1. Sketches Of Frank Gehry Documentary
2. Sketches Of Frank Gehry By Sydney Pollack

Release date:May 12, 2006
(NY; LA release: May 19)

Studio:Sony Pictures Classics

Any one seen the new Sydney Pollack documentary, 'Sketches of Frank Gehry'? I don't usually like to be a naysayer, but I was pretty appalled by the whole thing. What little respect I had for Gehry is now completely gone. His architecture is pompous, vacuous and completely self-indulgent. How can the answer be improved? Sydney Pollack's film, Sketches of Frank Gehry, is constructed the way most film biographies are, interviews intertwined with snippets of life story and gorgeous images of the art. Gehry is an unassuming character, which, as most of the folks in the film will attest, is a very effective mask for the man's ego and ambition, which would have to be huge to have constructed so many monumental structures. Sketches Of Frank Gehry. Sydney Pollack's Sketches Of Frank Gehry belongs unashamedly to the 'let us now praise great men' school of hagiography. An accomplished character actor and middling middlebrow auteur, Pollack maintains a respectful distance from his friend and subject, architect Frank Gehry.

Director:Sydney Pollack

Sketches of Frank Gehry by Sydney Pollack (2005). The Sketches of Frank Gehry paints his process expertly. If the movie has a flaw, it's that could use more special features. The only ones. “Sketches of Frank Gehry' is director Sydney Pollack's first feature length documentary on the acclaimed architect, Frank O. The two men have been friends for many years, and Pollack completed the film. Sketches Of Frank Gehry (2006) Film director Sydney Pollack, who knew little about architecture except what he himself admired, was invited by his friend, the renowed architect Frank Gehry, to make a documentary about his life and working methods.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 (for brief strong language)

Screenwriter:Not available

Starring:Philip Johnson, Sir Bob Geldof, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Dennis Hopper, Michael Ovitz, Milton WexlerCambridge esol delta handbook.

Genre:Documentary

Official website:SketchesofFrankGehry.com

Plot Summary:

'I prefer the sketch quality, the tentativeness, the messiness, the appearance of in-progress rather than the assumption of total resolution and finality.'Sketches of Frank Gehry' is director Sydney Pollack's first feature length documentary on the acclaimed architect, Frank O. Gehry.The two men have been friends for many years, and Pollack completed the film over a period of five years, starting in 2000.Frank Gehry loves to sketch; it is the beginning of his architectural process. And it is his love of the sketch that gave Pollack his first clues to the style of this documentary film. Beginning with Gehry's own original sketches for each major project, the film explores Gehry's process of turning these abstract drawings, first into tangible, three-dimensional models, often made simply of cardboard and scotch tape, then into finished buildings of titanium and glass, concrete and steel, wood and stone.To capture the sketch quality in the documentary, Pollack uses a combination of film and Mini DV (digital video) as his media. Spending countless hours in Gehry's studio, on building sites, and in his home, this unobtrusive and quiet shooting style has captured, for the first time, the essence of Gehry's unique architectural process, and his shy and elusive personality.As a counterpoint to the deliberate informality — the sketch quality — of Pollack's work with the video camera, he painstakingly captures on film, the grandeur of Gehry's architecture, from his earliest building, a hay barn in California, to what are now recognized to be some of the great buildings of the modern era, including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.The dialogue between Pollack and Gehry, as intimate as that of any two friends of long standing, courses like a continuous melodic line through the film.At the heart of the film is the low-key, informal quality that Pollack brings to his conversations with Gehry, and the many other participants in the film. This is not a film about rarified architectural theory. On the contrary, Pollack's ability to pierce the skin of architectural theory allows him to draw deep insights into the life of this extraordinary architect and his singular architectural process.

Sketches of Frank Gehry is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by Ultan Guilfoyle, about the life and work of the Canadian-American architectFrank Gehry. The film was screened out of competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.^[1] Pollack and Gehry had been friends and mutual admirers for years.^[2] The film features footage of various Gehry-designed buildings, including Anaheim Ice (the training rink of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim), the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was the final film to be directed by Sydney Pollack before his death in 2008.

The film includes interviews with other noted figures, including the following:

• Thomas Krens (former director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)
• Dr Milton Wexler (Gehry's therapist)

The film also discusses work on Gehry's own residence, which was one of the first works that brought him to notoriety.

References[edit]

1. ^'Festival de Cannes: Sketches of Frank Gehry'. festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-12-17.
2. ^A.O. Scott (12 May 2006). 'In Sketches of Frank Gehry, a Design for Living Large'. New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-27.

External links[edit]

Sketches Of Frank Gehry Documentary

• Sketches of Frank Gehry on IMDb

Sketches Of Frank Gehry By Sydney Pollack