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A documentary about putting together an edition of Vogue magazine might not sound too exciting, but director RJ Cutler delivers a gripping tale with The September Issue.
Even for those of us who don't hang on every stylish word of Vogue magazine it sits in the hinterland of our everyday lives, the influence of its legendary editor Anna Wintour - supposedly the model for Meryl Streep character in The Devil Wears Prada - translating fashions from the catwalk to the high street and thus to the world around us.
Certainly RJ Cutler, a director whose documentary about the 1992 presidential campaign The War Room earned him an Oscar nomination, was not an avid Vogue reader. But he was captivated by the character drama at the heart of its major publication in of the fashion year, The September Issue.
"This is a bit of an unusual film for me," he explains, "in that I really didn't know the world at all but I was excited by it. I was excited about the fact that I could enter with a kind of innocence and see this world as clearly as possible.
"And I was struck by Anna, the more I read about her and the more of a sense I got about her culture. I first met her in 2005, a year before The Devil Wears Prada came out, when she was still 18 years into her reign. When I met her I knew that this was somebody I wanted to make a film about.
"There's so many things, but the thing that struck me most was that Morse Code of communication that she and everybody around her had. It was all glances and gestures. A little piece of paper would slide across the table and somebody would look over at somebody else, you'd see it and think 'this is how they make Vogue magazine?'. It was so interesting to me."
The legendary Wintour demeanour would seem to be a daunting obstacle - it's not for nothing that one of her nicknames is Nuclear Wintour - but she also describes decisiveness as a key personal trait, and that was helpful to Cutler getting the film made.
"She agreed to make this film in our very first meeting," he smiles, "in fact it was our very first conversation. I said that all I wanted was to see what she did, how she did it and who she did it with. She said that if that's what I was interested in I should really make a film about the September issue.
"I asked how long it took to make, and she said 'we start in January and we finish in August,' I thought that was awesome, eight months of access as a documentary filmmaker is music to my ears. Then I said if I did it I would have to have final cut, because that's the way I work. I mean, who would take a film about her seriously if the director doesn't have final cut?
"She said 'I totally understand, my father was a journalist, I'm a journalist, that's not going to be an issue'. So I was struck by the fact that in a 10 or 15 minute meeting we had covered the subject matter, the approach and the potentially thorny issue of final cut."
Therein lies the surprise of the film, the revelation of Wintour's more vulnerable side, her references to family and loving relationship with her daughter.
"I was struck by the fact that Anna Wintour, this famously Sphinx like figure, had talked to me in our very first meeting about her father. I wondered why Anna Wintour was talking to me about her dad, but I realised that in a way she was giving me the first clue. We had already started the process of making the film.
"You look for a need in the subject to tell their story. People always say 'why did Anna want to do it?', you can't really know why a subject wants to make a film, but what you can sense is their need to tell their story. There it was, I left that meeting very excited to make the film."
Another surprise that emerges from the film is the discovery for non-fashionistas of Grace Coddington, the Welsh born creative director of American Vogue and to some the power behind the Wintour throne. This rounds out a rich character drama, after a fashion.
"Grace was a great surprise and delight to me," Cutler adds, "Grace is an extraordinary creative force behind US Vogue, there's no question. But I think one of Anna's great strengths and gifts as an editor is that she knows her own mind and she surrounds herself with these extraordinary people.
"She has kept Grace Coddington by her side, on her team, working at her peak for 20 years. I think that's to their mutual credit. I think they bring out the best in each other. My intention in the film is to tell the story of two women, two extraordinary women, who've worked together for 20 years, they're of a certain age, they've risen to these heights yet they still come to the office every day, roll up their sleeves and draw out this beauty.
"They seem to be complete polar opposites, and yet what you learn is that this is a completely symbiotic relationship. They need each other and they help each other rise to greater and greater heights. That was my intention. So as much as I want Grace to be fully recognised for how awesome she is I think, and she thinks - she says - she likely couldn't be doing it quite as well without Anna."
ANWAR BRETT
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