The September Issue |  | Actor: Anna Wintour
Studio: Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $16.24
as of 7/29/2010 22:25 CDT details
You Save: $13.74 (46%)
New (34) Used (10) from $10.40
Seller: buyflix
Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 845
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.8
MPN: LGED26902D
UPC: 031398117537
EAN: 0031398117537
ASIN: B002QQ8HAG
Theatrical Release Date: 2009
Release Date: February 23, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A documentary chronicling vogue editor-in-chief anna wintours preparations for the 2007 fall-fashion issue. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/23/2010 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: Pg13
Amazon.com
Fashionistas finally get a glimpse of the mastermind behind the lion's share of the American fashion industry, Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue, in the dishy documentary The September Issue. The title refers to the fattest monthly edition of the fashion bible, and the sheer creative and financial efforts it takes to stage and publish it--not unlike a full feature film pressed inside glossy printed pages.Wintour, often thought to be the inspiration for the Meryl Streep character in The Devil Wears Prada, is revealed by director R.J. Cutler (producer of The War Room) to be both more open and human than her carefully cultivated persona, but still guarded and tough to read. There's less focus on any possible megalomania on the part of Wintour--perhaps that's implied--and more on just what an endeavor it is to produce that issue of Vogue, its impact on the fashion world, and what kind of critter could work on such a narrow playing field, yet have her impact realized on such a vast scale. The September Issue shows the battle of wills that goes on behind the scenes of every aspect of fashion publishing--and sometimes it's not pretty. The ruthless Wintour, at Vogue for two decades, has an equally strong-minded inner circle, including most notably Vogue's creative director, Grace Coddington, a former model (like Wintour herself) who clashes often, and colorfully, with her frenemy and longtime colleague Wintour. The political maneuvering can seem exhausting to the viewer, but the dishy reality is just too delicious. "Fashion is not about looking back," says Wintour. "It's about looking forward." And as with the best documentaries about fashion, including Unzipped and Lagerfeld Confidential, The September Issue leaves the viewer with a renewed appreciation for the beauty, creativity and energy behind fashion--even if one is watching, happily, in jeans and a T-shirt. --A.T. Hurley
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
 A lot of Info about fashion world July 24, 2010
J. vauk (Oregon Coast)
I did not realize a lot of the ins and outs of the fashion world before this movie. The movie reveals the dichotomy of the depths and shallowness of this business. Even if it is only about clothes, it is also about peoples lives.
 Doesn't dig deep enough July 16, 2010
Marysz (NJ United States)
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.
Commercial Art Needs an Editor July 4, 2010
marks trains (seattle, wa United States)
a lot of this movie pits grace ( the camera shoot stylist/ art director) vs anna, vogue magazine's influential editor and gatekeeper extraordinaire. GRACE is the artist...but an artist needs an editor, at least in the periodical genre. and i think they both 'get' each other's jobs; appreciate each other.
and in this brief slice of their lives, anna, the editor, all said and done, came around to seeing the beauty/continuity in grace's work, and to me that shows a humility and a bottom-line objectivity (genius?) that i wish i possessed. thing is, both anna and grace recognize(d) the brilliance in each other's work:
grace did so when she acknowledged, reluctantly, that 'fashion looks forward' and championed anna for introducing to vogue (years hence) something that had never been done before--placing a celebrity on the cover to not only spawn common folk's aspirations, but to feed the featured celebrities' need to be right with fashion--- to be the 'it' girls. suddenly, a celebrity had to be not only conscientious of who they were, but WHO they were WEARING, and all of us 'little people' took note and voted... with (our) dollars.
so although i agree (with many) that this movie doesn't clip away at a frenetic pace, it didn't bother me a wit. i came away informed, sympathetic and in admiration of anna.
i loved this movie and fwiw, i'm a hyperactive "man's man" to boot! go figure...
Behind Every Strong Woman Is a Stronger One May 11, 2010
Cole M. Crittenden
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The success of television shows devoted to fashion and of websites that follow the runways is ample proof that when it comes to our appetite for fashion, more is more. The handicap that this documentary faces is that we think we know more than we do. Take Anna Wintour, who was so memorably caricatured by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." Anyone would probably pale in comparison to a fictionalized representation of herself by Meryl Streep, so if Wintour emerges from this film as less interesting than you had assumed, it's not her fault.
It may be the fault of the director, however. Surely the world that Ms. Wintour orchestrates is a complicated place, and everyone on screen agrees that Wintour's influence is far-reaching. But no one, least of all the director, seems to be able to say precisely why. Instead, R.J. Cutler's direction gives us redundant shots of Wintour at runway shows or studios (always with dark glasses, which begs the question of whether she can actually see what she is supposed to evaluate) or of her capriciously nixing shots that her staff has spent many hours - and even more dollars - to create. There are a few scenes where we think we will get a glimpse of her fabled powerbrokering (a meeting with the head of Neiman Marcus, for instance), but even then we see few specifics. At times Wintour speaks directly to the camera, revealing, among other things, her siblings' dismissal of what she does professionally, but these moments don't cast her in a particularly sympathetic light. Even her daughter says on screen that she cannot take the industry seriously, and nothing about what Wintour says or is shown to do makes a compelling case for why her daughter - or we - should think otherwise. The film takes as a given the premise that fashion is important and that Wintour is its most important person. Lovers of fashion will go along with the premise, but even they might be troubled that time and again people in the film - Wintour included - betray a fear that fashion is viewed only as a guilty pleasure for stupid people. Wintour's decision to begin putting celebrities on the cover of Vogue is mentioned as a concrete example of her genius (she understood early where our fixation with celebrity in this country was headed), but even that "achievement" is undercut in the film by the sad photoshoot of Sienna Miller.
Ironically, the real heroine of this documentary's story is someone who at first glance does not embody high fashion: Grace Coddington. Ms. Coddington is Vogue's creative director, and her wrinkled face, frizzy hair, and plain black clothing belie her importance in a world that is celebrated for being skin-deep. Through the story Cutler shows us, however, Coddington is revealed as the long-standing source of the magazine's best material. She works tirelessly at the photo shoots she oversees, explaining to those around her the choices behind the textures of the fabrics or the concept of the lighting. Her visions are cohesive and gorgeous, but most importantly, they are intelligently articulated. Under Cutler's direction, the camera lingers over Coddington's tired face and the beautiful images of fashion that she creates, letting us see a highly creative mind at work. That she puts such thought into photographs that are so often blithely thrown out by Wintour (without good explanation as to why, at least on screen) makes her all the more sympathetic. Cutler, perhaps unknowingly, sets her up as everything that Wintour is not, and the comparison is not kind to Wintour. Where Coddington explains her vision and justifies her artistic choices, Wintour simply pronounces her final judgements. Coddington is kind to the models, bringing them treats and asking whether their outfits are too tight, while Wintour jokes about people's weight and demands that fat be photoshopped (even on non-models). Coddington seems to care deeply about the clothing and its details, especially at the couture shoots in France, whereas Wintour often just looks bored. Cutler peels away at the many levels of Coddington, letting the viewer know only gradually that she herself was once a model on the pages of Vogue, and that she suffered a disfiguring accident that required facial plastic surgery. Her story is far more interesting than Wintour's, but that's probably because it is told better.
Ultimately it is Grace Coddington who emerges in this film as the "author" of Vogue, the creator of the very things that readers love most. The "inside" look at Anna Wintour and her control of the magazine sticks to the surface of its supposed primary subjects, and while a focus on the surface of things may be fine for the business of fashion, it won't do for documentary filmmaking. Where the film does triumph, however, is its showcasing of Coddington, who quietly, stubbornly, and convincingly makes the case for fashion as art.
Dull people, dull movie May 8, 2010
Irfan A. Alvi (Towson, MD USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Most of us don't really care for the world of high fashion, but it at least sparks our curiosity, which is why I personally watched this movie.
To my surprise, I found that these people are actually rather dull. Or more precisely, they're narrow and shallow, because their lives revolve around fashion and they exemplify the ideology that beauty is skin/clothes deep. Making matters worse, because high fashion is tied with the elite world of conspicuous wealth, the people at Vogue also exhibit a crassly business mindset, thus compromising whatever purely artistic motives and pretensions they might have.
The dullness of these people also makes for a dull movie, so I struggled to finish it. But at least the movie is honest in presenting this dullness, rather than resorting to the standard approach of overglamorizing the fashion world, so I can at least give this movie three stars for that, though I still can't recommend it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 33
|
|
|
