E-Mail This Article to a Friend A LETTER TO TRUE

Photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber has made a career of shooting beautiful people for the likes of Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch. In this apostrophe to his youngest pup, True, dogs are his models: the credits list a host of hairdressers, dialogue coaches, and make-up artists for "stars" named Whizzy and Big Skye. Employing a collage of film stocks and still photography, home movies and military documentary footage, Weber follows colors and shapes rather than a coherent narrative in what purports to be a tribute to dogs and dog lovers. In fact, A Letter to True is a framing device for his own autobiographical musings, with the dogs as a metaphor for innocence lost. Above all a paean to post–September 11 America, the film is unified by vague tones of lost security and nostalgia punctuated by snapshots of patriotic pathos. There’s formal experimentation and sumptuous cinematography; there are also facile transitions, like the one between hobnobbing with Elizabeth Taylor and photographing Haitian refugees. Weber may have written his letter to True, but he addressed it to himself. (78 minutes)