The September Issue. This was mostly interesting for the visual spectacle. As a “story” it falls flat. It’s more a series of snapshots. The goal is to produce the Biggest Magazine Ever in the history of anything, but there’s no strong sense of beginnings, endings, middles, challenges. Perhaps there’s no proper place to begin watching a process that happens 12 times a year every year, but you still want some kind of narrative handhold. As for the people… of Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, you don’t learn much directly, but watch her meet and quietly decree. It is pretty amazing how everyone just folds around her. Well, almost everyone. The magazine’s creative director, Grace Coddington is presented as the warmer, romantic foil to Wintour’s frosty business demeanor. Perhaps the most interesting bit of process was seeing the storyboarding of the magazine. There’s a separate room where they’d lay out potential photoshoots on a table, then select and sort the miniature 2-page spreads on a big wall, shuffling and reshuffling pages until press time.
Mark Larson 