Photo: Film Forum
ELLE: You said it took you eight years to convince Bill to do the documentary. Was there anything that finally won him over?
RP: I guess the short version is that we wore him down over time. [The] longer version is at one point I said to him “Bill if I’m on the street and I have a camera I might film you.” I went out on the street and was filming him shooting and he completely ignored me. But when he got back on his bicycle, he waved me over and said “Come back to The New York Times and you can film me working.” I said “Oh my God!” I went back to the New York Times and shot him for the day. At the end of the day he said “Ok, that’s it! That’s your movie—you have everything you need. You’re done.” Then three years ago, he was being given an award at the Waldorf Astoria—a Living Legend Award. He didn’t want to make a speech. I said I would cut together a short film as an homage to him and show it. Bill really liked it and the New York Times was there and they liked it. That’s when the New York Times and I started talking about partnering to do a movie together. Arthur Sulzburger Jr. called Bill and said Richard and Phillip really want to make this movie. It was all those factors coming together. It was the perfect storm.
ELLE: He’s such a private person, but you were able to film his apartment and his day-to-day life. Was he forthcoming about that or did you have to needle him a little bit?
RP: I think the movie charts the revealing of Bill at the same time he was revealing himself to us, the filmmakers. I really think it was a gradual process. There was one night where we were supposed to follow and we met him outside his apartment in Carnegie Hall and he said “The parties aren’t so interesting tonight. You should meet my neighbor, Editta Sherman.” We thought he was blowing us off. But meanwhile he introduced us to this amazing person and this whole world of Carnegie Hall that we didn’t know existed. And we learned the whole story that they were being evicted. Eventually Bill let us into his apartment and we had an interview in his apartment. We were filming for a year and it was a gradual thing. When he let us into his apartment, it was amazing to us.
ELLE: You were filming Bill while he was doing his work—were you ever surprised by what he managed to capture in his photographs?
RP: There were times when we were shooting him on the street and we were just documenting it. We weren’t really aware of what he was shooting in a sense, but then we would see it on the page and it was amazing how specific [it was.] He was looking at things we weren’t aware of that. It was a revelation to us that “Oh my God! We didn’t know he was that focused on those things on the street when we were filming him.” His eye is incredible—and his mind.
ELLE: There are interviews of him in the film from the eighties where he has this enthusiasm that joy for fashion that doesn’t seem to have wavered—
RP: That archival footage of him is so interesting. It’s thirty years ago and he’s dressed the same, he looks the same basically, and he’s doing the exact same thing with the same joy and passion. It was really inspirational.
ELLE: During the course of the film he got the French Legion of Honor and prior to that he got the Living Legend award at the Waldorf—did that change his perception of his work at all?
RP: I don’t think it affected him at all. I think he accepted the award in France because he really loves Paris. He loves the people of Paris and I think it was just something he couldn’t say “No” to. I think it has no effect on his work and how he views what he does. He sees himself as a worker who is out on the street everyday doing what he does. Whether he got that award in France or not, it makes not difference in what he does or how he does it.
ELLE: I love that he was also photographing people at his own ceremony. He wouldn’t stop working.
RP: Oh I know, isn’t that hilarious? It was so great to see that—it was so fun.
ELLE: I read Bill hadn’t seen the film. But since you had the premiere last night, did he see it there?
RP: No! [Laughs] It’s really funny. I think he really will never see it—as far as I know he has no intention of seeing it. He knows what’s in it and he’s given us his blessing. He’s “Oh you kids made a movie, have fun. But I’m too busy.” He has this online slideshow every Sunday and has never listened to that. I think he’s really not interested in any self-aggrandizement. I think he’s really and truly humble and modest. I think for him, he just wants to do his work. He’s not interested in any attention being paid to him.
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