Live blogging The September Issue (on delay)

I wrote up my thoughts as I watched The September Issue documentary about Anna Wintour creating Vogue's September 2007 issue, the important one with all the ads.

--In the midst of Anna's meeting with Neiman Marcus I realize that this documentary was filmed in 2007, at the end of the economic high times, and I am watching the end of the golden age of magazines.

--Anna hops into a private limo and asks to stop at Starbucks. She looks pretty lonely, her body language is all closed off. Perhaps that's how she is, or perhaps it's because she's self-conscious about the camera next to her. And I didn't realize that The September Issue could also be subtitled Anna Wintour, as the documentary is as much about her as the magazine.

--Watching Grace shoot the girls, I realize I like props. There are none in this first shoot. Any fashion imagery I've seen has had props, but maybe I haven't seen Vogue.

--Watching this I realize I'm not interested in fashion, I'm interested in cut and fabric, great cut, great fabric. Flattering cut, excellent fabric. All of the other stuff is marketing-- the seasonal stuff, the shows, what's in, what's out.

--During the twenties shoot I wonder where they get their influences. Why do they have to go back to older times, why not create something new? Who is creating these themes? It's as if in the endless churn to create new styles every season, they have to get their ideas from somewhere, rather than wait until the ideas are new to create something. And I realize I like things that have a lot of effort put into them-- a shot of them painting the eyes of a woman in the twenties shoot-- something that takes a long time to set up. Certainly not like a live blog.

--When Sienna Miller comes in there's one photographer taking her picture and I wonder if he was tipped off or hired to be there to make her seem more important.

--And Anna is valorized as being a key innovator for recognizing celebrity culture and being one of the first editors to feature them on fashion magazines.

--Of course, Sienna Miller is British, and Vogue is British.

--Anna comes to a meeting with her sunglasses on and I wonder if it's partly or mostly for the cameras, as she takes them off when she sits down, almost embarrassed to be wearing them inside a windowless conference room.

--The whole place seems devoid of people, as if there are only a dozen people working in the office.

--And I realize now why live blogging is so popular-- you can see the timing of things. And the problem with not publishing these is that I don't publish the times. Pausing now to get laundry.

--Now I'm thinking that I could start a new blog called live blogging the movies.

--In Paris during the couture, I recognize one of the models as Lily Cole, from the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassis. She walks and the camera focuses on her, as if to say hello, here I am. And I was thinking about the industry that supports fashion, the models, the public relation firms, the magazines and editors, and here she is, a model, working on becoming an actress. It's too bad the movie didn't do too well.

--And then I think that cities are just playgrounds for the rich. Maybe I'll have to watch this again and really live blog it, turn it on and post these things or re-write them and post them in real time as I watch.

--Because this is a new form of commenting--instead of commenting after watching a video, you should be able to comment while you are watching it, and watch other's comments fly by like Twitter tweets.

--Now we're looking at Grace taking a picture of a Lady Gaga type wig and a model who is concerned about taking a bite of a mini cake because her courset is too tight. Grace assures her that it won't make a difference.

--It's a week until the magazine will be ready and I think this is no different from releasing a website. The only difference is that it isn't printed. Instead of all this paper, the work will be done on large HDTV monitors and computer screens. And there won't be a centralized office, but teleconferencing and web video. You can be in Paris, London, and New York at the same time; telepresence.

--With the other stuff that's been manufactured for this film-- the sunglasses in the boardroom, the friction between Grace and Anna, I wonder if the struggle over the cover image is really that much of an issue.

--When she talks about how her siblings are amused at what she does, I wonder if she means they think it's a joke.

--She looks like a woman trapped in a business that may have lost its luster for her as soon as the clothes stopped being marketed towards her.

--Vogue is in the same office as Gourmet used to be.

--Grace is talking about how Anna saw the celebrity thing before everyone else did, frustrated that her shoots were bumped for 22 pages of Sienna. But if Anna was so fashion forward with celebs, is she as aware that print is breathing its last breaths and pretty soon an issue will be nothing more than a web page?

--Grace, very pomo, gets the cameraman in one of the shots.

--100 pages up from last year and pages won't matter, unless they're web pages.

--I don't think I've seen Anna eat once in this whole movie.