Chris & Don: A Love Story (2007) Reviews

• I was wrong about this one

  Michael Fargo2008-08-02

  This documentary covers a lot of ground: sexuality, aging, death, spirituality, art, literature, war, celebrity, alternative life styles, tragedy, mental health, drug use…and love. Pure and simple love. Now I went to this movie reluctantly. The subject matter of the lives of the famous has worn—if not all of us—me down with the 24 hour news cycle. Christopher Isherwood's literary contributions were more a bridge than, say, the works of W.H. Auden which stand alone in any age. To unveil, posthumously, his private life examining the testament of his living lover, I was braced for something like testimony contesting Rock Hudson's estate. But, I was very wrong. Whether you can sit and hear the word "queer" and flinch or not (in any of its incantations either pejorative or defiance), it quickly doesn't matter. There is such a wealth of first hand material (photos, film footage, paintings, drawings, interviews) we don't have time to judge (as I was prepared to do) the age difference of the two subjects or their lifestyles. Whatever the staying power of Isherwood's written words, his legacy as a gentle human being is forever preserved in this film. And whether or not Don Bachardy was "abused" by an older man or not, we're so dazzled—as the young Bachardy must have been—by the world he's invited into with Isherwood, we don't have time to sit in judgment of anyone. And that's a good thing, because at the end of the day, and at the end of this film—as at the end of these people's lives—it's for them to say whether their story was one of fulfilled love or something pathological. And what is revealed here by both the diaries of Christopher Isherwood and the loving testimony of his partner cannot be denied. I had some quibbles with the choices made by the filmmakers, however. The use of animation seems like unnecessary padding. Only once (during a rough period in the relationship) is it well used, and the score is patchy. When jazz from the period is used it matches what we see on screen; but the original music seems generic. My biggest objection was using actors to stage some crucial events. There is such a wealth of archival footage that I began to doubt which was real and what was staged. I think using actors sells everyone--including the audience--short. What the principals have to say is so powerful, we didn't need what has become an almost obligatory trend in documentary films. The interviews are all carefully chosen and never intrude into anything we'd call inappropriate or salacious. And the central character here, Don Bacarady, is allowed the freedom to say what he wants (most of it very funny) and he holds little back. It's a great love story, and it's told at a time when our Country is considering whether or not it should sanction same sex marriage. Well, there's nothing here that would point towards not doing that. Yet no one on the screen has an agenda or an ax to grind. I think it was during an interview with Leslie Caron when she remembers something Isherwood says—he delays his death because "Don isn't ready"—that I realized this was no ordinary love story, it was a true love story. And it's heartbreaking and a mind-opener. Go see it.

• A sophisticated look into the love of a lifetime

  jeremywyndham2007-12-05

  For how unusual and "scandalous" the love story portrayed in this movie can be (or rather, could have been at the time the facts took place), the way it is narrated by the film-making and producing duo of Guido Santi and Tina Mascara is so sophisticated, gentle and harmonious that it really brings you back to the atmosphere in the most romantic Hollywood movies of the fifties. Perhaps it's because the sentimental relationship between Isherwood and Bachardy was mediated by such an incredible artistic exchange that it elevated their passion to the ranks of a work of art. Or perhaps it's because the authors have wisely elected to look at their love with unpretentious discretion, as if the camera was always attempting to remain unobtrusive enough to ensure the utmost authenticity in Bachardy's moving and vivid memories of their past together. Overall, this touching documentary has bestowed me with a higher feeling of satisfaction than a regular movie as I realised that real love does not only exist in fiction, but occurs, if rarely, in reality. Quite an extraordinary experience in movie-making, this one.

• A beautiful movie

  mmrossner2007-11-25

  Presented at the Telluride Film Festival, this is one of the most touching, romantic and cinematically innovative movies I've seen in a long time. First of all, let's not forget this is a documentary, with all the visual and narrative difficulties associated with the genre. Second, it's the love story between two men. Yet, it is more emotionally involving than if it was a fictionalized version, and this is because as you watch it you are aware all that is told is absolutely true. Notwithstanding this, the movie never indulges on the aspect of homosexuality, but it looks at this as just an extraordinary story of passion between two persons bound both emotionally and artistically. Never boring, not even for one second, "Chris and Don", produced and directed by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara, is an original way to tell a love story by mixing current footage with archive material and cartoons that results in a coherent and compelling storytelling. Reminiscent in style of "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and similar documentaries centering on real personalities, it has a beautiful musical score and benefits from a rhythmic, involving editing.

• A beautiful portrait

  jennifersarti2008-04-26

  It looks like we will finally be able to watch this masterpiece documentary in theaters as distributor Zeitgeist has picked up the Miami Festival winner for a limited release. Produced by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara, a team of longtime documentary authors whose "Mandala" revealed a few years ago a very sophisticated talent in visual storytelling, "Chris & Don" is the love story between famous playwright Christopher Isherwood and artist Don Bachardy in the golden years of Hollywood, with exclusive interviews and footage with actors and other personalities. Although Isherwood and Bachardy's was a homosexual love during a time when these relationships were looked at with criticism even in the more liberal California, the movie is somehow capable of setting the sexual factor aside and focus instead on the depth of the protagonists' personality. By the end of the movie you feel so intimate with both, that it is almost natural to want to know more about them and their art. A refined, well directed portrait and an opportunity for exemplary film-making that should easily captivate audiences.

• Moving out from under the shadow

  Chris Knipp2008-06-14

  Calvin A. Tripp in his book The Homoxexual Matrix comments that gay couples are better than others at spanning differences. This story certainly shows that. When Christopher Isherwood met Don Bachardy he was 46 and Don was 16; he was a famous writer and Don was unknown and unformed; he was from the English landed gentry and Don's father was a worker in the aerospace industry. They met through Ted, Don's older brother, also gay--on the "queer" beach of Santa Monica. Chris slept with Ted. Two years later in 1951 he slept with Don. They bonded for life. They stayed together till Isherwood's death 34 years later. As director John Boorman says, "Of all the people I came to know in Los Angeles, their marriage was the only one that endured." People said it wouldn't. They were wrong. In the Fifties, they went out as an openly gay couple--which even the sophisticates of Hollywood where Chris was by then a successful writer weren't used to--because they were committed to each other, and Christopher Isherwood recognized the importance of not hiding their sexuality or their love. Isherwood was partly a father to Don, who needed to discover who he was. In the course of this process Don very early on adapted Chris's ways of speaking and mannerisms--so completely that Boorman felt as if Chris had "cloned" himself. Then when Don's artistic talent emerged Chris sent him to art school, where he was a dedicated and successful student, and gave him the support and encouragement he needed. Perhaps as some say Don's subsequent success as a portrait artist was "why" the relationship endured--certainly it is how Don moved out from under Chris's shadow--but in fact the relationship was hard in its early years because Don was looked down on as nothing but Chris's boy toy, a blank. Then when Don realized all the wild oats Chris had sown in those extra thirty years, he revolted and there was a rough patch when Don threatened to go off with somebody else. During this time Isherwood went north for three months as a guest lecturer, which led Don to realize how important his older lover was to him and how relatively unimportant the new person was. Chris and Don: a Love Story is a marvel of seamless and thorough construction that fills us in on Isherwood's story before Don, his family and school origins, Berlin and the Cabaret years, his involvement in Hollywood society (Aldous Huxley, Swami Prabhavananda, Stravinsky, et al.). Likewise Don's life before Chris and after, including an ugly homophobic encounter with Joseph Cotton for Don). There are important perspectives from Boorman, Leslie Caron, briefly by Lisa Minelli (Chris found her Sally Bowles too "professional" but was glad the film was popular), and others. There are useful comments by Isherwood archive-keepers and chroniclers, home photos of Don and Chris in early days together, archival film interviews with Chris, Isherwood diaries read aloud by Michael York, and above all plenty of time spent with Don as he is today, a trim and vigorous 74, puttering around the sunny, pretty hillside house where he's lived since he moved there with Chris in the 1950's, painting handsome nude men; working out at the gym, reminiscing about his thirty-four years with Christopher Isherwood. It's enough to see how Bachardy's eyes still light up when he tells about his first meeting with Chris, how often he laughs remembering things, to know theirs was a happy and enduring love. During the last days when Isherwood was dying of prostate cancer, Don did as many as nine or ten big drawings of him a day, and then drew his corpse. Chris would have said that was what an artist would do, Don says. "And that is what an artist did do." When Chris died, Don set about reading Chris's diaries, starting from the present and working back. He couldn't wait to get to the moment when they met. There are many interesting details. An important theme is Don's and his family's early fascination with movies and movie stars and how Chris's many acquaintances in the world of movies fed into that and dazzled him--till reality came in when he discovered at a shoot where he was a humiliated extra, that a certain Italian lady star...farted, like anybody else. It's clear that over two decades since Chris's death, Don still thrives--but not all questions about his present life are answered (who does he hang out with?). Also missing is any sign of Chris's longtime friend Julie Harris. There are a couple of unnecessary things: murky reenactments of scenes such as the one where Don and Chris huddled in Morocco during a bad trip after meeting Paul Bowles in Tangiers--a description would have been enough; and as has been noted, the animations of the pair's kitty/pony drawings representing themselves are a little too cute. Still, this is a handsome as well as a touching piece of work.