A fine romance

Chris & Don: A Love Story documents the
famous bond between Isherwood and Bachardy

by MATTHEW HAYS

Relationship chemistry is an extremely mysterious thing, and as the documentary Chris & Don: A Love Story indicates quite clearly, the winning ingredients for a long-term relationship are also pretty damn difficult to estimate.

Those who knew them suggest that theirs was a striking bond. When in his late forties, Christopher Isherwood was a renowned writer behind the Berlin Stories (which eventually wound their way to the big screen as Cabaret). On the beaches of Malibu, fate would lead him to meet Don Bachardy, who was then a teenager. Isherwood began courting Bachardy and the two embarked on a relationship that would last until Isherwood’s death in 1986.

Interviews with Bachardy, still alive and well and living in the stunning home they built together in Santa Monica, form the basis for the movie. The endearingly affected artist recounts the stories of their first meeting, Isherwood’s infatuation, Bachardy’s own heartache over his brother’s depression, and how they managed to keep their love alive over the decades, despite separations and infidelities.

Directed by Tina Mascara and Guido Santi, Chris & Don begins as a fairly straightforward doc, with various talking heads discussing the significance of Isherwood’s considerable body of literary work. But it soon gets very complex, using a balance of winning styles; there are brief dramatic recreations, animated sequences and, best of all, loads of archival footage of Chris and Don goofing about in home movies. (We also see Bachardy’s various stylin’ hairdos—and hair-don’ts—from dubious eras.)

These nostalgic Super 8 moments include glimpses of many of Isherwood’s buddies, a who’s who of the cultural elite: Tennessee Williams, Aldous Huxley, Igor Stravinsky, Anthony Perkins and W.H. Auden, among many others. The noted psychologist Evelyn Hooker even figures prominently early in their relationship; apparently she loudly disapproved of Chris and Don’s connection, due to their serious age gap.

It’s hard to conceive of just how brazenly these two were living, and in such repressed times. The two met in 1953, the year the Rosenbergs were executed, easily one of the most tense times in the Cold War. It was the McCarthy era, which was every bit as homophobic as it was anti-Semitic and red-baiting. Isherwood had learned to live freely (and carnally) in pre-WWII Berlin, tales told through barely-veiled autobiography in the Berlin Stories.

Their 30-year age difference did present challenges for the pair. At one point, Bachardy and Isherwood had to negotiate a partnership contract that included infidelity. Bachardy explained that it wouldn’t be right for him to be denied the various dalliances Isherwood had already been allowed to enjoy when he was a young man.

Chris & Don manages to culminate in a sweeping emotional climax as Isherwood is diagnosed with prostate cancer in the ’80s. Bachardy, who by this time had emerged from Isherwood’s considerable shadow and established his own reputation as an artist, tended to Isherwood, documenting his final months by drawing and painting him. Since the filmmakers are close friends of Bachardy’s, they have access to all of these works of art, which form a poignant montage. It’s a beautifully fitting end to this tribute to an epic relationship.

CHRIS & DON: A LOVE STORY OPENS
THIS FRIDAY, AUG. 29
AT CINÉMA DU PARC

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