Portrait of Artists as Companions

On Friday, 20 June 2008 a documentary opened in one New York cinema house. Called "Chris and Don: A Love Story" the documentary charts the relationship between the novelist Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) and Don Bachardy (1934 - ) from the time they met in early 1953 to Isherwood's death on 4 January 1986. (In a sense the relationship continues to this day.) The documentary also sketches in Isherwood's life in England before he came to America to permanently settle there in January 1939. As I am in Calcutta, India, I do not when I will get to see this documentary, but seeing the two trailers now available on youtube it felt weird. As the camera followed Don Bachardy around the Santa Monica house where he and Isherwood lived from 30 September 1959 and where Bachardy continues to live I found myself revisiting my memories of interviewing Bachardy there in April 1997. I remembered being shown around the house by Don, being struck by the amount of light that bathes the house and, next day, sitting for two portraits by him. I shall soon upload images of those two portraits on this blog.

Also in the trailers, it is fascinating to see artistes like Tennessee Williams (third picture from the top in this post) and Igor Stravinsky in living colour. So far I had only seen black and white still images of the playwright. I had only seen Don in person in 1997, but it gives one a strange feeling to see him as a teenager, posing on the Santa Monica beach for Isherwood's movie camera . Seeing the moving images (moving both in the sense that they are mobile and that they are touching) one begins to understand the helpless love Isherwood must have felt for this teenager.

As of the 17th of this month, gays and lesbians in California have been able to marry. Don told me that because there was no such provision in the days when Isherwood was alive, the writer had to adopt Don as his son so that everything could be left to him when Isherwood died. I haven't been in touch with Don for almost nine years now. I hope he is healthy.

I subsequently published my interview with Don in a book and titled it "Portrait of the Artist as Companion". What the makers of this documentary gives us is a movie version of David Hockney's iconic double portrait of Isherwood and Bachardy: a portrait of two artists as each other's companion.