Chop Suey

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.

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.

There are interesting pieces here of and about Bruce Weber's likes and dislikes. Maybe if a professional editor had put it together for Biography, I would have felt more satisfied. Instead, I spent $8 at a film festival on it. For an autobiography, almost nothing is revealed about Bruce Weber, other than he likes to look at photographs, shoot interesting people, especially beautiful teenage boys, and listen to jazz. The director of "Crumb" would have made a much more interesting and cohesive film.

Bruce Weber's movies are the upscale gay man's version of those Starbucks jazz CD's. There's something authentic in there somewhere, but in the making it's been banalized out of existence Everything in Weber-World reeks of white terrycloth bathrobes, running with terriers on the beach, cheekbones, white teeth, gaily laughing women in pajamas, and all the other images that are permanently encoded in our brain as Polo-specific. Weber can be photographing a thalidomide wino or the desiccated face of a seventyish Robert Mitchum, and somehow it all comes out like the glossy welcome brochure at an A-list hotel. CHOP SUEY purports to spread wider and dig deeper as it is Weber's record of his obsession with Peter Johnson, a high-school athlete Weber commemorated in torrential, Dantean detail. But Weber continues to pretend that he's only interested in "beauty"--and that his interest in Johnson stems from the wrestler's being what Weber could never be (beautiful, I guess). There's no sex in Weber's voiceover explanation of his Aschenbach-like dwelling on this gorgeous nobody, and thus Weber is able not to be homosexual. Weber plunges into denial as passionately as he falls into reverie. He means for the movie to be a fantasist's autobiography, and also a highly self-conscious arrangement of Weber in the history of American photography (quotes from Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon and Larry Clark abound). But what comes across is a guy who is trapped in an upmarket carnival of surfaces. Weber is more interested in his Josh Hartnettesque models' torsos and legs than even in their faces; for Weber, pornography is not a projection of a psychological state but simply a record of physical perfection. He seems to throw uglinesses at us in this movie as a means, again, of denying his own predilections. He may enjoy presenting us with an old, ugly female cabaret singer, or the mummylike visage of Diana Vreeland, but he certainly has no interest in copulating with them. So why put up this front of "romanticism"? There's nothing romantic about the movie--maybe partly because, unlike masturbatory artists from Genet to Larry Clark, Weber doesn't investigate or push or worry his desires. He doesn't even take them at face value. He fanatically perfumes them. This makes everything feel hollow, personalityless, and fake--just like the stuff Weber makes at his day job.

This movie came out briefly in one theater in Los Angeles and then disappeared. Why I don't know, because it was a fascinating look back into the gay life in the 50's and 60's when everything was kind of hidden and hush-hush. The other fantastic thing about it was its focus on the great singer Frances Faye. Mention her name now and most people would have a blank look on their faces - which is too bad because this great talent deserves more recognition. I just can't understand WHY this movie hasn't been released on DVD. Something is wrong because every other film -good and bad- eventually is put on DVD. This film is GOOD..........so come on guys - get it out there!!!!!!