Chop Suey

This is a lush and sometimes loud film by the photographer who brings you the A&F catalogue every 3 months, Bruce Weber. His previous subjects were the jazz "great" (my own anti-jazz bias) Chet Baker and the obscure if not downright lost film "Backyard Movies" that I've lusted after since seeing it one bleary night in Minneapolis, when, 1992?

Mr. Weber's unerring eye for beauty and culture are pleasantly shared, as is his fantastic photo collection, his historic archival footage with the likes of Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue magazine, the slacker surfing champions that are "Nixon's Neighbors," an obscure English adventurer, and his own personal and professional anecdotes.

And, oh yeah, he shares Peter Johnson with us. (A man/boy with two names for "penis," though that cheap joke shortchanges his phenomenal looks and carriage.) Mr. Johnson is alternately the direct subject and the audience for the stories in Chop Suey.

The book "Chop Suey Club," already a collector's item, is so obviously a labor of love, and the movie lets us in on some of Peter Johnson's allure and charm. Still, Johnson is not exactly a presence to be reckoned with, though his modeling is clearly in the heart-stopping/stellar range. It's slightly embarrassing to watch the young Wisconsin father sit through old stories told by aging queens, until he whips out the atrocious aplomb apparent in his still photos by dancing with a big black poodle.

Mr. Weber practically comes right out with his infatuation for Peter Johnson, telling the story of a parallel gay editor/straight model relationship, "...nobody loved you better." Then in the narrative, "...sometimes we photograph what we're afraid we missed." "Chop Suey" wants to keep history alive while extolling keeping history alive; as told through a survivor in a 31 year lesbian partnership, "I thought I lost my best friend, but I have all these photos and memories and she's still with me. That's the way it's supposed to be."

I longed for quiet in some of the more lyrically poetic image sequences. I thought the underwater shots of swimming dogs and boys in gowns, or the boys sleepy in the back seat of a car, black and white film stock creamy, movement slowed to a languid, trippy pace, invited a more sparce aural accompaniment, images lingering slightly longer.

I would give this film a full ten out of ten if it didn't feel so much like a vanity project. A generous vanity project to be sure, but still, I tend to feel somehow duped or guilty if I overly enjoy watching such blatant narcissism.

I saw it 3 times.

With no thru-plot line and inconsistent cinematography, a viewer's appreciation of this unexpectedly fascinating film will in large part depend on their interest in the variety modern American culture has to offer and other people's old photo albums. I sat down to sample a copy of this unfortunately obscure film expecting to spend only a few minutes, but got wrapped up in it and could scarcely tear myself away.

What it is is nothing less than a scrapbook of three decades of American cultural life from the point of view of one of its premiere photographers. Bruce Webber, known by many for his innovative commercial ad work, and by many others for his studies of male nudes, simultaneously gives us a revelation of what it is to be an artist and loving memoirs of jazz singer Frances Faye and iconic designer/editor Diana Vreeland, all mixed with Webber's own highly personalized photos and home movies. It's a heady mix and pure art at its best. CHOP SUEY is not a "gay film" per se, but a gay sensibility is clearly present in the telling.

Many film fans have "test films" for friends and prospective lovers they are getting serious with - if they like a particular film they "get" the test giver. I'd strongly recommend this film (if one can find a copy - as of this writing, no easy feat) as a close to ideal "test" film for anyone who claims to be open to new experiences and any test giver who wants to measure the breadth of cultural exposure, true sophistication and tolerance of the person tested. I'd not be entirely comfortable with children being exposed to anyone who hated this film or, to be honest, anyone who hated this film being allowed to breed.

The "7 of 10" rating is only so low in recognition of the resistance some will have to the "stream of consciousness" organization of the piece. For anyone else, it's an enthralling experience.

This movie is essentially a "how-to" on how to be a well-connected pedophile. I'm amazed that so many people-- especially other gay men-- have seen this movie and read the book and no one has brought up the fact that if Weber was not an influential photographer, he would be in jail, doing time for child abuse. Poor Peter Johnson. Weber took this poor, naive (although incredibly handsome) teenager whom he found at a training camp for high school wrestlers in the Midwest, brought him to live in his home, and took thousands of homoerotic photos of him, many of them full-frontal nudes, all through Johnson's teenage years. That ain't art. It's child abuse. And what's worse, Weber made lots of money off of it, and poor Johnson is going to have serious "issues" the rest of his life. Weber's lecherous love of the boy is downright creepy, as are his ramblings about famous (and not so famous) people he's known, as he tries to complete Johnson's "education." Creepy, and then just plain boring. The only redeeming thing I can say about the movie is that it is a fascinating study of self-deception. But I can't help but wonder why no one ever considered the effect this was having on "Chop Suey" (Weber's nickname for Johnson) himself.

This is a wonderful, moving assemblage of fragmentary experiences which, held together only by the voices of Bruce

Weber and his friends, gently carries you into the heart of the

deepest aesthetic wonder. More than any other film I have seen,

this one embodies, 'here is the glory of art, the sheer white heat of

its passion in making and feeling'.

Perhaps you need to be a Bruce Weber afficionado to be this

turned on; perhaps you have to share his wonderful obsessions -

but I don't think so, because the whole point of the film is that

*everyone* has the capacity to feel this strongly, to be this in touch

with the way they feel. We may not all be able to take a great

photograph to record the experience, but we can treasure the

intensity of feeling it.

As he always has done, while he tantalises me with beautiful

images, he also introduces me to something - this time the

singing of Francis Faye - that I hadn't experienced before. And as

with Chet Baker (in Let's Get Lost), I'm looking forward to having

my musical life enriched by the introduction when I go and find

some of her recordings.

What worried me? That passage near the beginning on Tower

Bridge with La Traviata's 'life is passing; you can live it to the full if I

am strong and leave you to live without me'. This film is a

wonderful gift from BW, and I hope this (and the other little clues

he drops on the way) aren't hinting that he thinks he's moving on,

because Bruce Weber has brought a light into my life that I'm not

ready to lose just yet.

Oh, and if you've seen the book and Peter Johnson, you'll wish

there was more of him; for he seems a really nice (sorry, this is a

UK way of putting it) bloke, someone you'd like to meet and make

friends with, not just the most beautiful man you've ever seen. I

wish there was more in the film of Peter too, but more than that, I

want more of BW's obsessions, more of his capacity to see and to

show.

This is a seriously beautiful film. Go see, and then go look at your

own world. Bruce Weber will have helped you to see more of it.

This felt a lot like DEATH IN VENICE, CA to me, who arrived at UCLA at 17 looking better than Peter Johnson and knowing who Frances Faye was from hip parents in Cosmo SF and the "in" crowd that was very rich and filled with artsier geniuses in posher houses.I hung out at the Interlude which was as gay as I was straight almost every night before enrolling at UCLA. The owners and the bar fans of mine and Frances' were my first taste of the gay world.In SF it was not happening yet except for decorators. It was there that I met Teri and became good friends for years and she introduced me to a lot of players in the film although I was much more white tennis sweater looking and acting and had a life in the Bel Air movie star tennis group within weeks. I did not meet Weber till NY which became my mid point on my way to Paris where I moved after dropping out of school.CHOP SUEY does have a wonderful feel to repression and Bruce's love for Peter who is really charming as his sexual preference is shielded even when he wears dresses and hugs elephants while nude on a beach. Nearly ALL of my favorite friends and some icons are there like a scrapbook to look at although I did miss a Weston or two.Henry Miller, Cocteau and Mitchum are joyful to see as it was to play with them once. Mostly, it is a lot of beautiful young men who never appealed to me at any time, but, to his credit, Weber crammed the faces with the gorgeous past and many parts of where I first learned that there were only '10,000 people in the world' thinking.Had Weber been handsome, he would never have become the success he did. It is kind of sad to think that, but, I revert to loving this indulgent postcard which fits just fine into my own past which had an equally innocent beginning as Johnson's.