Once upon a time, not everybody carried a camera in their pockets, and perhaps as a result, people paid more attention to the work of those who gave their lives to it. There’s a lot of love in Sasha Waters Freyer’s documentary on the seminal street photographer: love for Winogrand (as expressed by friends and lovers), love for his work (as expressed by fellow photographers and critics), and love for photography in general (as expressed, preeminently, by the many, many fine Winogrands on display). Though maybe not so much love for the subjects of those pictures: at one point, Winogrand the documenter of American life concludes that “who we are and how we feel just doesn’t matter. Our aspirations are cheap and petty. We have lost ourselves. We have not loved life. I cannot accept my conclusion, so I must continue my exploration.” The whole thing, with its bits of bio, its swaths of praise and criticism, its forays into meaning and significance, plays like a well curated museum exhibit — a retrospective to counter and/or complete the one held shortly after his death in 1984. The material is worth seeing, but doesn’t really demand a big screen. (2018) — Matthew Lickona
This movie is not currently in theaters.