery that further makes this a documentary worth talking about.
Movie Review: A non-fashionista review
Summary: 4 Stars
Not just that, but I'm a guy. I enjoyed Devil Wears Prada (OK, so shoot me) and was surprised to discover that this "real" look at Vogue is just less interesting. I know all about Anna's reputation, but you never get a feel for her in this documentary. Either she doesn't have much to say by nature, or isn't very self-analytical, or just isn't that interesting a person. We basically learn she has a daughter who wants to be a lawyer. When we see her in action at work, making decisions left and right involving people's careers and lives and fortunes in an arbitrary fashion, I just kept thinking well this is probably how just about every CEO in America operates. When you've got the power, you don't need to justify your decisions - you either like it or you don't, and everyone else is there to carry out your mandates. In fact Anna is so uninteresting after a while that the filmmakers ultimately end up making a film that's more about Grace Coddington, who we are supposed to admire for her backstory and her photo shoots. But in her own way she's just as stubborn and opinionated as Anna, doesn't make her right or wrong, it just shows how arbitrary the fashion business is. Again, probably like almost every other business.
Speaking now as a guy, I have to say I was surprised that the world of fashion mags isn't full of fantastic looking ingenues spending way too much of their income and time on appearances. I've been to ad agencies where the staff looked and dressed better than these folks, and they're in the business! And I never would have believed that a character like Andre Talley existed until I saw him - now THAT at least lived up to the hype of a Vogue lifestyle.
Movie Review: Recommend, provided that you are at least remotely interested in the fashion world and the way it works...
Summary: 4 Stars
"The September issue" (2009), directed by RJ Cutler, is a behind-the-scenes documentary about the production of the September 2007 Vogue issue. Of course, this documentary is also about Anna Wintour, the woman who has been Editor in Chief of American Vogue since 1988, and that is also rumored to have been the inspiration for the "boss from hell" in the film "The Devil wears Prada".
Cutler's crew was given ample access to Anna Wintour's meetings with her staff, and went with Anna to many activities that are part of her job, for example fashion shows and visits to fashion designers. The director was also granted final cut rights, and it is easy to see that in the result he achieved, this interesting and somewhat hard-edged documentary, where elegant clothing and caustic remarks are similarly pervasive.
"The September issue" provides the spectator with a glimpse into the hard and extremely competitive world of the fashion business, where only the fittest seem to survive and even photos of very beautiful women need to be digitally enhanced. This documentary also allows us to know a little more about Anna Wintour, probably one of the more influential women in that world, and someone who happens to be rather scary when she thinks that her staff's efforts are below the standards of excellence and innovation expected from them.
On the whole, I can say that I enjoyed watching "The September issue" and that I can recommend it to you, provided that you are at least remotely interested in the fashion world and the way it works.
Belen Alcat
Movie Review: A movie with style and Grace!
Summary: 4 Stars
Great and fun documentary! What a treat to see inside this magazine. I went to learn more about Anna Wintour and I came out of this movie feeling like I developed a nice understanding of her - as much as one can from a film. She has a tough job. She is in a brutal industry (two actually: Fashion and Publishing) and she clearly cares about fashion and Vogue. Frankly. I see men who act FAR tougher than she, and no one gives them frosty nicknames. So what if she does not smile all the time? Half that industry has so much Botox, there is not too much smiling going on anyway.
Grace is the one who you come out of the movie wanting to have dinner with. She is talented, brilliant, warm, tough, and her photo shoots are amazing! There were moments where she just radiates warmth and insight so effortlessly, even when she is just taking in a gorgeous view of Paris. You can see how such an interesting person can produce such great art. The cost of the movie ticket was worth it just to see some of her photos that did not make it into the magazine. I hope they make a movie of her life, with plenty of her in it!
The bottom line: Anna sees fashion as an industry. Grace sees fashion as an art. Both are correct. There are only brief scenes with people from the fashion industry, and only slight glimpses of fashion shows... but that is fine. This is a film about Vogue, not designers.
ANY artist in any field can appreciate this film. It is about passionate artists who are doing great things.