09/02/06 Sketches Of Frank Gehry

Sketches Of Frank Gehry (2005), directed by Sydney Pollack

watched w/ Leslie; DVD rental (Netflix) @ home

Being that I come into this heavily influenced by a love for architecture and design, went to college for such a love making models and whipping up sketches into the wee hours of the night, and currently work in the construction/design field in fabrication of buildings...this one was special to me. I always love oberving, studying and commenting on architecture throughout the world...and a good documentary that does the same, and about a fascinating character as Frank O. Gehry will make me happy every time. If you are not familiar with his work by now, as in recent years he has produced what is considered one of the greatest pieces of sculptural architecture ever (the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain), I highly recommend that you check it out for yourself. The man is as most architects are...goofy, complicated, tortured soul, talented, introspective and downright odd. What is refreshing in this documentarian take, is that the filmmaker is not only an established one in Pollack, but also fresh to the game as it is his first foray into documentaries...as well as being a close personal friend of the subject. Being a revolutionary thinker in the modern architectural world, Gehry comes across on screen as just your average guy with an incredible work ethic and attention to his craft. The film delves a little bit into his past, his influences, and shows candidly his process of making sculptural buildings from the beginning sketch stages into models of differing materials virtuality and scale, and finally into the real world production on-site in a landscape. However hare-brained some of his architectural schemes may have seemed in the past to his colleagues (whom he wanted to break away from their traditionalized thinking), he is now widely hailed as a genius. Whatever your take on his work, you have to give him credit for flying the flag of uniqueness...I just may sound a bit biased as I do enjoy most of his work. I could sit here for hours pontificating on the merits of style in his work, or architectural theories in general (trying to sound really smart basically)...but this film stays short but sweet to the point. It tries to show a personalized version of a man who is largely seen through only his iconic work, by another man from another craft who happens to be his friend and admirer. As much as I am glad to be out of the academic world...it's these types of films that make me pine for the days of late-night studio creativity with my architectural cohorts.

5 out of 5 stars