Bruce Weber's third full-length documentary (after "Broken Noses" and "Let's Get Lost") is a film of extraordinary beauty and singular vision.
Its originality also defies classification, which might make it a difficult sell to moviegoers, though the film will attract fans of Weber's earlier work and his renowned fashion photography.
"Chop Suey" is about why an artist creates -- the various influences, obsessions and loves that compel him to work. Weber's 1999 monograph "The Chop Suey Club" featured pictures (many nude) of model Peter Johnson, and fans of that book might expect the film to be a live-action recapping of those modeling sessions. The striking Johnson is featured prominently, but the film is something different, something more. Weber redefines "Chop Suey" to mean all the bits and pieces of life that go into creating a sensibility and an aesthetic.
The film was projected from video at the San Francisco International Film Festival (Weber and his producers have yet to strike a 35-mm print) and uses as sources a variety of film and video stocks. Yet it has a cohesive, consistent look. It's as if we're viewing an artist's scrapbook, and we see the color, form and motion that informs his work.
The movie is a swirl of music, models, celebrities, artists and art. A good portion is dedicated to the late singer Frances Faye. Her lover, Teri Shepherd, reminisces about Faye, and Weber shows clips of her appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other variety shows and concerts. It's clear that he admires the freedom and exuberance with which she lived her life and sang her music.
The Fletcher family, who became friends of Weber's when he photographed their son Christian, a professional surfer, for Interview magazine, brings fearless and aggressive energy to the screen, and we see the attraction they hold for Weber, even as they discuss the dark side of all that masculine daring. (Christian's drug use caused the family intense pain.)
Weber discusses his photo collection and the photographers who've affected him: Larry Clark, Alfred Stieglitz, the Westons, David Bailey, George Platt Lynes. Displaying a picture of Alain Delon and Luchino Visconti, he explains that for him, the picture is about the photographer being in love with his subjects, a theme he comes back to repeatedly.
Explaining his notorious shots of Johnson frolicking in the shower with other young men, Weber talks about his loneliness as an adolescent and his sense of unease with his own body: "We sometimes photograph things we can never be."
Weber's earlier films and photos often featured a tension between the innocent and the erotic. In "Chop Suey", Weber makes the erotic innocent. This is a stunning film.
CHOP SUEY
Just Blue Films
Producer: Nan Bush
Director: Bruce Weber
Screenwriter: Bruce Weber, Maribeth Edmonds
Directors of photography: Lance Accord,
Douglas Cooper, Jim Fealy
Music: John Leftwich
Costume designer: William Ivey Long
Editor: Angelo Corrao
Black and white and color/stereo
Running time -- 98 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Its originality also defies classification, which might make it a difficult sell to moviegoers, though the film will attract fans of Weber's earlier work and his renowned fashion photography.
"Chop Suey" is about why an artist creates -- the various influences, obsessions and loves that compel him to work. Weber's 1999 monograph "The Chop Suey Club" featured pictures (many nude) of model Peter Johnson, and fans of that book might expect the film to be a live-action recapping of those modeling sessions. The striking Johnson is featured prominently, but the film is something different, something more. Weber redefines "Chop Suey" to mean all the bits and pieces of life that go into creating a sensibility and an aesthetic.
The film was projected from video at the San Francisco International Film Festival (Weber and his producers have yet to strike a 35-mm print) and uses as sources a variety of film and video stocks. Yet it has a cohesive, consistent look. It's as if we're viewing an artist's scrapbook, and we see the color, form and motion that informs his work.
The movie is a swirl of music, models, celebrities, artists and art. A good portion is dedicated to the late singer Frances Faye. Her lover, Teri Shepherd, reminisces about Faye, and Weber shows clips of her appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and other variety shows and concerts. It's clear that he admires the freedom and exuberance with which she lived her life and sang her music.
The Fletcher family, who became friends of Weber's when he photographed their son Christian, a professional surfer, for Interview magazine, brings fearless and aggressive energy to the screen, and we see the attraction they hold for Weber, even as they discuss the dark side of all that masculine daring. (Christian's drug use caused the family intense pain.)
Weber discusses his photo collection and the photographers who've affected him: Larry Clark, Alfred Stieglitz, the Westons, David Bailey, George Platt Lynes. Displaying a picture of Alain Delon and Luchino Visconti, he explains that for him, the picture is about the photographer being in love with his subjects, a theme he comes back to repeatedly.
Explaining his notorious shots of Johnson frolicking in the shower with other young men, Weber talks about his loneliness as an adolescent and his sense of unease with his own body: "We sometimes photograph things we can never be."
Weber's earlier films and photos often featured a tension between the innocent and the erotic. In "Chop Suey", Weber makes the erotic innocent. This is a stunning film.
CHOP SUEY
Just Blue Films
Producer: Nan Bush
Director: Bruce Weber
Screenwriter: Bruce Weber, Maribeth Edmonds
Directors of photography: Lance Accord,
Douglas Cooper, Jim Fealy
Music: John Leftwich
Costume designer: William Ivey Long
Editor: Angelo Corrao
Black and white and color/stereo
Running time -- 98 minutes
No MPAA rating...
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