September 11, 2009

Harvard alumnus R.J. Cutler's new movie explores Anna Wintour's Vogue

A new documentary by R. J. Cutler '83 takes viewers behind the glamour of a fashion powerhouse.

The new documentary film The September Issue, directed by R. J. Cutler '83, takes viewers into the hallways, offices, and meetings behind Vogue magazine. Cutler, who produced the documentary The War Room on Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign (it was nominated for a 1994 Academy Award), shot 300 hours of footage to record his portrait of Vogue and its famously icy editor, Anna Wintour, the model for Meryl Streep's imperious character in The Devil Wears Prada. The nexus of The September Issue is the relationship between Wintour and Vogue's creative director, Grace Coddington, the Welsh fashion model of the 1960s who has spent more than 40 years working for the British and American Vogues. Coddington, far the more engaging character, becomes the real protagonist of a finely crafted documentary on a subject that everyone talks about, but next to no one understands.

The Boston Globe reviewed the film on September 11.

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