ON MAN - AND HIS BEST FRIEND.Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer WHAT DO YOU GET when you cross a dog lover with a poetic soul and world-renowned photographic skills? You get endless footage of dogs romping, splashing, eating, sleeping and generally doing what dogs do. You get a movie like ``A Letter to True,'' photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber's riff on dogs, surfers, life, Liz Taylor and this crazy, mixed-up world we all inhabit. True is, as you might have guessed, a pooch, one of a stable of golden retrievers owned by Weber and his partner, Nan Bush. Weber address his letter - his movie - to True because the dog has proven himself a mighty good listener. The 78-minute documentary has a loosely structured, ``here's what I've been thinking about'' feel to it as Weber contemplates a post-9/11 world and flashes back to some of the key encounters in his life and career. He revisits the inspirational Vietnam photographer Larry Burrows Larry Burrows (May 29, 1926 to February 10, 1971) was a photographer best known for his pictures of the American involvement in the Vietnam War. Burrows was born in London in 1926. He left school at age 16 and took a job in Life magazine's London bureau. , pulls out his encounters with Dirk Bogarde and Elizabeth Taylor, quotes Martin Luther King Jr. and gets stirred into action after seeing Jonathan Demme's film, ``The Agronomist.'' He visits a farm and lets his camera do its work as members of a large family frolic Frolic - A Prolog system in Common Lisp. ftp://ftp.cs.utah.edu/pub/frolic.tar.Z. like overgrown overgrown said of a part that has not been kept trimmed. overgrown hoof overgrown hooves put unusual stresses on bones and tendons and allow for distortion of the wall and sole. teenagers in their rain- and mud-soaked pasture as their mom brags about being kicked out of Wal-Mart and talks about the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Dogs often function as the unifying thread, and sometimes they don't. Dog fancying Elizabeth Taylor - whom Weber photographed and befriended - is shown as a teenager via footage from ``The Courage of Lassie Lassie canine star of popular film and TV series. [TV: Terrace, II, 13–15; Radio: Buxton, 135] See : Dogs .'' Taking a black-and-white camera tour around New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of (to the strains of Rodgers and Hart's ``Manhattan''), Weber picks out dogs of every size, shape and stripe. Interspersed - rather seamlessly - with Weber's reflections and weightier matters are stories about dogs. Ordinary dogs and remarkable dogs. Goldens seems to dominate the film if for no other reason than because that's Weber's breed of choice. ``A Letter to True'' is, ultimately, a kind of witty and erudite er·u·dite adj. Characterized by erudition; learned. See Synonyms at learned. [Middle English erudit, from Latin siesta of a movie that feels less weighty than the issues it raises. Weber is a sly raconteur rac·on·teur n. One who tells stories and anecdotes with skill and wit. [French, from raconter, to relate, from Old French : re-, re- + aconter, with great names to drop, and his doggie footage is a kick. A certain segment of any audience figures to identify with a tabloid report that Doris Day divorced her last husband after he asked that five of their dogs not be allowed to sleep on their bed. ``That's why they don't let dogs into 7-Eleven,'' Weber opines Opines are low molecular weight compounds found in plant crown gall tumors produced by the parasitic bacterium Agrobacterium. Opine biosynthesis is catalyzed by specific enzymes encoded by genes contained in a small segment of DNA (known as the T-DNA, for 'transfer DNA') , ``because they'd get too bummed out by the tabloids.'' There's dog logic for you. Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651 evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com A LETTER TO TRUE - Three stars (Not rated: brief nudity) Starring: Narration by Julie Christie and Marianne Faithfull. Director: Bruce Weber. Running time: 1 hr. 18 min. Playing: Landmark's Nuart, West Los Angeles
In a nutshell: A documentary for the pooch - and the poet - in all of us. |
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