"Peter is a full body genitalia" - filmmaker Wakefield Poole

If you were gay in the days before the video age, back when our only entertainment was magazines and more magazines, then you have probably seen a picture of Peter Berlin. His faux S&M leather look, cap tilted over his eyes, his slim , fit body leaning assuredly against a brick wall... his pants... MY GOD! His pants must surely be stuffed with a cucumber. No one could have a cock that big... Could they?

Peter Berlin is an icon in gay history. His image is immediately recognizable to anyone over 30. I've seen his picture for years. I've heard that he was in films and I know that one is called "Nights in Black Leather." I assumed he was in a lot of porn. Isn't he a porn star?

For the casual viewer like myself, "That Man: Peter Berlin" is the ultimate primer on the man and his myth. Not only do we discover this intriguing and charismatic image but also the man behind it, how he cultivated it, and what it meant in the context of gay history. Peter Berlin was the ultimate in gay empowerment and open living in the 70's. The image he presented on film was the same one he brought out on the street. He was more than just open sexual expression and voyeuristic eye candy, he was a living monument to the beauty of the male physique and the joy of gay sex.

We learn through this documentary by Jim Tushinski that Peter took pictures of himself, acting as photographer and model. We also discover that he was only in two films, the aforementioned "Nights" and a film called "That Boy," both around in 1974. Berlin wasn't a pornographer. He was an icon- ographer. He turned his life into art and his sexual expression into photographs. Many think he turned the sexual fetish of voyeurism into an artform but this is the effect he had on his audience. Peter himself, as his sexual inclination is described in the doc, actually had the fetish of cock-teasing. He didn't meet men and fuck them. He met them, lured them, teased them, made them want him desperately, and then moved on to the next one. This was his fetish. His art reflects this wont. He walked down the street looking like Peter Berlin, sexual icon. (John Waters compares his public persona to that of Jayne Mansfeild who used to walk down the streets of L.A. in full Hollywood starlet drag).

Through recollections via interviews of Berlin, plus interviews with the likes of other gay cultural icons such as the aforementioned Waters as well as Armistead Maupin, Wakefield Poole, Rick Castro and others, the life of this amazing gay sex poster child, most noted for fetishizing his own image, is examined. Berlin, now in his 60's, still looks quite good and his seeming youthful vanity has now emerged as sexual empowerment and made his image forever emblazoned on the gay history landscape. But we also get to see much of the "private" Peter Berlin here as well. His childhood in Nazi Germany, born with the name Armin, is also discussed as well as his 20 year relationship with his "partner" who died of AIDS in the 80's.

Chock full of wonderful stock footage and photos from Berlin's life and art (which are often one and the same), "That Man: Peter Berlin" is more than just a documentary about a model in the 70's. There is much more to the story here. This isn't a story about a beautiful boy who made a lot of money selling his films and photos in magazines in the 70's; it's about the life of a man who opened up the world of gay sexual freedom to a generation and made a place for himself in history in doing so. When young gay men seek to study their cultural past, the name Peter Berlin is one they should be taught.

Notes:

Sal Mineo, a friend of Berlin's, is mentioned and shown briefly. Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe are also mentioned briefly.

A Klaus Nomi song is used over the end credits and a song called "Captain Groovy and His Bubblegum Army" (which I MUST have!) is used effectively over some period footage of the 70's.

The title, obviously, is a reference to Berlin's 1974 film, "That Boy."

Viewed at Agliff 2005 with Johnny Oh! Director Jim Tushinski was in attendance and during a Q&A after the film, he said that his favorite part of making the film, other than meeting and getting to know Peter, was the fact that he got to develop and see tons and tons of undeveloped negatives, both photos and film stock, that Berlin had laying in storage under his bed for years. Some of it even Berlin did not know what it was until it was exposed.

He told us that he is trying to get Peter to will all of his archive material (his photos, costumes, etc...) to some Gay and Lesbian Historical society but that Peter just doesn't really understand such things. "He kinda feels like whoever gets to his place first after he dies gets all his stuff."

He also told us that Berlin was going to have a major exhibit of his work in NYC in January of '06 at the Lindsey Lohman Gallery.

Report Card

Content: A+

Completeness: A+

Cinematography/Lighting: A-

Special Effects/Make Up: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: A+