Thomas Conner
  • thomasconner
    • Bio
    • Professional: Resumé
    • Academic: CV
    • Teaching
    • Blog

A gay love story, with marriage of artistic equals - Celebrating the partnership of 'Chris & Don'

8/1/2008

 
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

'CHRIS & DON: A LOVE STORY'
★★★
Zeitgeist Films presents a documentary directed by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara.
Running time: 90 minutes. No MPAA rating. Opening today at Landmark Century.

 
It's tempting to think, midway through the charming documentary "Chris & Don," that the film should instead be titled "Don & Chris." Don Bachardy, after all, is the one half of this love story who's on screen or narrating probably 80 percent of the time. It's Don's life we get the most details from. Or at least, we see more of his emotions, his reactions, hear his decisions discussed. These are the things we want from biography, things we can learn from. Don, surely, should get the first billing.
 
But to think that would be a tragic (though common) misunderstanding of human relationships, of true love, even of art. Because the story of Don Bachardy is very much the story of the late writer Christopher Isherwood, and vice versa. The two artists were intertwined, affected each other's work, reflected each other in their work. They were utterly in love, and (as the subtitle reminds us) this film is not a document of two noted figures and their artistic legacy, it is a document of a relationship, a marriage. Given the news out of California these days, such an objective look at a gay marriage couldn't have been more serendipitously scheduled.
 
There's an extra level of "controversy" to this relationship. Chris and Don were not only a gay couple, Chris was 30 years Don's senior. They met on a Los Angeles beach when Don was 16. "Chris & Don" is laden with home-movie footage of the two of them, in the '50s, both looking so fresh and exuberant. Don, though, features more prominently in that footage, clearly the fixation of Chris, the writer who once proclaimed "I am a camera." Don is young and beautiful, his gap-toothed smile gleaming through the grainy images. The film's relatively few talking heads discuss the impact Don had on all Chris' friends and colleagues. It's easy to see.
 
But therein lies the slippery slope this documentary seeks to reverse, and almost succeeds in doing so. It's tempting to rush to judgment, as we do with relationships in which one partner is significantly older than the other: He corrupted the boy. Don himself frames it in the beginning of the film, describing Chris this way as "the archvillain, warping him to his mold, teaching him wicked things" — before adding, with a devilish grin, "which is exactly what the boy wanted."
 
"Chris & Don" shows no wickedness at all. It is not whitewashed — the dark times in the relationship are not ignored, such as Don's thoughts of leaving Chris (who died in 1986), arguments, the stress of the age difference, how they were evicted from a house because of it — it's simply objective. There is no Gay Issue and no Age Issue, nor was there in Isherwood's work. To make issues of these things, Isherwood understood, would overpower his narrative and make caricatures of his characters. It would be unrealistic, untrue. The tone of the film is perfectly in line with that of Isherwood's prose and the stylistic declaration of his "I am a camera" quotation from "Berlin Diary" in Goodbye to Berlin (the basis for each incarnation of "Cabaret"), which continues: "... with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking ... someday this will all have to be developed."
 
And here is the film, developing it. We see that not only did Chris deeply impact the life of young Don, encouraging and fostering the artistic talent that made him a renowned portrait artist, but that Don deeply impacted Chris. The good times in their relationship were Isherwood's inspiration toward that more reportorial, objective style of prose for which he was made famous — turning the "fiction" of Goodbye to Berlin into the autobiographical narrative of Christopher and His Kind, his fastest-selling book. The bad times inspired the successful point-of-view experiment of A Single Man, in which the older Chris struggles to come to terms with his impending mortality and the loss of his life — and the love of his life.
 
In the end, we have here a very human love story, one reminding us that our own biographies are not our own stories. My story hasn't been mine for nearly 15 years, since I met my partner. It's impossible to evaluate Fitzgerald without considering Zelda. Chris, we now see, couldn't have been Isherwood without Don.
 
 


Comments are closed.

    Thomas Conner

    These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office.

    (Caveat: I didn't write the headlines, and formatting varies wildly.)

    For more, see my home page, resumé, CV, blog, or just contact me.

    Archives

    September 2024
    October 2023
    September 2023
    May 2014
    June 2013
    May 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    March 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    October 2009
    September 2009
    March 2009
    November 2008
    October 2008
    August 2008
    July 2008
    June 2008
    May 2008
    April 2008
    March 2008
    September 2007
    August 2007
    June 2007
    May 2007
    February 2007
    November 2006
    October 2006
    September 2006
    June 2006
    March 2006
    January 2006
    December 2005
    November 2005
    October 2005
    August 2005
    July 2005
    June 2005
    May 2005
    April 2005
    June 2004
    April 2004
    August 2003
    June 2003
    February 2003
    December 2002
    November 2002
    September 2002
    August 2002
    July 2002
    March 2002
    February 2002
    September 2001
    August 2001
    July 2001
    July 2000
    June 2000
    May 2000
    April 2000
    March 2000
    February 2000
    December 1999
    November 1999
    October 1999
    August 1999
    July 1999
    June 1999
    April 1999
    March 1999
    January 1999
    November 1998
    October 1998
    September 1998
    August 1998
    July 1998
    June 1998
    May 1998
    March 1998
    January 1998
    December 1997
    November 1997
    October 1997
    August 1997
    June 1997
    May 1997
    April 1997
    March 1997
    January 1997
    November 1996
    September 1996
    August 1996
    July 1996
    June 1996
    March 1996
    January 1996
    December 1995
    September 1995
    August 1995
    June 1995
    April 1995
    August 1993

    Categories

    All
    9/11
    Album Review
    Arizona Republic
    Art Review
    Blues
    Books
    Chicago Sun Times
    Chicago Sun-Times
    Classical
    Column
    Concert Review
    Country
    Dwight Twilley
    Fanboy
    Feature
    Film
    Folk
    Gospel
    Great Conversations
    Guthries
    Hanson
    Hip Hop
    Hip-hop
    History
    Interviews
    Jazz
    JFJO
    Leon Russell
    Lollapalooza
    Music & Society
    Obit Magazine
    Pitchfork
    Pop
    Punk
    R&B
    Reggae
    Rock
    SXSW
    Tea
    Travel
    Tulsa World
    TV
    Virtuality
    Wainwrights
    Washington Post
    Woodyfest

    RSS Feed

Home

Bio

Professional

Academic

Blog

mine, all mine © 2000-now
  • thomasconner
    • Bio
    • Professional: Resumé
    • Academic: CV
    • Teaching
    • Blog