a SIFF 2008 interview

Documenting a Love Story
Sitting Down with Chris & Don Directors Santi and Mascara

Chris and Don: A Love Story, opening in Seattle today (which is why I just got around to running this now - sorry), was one of the signature documentaries playing at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. I sat down with the directors Guido Santi and Tina Mascara during SIFF to talk about the making of their film and how it has affected their lives. What followed was a free-wheeling forty minute conversation touching upon numerous topics big, small decidedly in-between. Here are some of the highlights.

Sara Michelle Fetters: I’m curious, what was it that led you two to this particular project? How did you hear about Chris and Don’s story?

Guido Santi: I had a chance to meet Don Bacharady about 17-18 years ago when I arrived in the States from Italy. We became friends and I remember one night at a dinner party he showed this beautiful footage he shot with Chris [Isherwood] in the 1950’s and I thought, this is incredible! I was surprised nobody had told their story as this is one of the most touching love stories I’d ever heard. One day, Tina and I were talking and I introduced her to Don and we decided make the movie, decided to put it on the credit card and make the documentary about this beautiful relationship.

Tina Mascara: It started out a very renegade film. I think we put all the interviews down and did as much production as possible [before we had financing] and maxed out our credit cards. We filmed a few recreations [as] we didn’t have the material, but we held off on those until the very end hoping we’d get the funding to do so.

Guido: We spent almost five years working on [this film], and we thought at one point it would be impossible to complete it, impossible to find the money to finish. But, people liked what we had shot and were affected by the story and we were able to find the money. That was a major blessing. Making a film is always a journey, making this one was certainly no exception.

Sara Michelle: What was it like spending so much time with Don? How did that affect you both?

Guido: It's a film about the past. It's more much difficult when you work on such material. Don deserves about 90-percent of the credit [for this].

Tina: I mean, he is the film. He’s simply amazing. We could not have gotten it done without him.

Guido: Yes, amazing, that’s right. He is a fantastic man and a fantastic storyteller. He makes you laugh, he makes you cry. In the film, you go up and down with him, and I think that is because Don was willing to be so intimate with us.

Tina: There were days when he was really, really on and there were days when he wasn’t. On the days he was we had more material then we knew what to do with. Everything he said sounded so amazing, and it was hard for us to actually take only the bites there were the important parts of the story because there was so much that he would say that would hit us over the head.

Guido: I think it is very interesting that the first segment we edited together is also the most powerful part of the movie and that is the ending. That was one of the things we cut first and we ended up having to build the film backwards. We had this remarkable [climax] and we had to find a way to build towards that. We knew it was the most emotional moment in the film. We knew this was the part we had to finish with, and while there other moments were Don was simply fantastic, the scenes of him at the climax are the ones I think stay with you for a long, long time.

Sara Michelle: And yet, you both seem to go out of your way to try and make Chris and Don’s story universal without ever implicitly comparing their relationship to current events. You do your best to keep it from being political, focusing on the human instead.

Guido: Our film is political in a different way. You can be political without being overt. I think, their life together for thirty years, is a major statement. The statement is the relationship.

Tina: It speaks for itself, doesn’t it? We live in a rapidly changing world and what is going on in California is extremely important, but it also isn’t this movie. This movie is about a relationship that took place long before those changes even had the chance of taking place. If anything, [their] relationship is probably one of the reasons these changes could take place.

Sara Michelle: I have to say, in a lot of ways this isn’t a typical documentary. You use a lot of nontraditional techniques to bring this story to life.

Guido: I think this film applies to what Tina and I like to do. We look at this story and at documentaries as just fictional stories in disguise. I feel like this film wanted to be a fictional film all the way through. In some ways, the only way we could embrace it was to just be totally free. To use all the techniques at our fingertips. We are not purists. We want to tell our story in the most emotional way that we can.

Tina: And in interesting ways. It has to be interesting to us and to audiences, if it isn’t then why go through all the trouble of making the film?

Sara Michelle: With that thought in mind, one of the things I found most interesting about the film was learning about Chris and Don’s almost secret relationship, the one they use to communicate that goes a bit outside themselves and dives headfirst into the couple’s vivid imagination. Why was it important to visualize the journeys of ‘Kitty and the Horse’ in animation? Why give it a life of its own?

Tina: I feel the animation is just so important because I don't think you really get the magical, secret life that was so important to them unless you play it really big. We read a few letters [in the film] highlighting this almost magical form of communication between [them], but there was correspondence between Chris and Don for twenty years in these character voices. It was important to show that visually in some way and I think the animation does that.

Guido: Does it beautifully, I would add. Chris and Don had a whimsical, complicated, imaginative and utterly unique relationship. How better to showcase this ‘secret life’ then using another equally imaginative and unique art form like animation to do it? For me, it was the only choice and I think the film is better for it.

Sara Michelle: I was a bit awestruck that these two could live as an openly gay couple in the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Talk about making a statement!

Guido: It is difficult even now for a homosexual or a lesbian couple to live a normal life and for them to have their rights and knowledge recognized, but back then it was even worse. I think that if Isherwood were alive today he would be incredibly happy of all the battles that have been won by the gay and lesbian community. But, for them, living life was the greatest statement.

Tina: That’s what they thought. I think in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when gay rights were coming into being, I think Chris was criticized for not being involved in the marches and that sort of thing. But I think his point of view was, I’m always there to show up and talk about it [gay rights] and that I’m writing about [them] in my work and I am not hiding [my relationship with Chris]. What more of statement could he make? He was completely conscious that he was contributing. He did contribute and this relationship is proof of that.

Guido: Don talks about something that I think is very important, Intentional Living. Not a single moment of your life should not be wasted but be devoted to living in the moment, doing whatever it is you want to pursue, developing yourself, bettering yourself in whatever way you need to do. That has been for us a major lesson because you have to be incredibly honest to achieve that, to pursue that sort of life. I wish I had that strength.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I have that strength, some other times I just want to go out and have a nice meal and call it a day. It is difficult to be so focused, so committed to your relationships and to your work and to your art. That is a major achievement in life.

Tina: Chris was never apologetic of his life. He never made excuses for it. I think Don took that to heart and that is how he is able to life his own life with such zest and drive.

Guido: We have a lot of people who are not gay or lesbian who are embracing [the film] which is great. It is like they are saying that this isn’t anything separate. This [relationship] isn’t anything to scoff at.

Tina: They’re saying that this is a valuable story, that this is a valuable relationship, that it is a committed relationship. They’re saying it is not this or is not that. They’re saying don’t label it. I think by saying all those things they’re speaking volumes and definitely showing us the kind of world and kind of landscape we hopefully could be moving towards.

Sara Michelle: Finally, what was Don’s reaction to the film when you showed it to him? How did it his him?

Tina: He generally travels with us and I wish he would have been here because the Seattle audience is just amazing. He would have been really, really blown away. But on his first time watching the film he cried. He laughed and he cried. 

Guido: We showed it to him about a year ago in March and we were terrified because it is his life, it is his legacy. I remember after [watching it] he was reacting in a splendid way, and that was the most euphoric moment so far. To show your work, to show four years of your life, and have the main subject of your film approve it, was touching for me. I was so happy that night. There is no other way to put it.

- Portons of interview reprinted courtesty of the SGN in Seattle

Additional Links:

-  Chris & Don: A Love Story Review by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  Chris & Don: A Love Story Theatrical Trailer