That Man: Peter Berlin

I caught a festival screening of THAT MAN PETER BERLIN with really no knowledge of him or his place in either queer or porn history. I was drawn by the Garbo aspect of his life; basically walking away from a film 'career'(such as it was) and onto the streets of San Francisco, where sightings of him evoke the kind of response one heard about the Swedish Sphynx in New York. Apparently well off financially (or maybe just thrifty) his story is never tipped to the tragic, nor is it ever truly comic. What WAS incredible was to see icons I admire,John Waters and Armistead Maupin, have the same sort of giddiness towards spotting Berlin that I might have towards spotting them(although that doesn't happen in my town). As for the film, the pace moved swiftly and succinctly, and the color of the 70's footage was spectacular. I felt the filmmakers presented the facts, but ultimately lets the viewer judge Peter Berlin and draw our own conclusion; is he crazy, or merely the quaint and eccentric archetype you'd expect to find in San Francisco? Was he ahead of his time, or an aspect of a time we're just re-discovering? The footage of 'vintage' Peter(in that glorious color) interspersed with Peter today were not as jarring or 'Norma Desmond-y' as you might fear,and in that respect the film never fell into either camp celebration or spiteful mockery, which I found refreshing. Considering so many men of Peter's era were lost to the AIDS crisis, THAT MAN is an 'essential': a filmed document of a time in queer history nearly lost. We should be thankful this story has been recorded.

I had the pleasure of joining a near capacity audience for the North American Premier of "That Man: Peter Berlin" at the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. The film provides a provocative and entertaining look at the life of this 70's gay sex icon who has for years shunned any camera but his own. Containing hundreds of Berlin's pictures of himself (every inch of himself), his vain, self absorbed persona drew me in much as it apparently drew in thousands when he was a 30 year old exhibitionist hunk cruising the streets of San Francisco in his white, skin tight, pants (with a bushel sized basket) and blonde page-boy haircut in the 70's.

Armistead Maupin, John Waters and porn legend Jack Wrangler, together with Producer Lawrence Helman provide insight and commentary into this extraordinary life. Robert Maplethorpe and Andy Warhol provided a glowing peer review from the grave of this interesting photographer cum street performance artist. Possibly most remarkable was the on camera interaction between the Director and the painfully shy Armin (Berlin's real name) about his life experience and his unique take on sex and sexuality.

Director, Jim Tushinski, did a remarkable job of introducing us to both the persona "Peter Berlin" and the reclusive 62 year old from San Francisco who created this iconic persona during his youth.

This is Tushinski's first documentary. While the 80 minutes passed quickly with so much eye candy, the film could benefit from some additional editing and deletion of some stock footage of seemingly irrelevant gay pride parades and such improving both the pace and the length of the film.

If you don't like self-absorbed crazy people, this film isn't for you. You should probably also avoid moving to San Francisco, because he's not really that unusual by SF standards. I remember seeing him standing around in the Castro (at Hibernia Beach!) in the seventies. Even though it was an era of sexual freedom that we can barely conceive now, seeing him was shocking. The film doesn't really convey what it was like to see this caricature of male sex in his see-through pants with enormous basket on display. The first time that I saw him, I just kept thinking, "Isn't he going to be arrested?". Later that evening, I had other thoughts. I had no idea who he was until this movie came out, but that image is still burned into my brain. It was transfixing, and this film is a nostalgic look at the era that made him an icon.

The persona was always unique, but I didn't find him sexy--rather exactly the visual object he mostly saw himself as, and continually sought to create.

This was very worthwhile, though, and he was very much an interesting part of the Andy Warhol Pop period. The snippets of 'Nights in Black Leather' prove that the film work was inferior even for porno of the time. A short such as 'Chute' with Al Parker and the far more gorgeous and naturally sexy Colt model Toby (it would be interesting to know what has happened to this long-ago, never-surpassed porn icon as well; I only know he is apparently still alive, but there must be something, since such illustrious authorities as 'Smutjunkies' have decided that, if they do know anything, it's on the q.t.) was actually a nice, even poetic bit of work, and not sloppily edited like the Warhol things with Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, etc. Peter De Rome's 'Adam and Yves' was exciting when it arrived in 1974, although De Rome can be a bit corny.

I do agree with the porn spokesmen in the film that the concentration on this persona was very intense and that does make him a real artist, although quite minor. It was interesting that there was a lot of footage of him in informal appearances during the 70's. However, calling him the 'Greta Garbo of porn' is a bit much, as this film alone proves he wants some more visibility. As solipsistic as she became, her knowledge of life and art was considerably wider than his appears to be. Furthermore, his work is of interest, but not that of a cinematic genius, which hers is.

And what is interesting is that, even with this strange persona still intact, he is to me visually by now quite beautiful--there was a cheap look to the self-conscious Peter Berlin of the tight white pants; by now, the mouth has widened and is more relaxed and he is by now at last a truly beautiful man. I paid little attention to him during his heyday, when his face, in particular, looked like that of an inflatable girl dildo.

So that he and others concentrate on his look as well as his imaginative use of various forms to capture it--most fascinating perhaps was his hiring of Tom of Finland to give him even more exaggerated self-images. However, facts such as his long friendship with James, which was very touching and showed his less purely narcissistic side, and his confession that he had fornicated no one in the U.S., were quite rarefied, given his street performance.

There was interesting commentary by Jack Wrangler, who apparently also has rooms made into self-shrines but is much more the part-hetero guy his parents must surely have preferred to his burlesque 'n' porn days (even if his wife is 20 plus years older than he, himself no spring chicken, is.) The problem of this kind of neurosis, even when successful, is that there is a peculiar lack of interest in much of anything else. Anti-war comments are merely childish, but some of the family background was interesting. This kind of 'dream person', though, tells about early childhood, and there is no follow-up about any further relationships with his family, leading one to assume he left them for good, and remains intoxicated with the days when he can still walk the streets and be told he's 'cute.' He is definitely 'cute' now, and could afford to wear a lot of dressy things and be a great stylish older beauty by now, and the looser clothing he is seen in when interviewed in the film shows that his taste is still sharp. Some of us have even found it to be improved. I didn't remember until the very end of the feature that I did see him once around Christopher Street in his 'That Boy' period, which I found interesting but not alluring. He definitely had his audience, though.

Best wishes to Mr. Peter Berlin.

I might not want to go to a party with Peter Berlin but I really enjoyed hanging out with him for a while. It's a challenging film. It addresses so many issues but ultimately it is about art and narcissism. It's not a gay film. It's a film about making statements and Peter Berlin's happens to deal with his self-image and part of that is his sexuality.

The film reminded me that we all define ourselves and that it's good to know yourself. It also reminded me to be in the fully moment and that whatever I think is beautiful is beautiful.

Not bad things to be reminded of in my opinion.