Sketches of Frank Gehry

Hahmotelmia Frank Gehrystä. US/DE © 2006 Mirage Enterprises / SP Architecture Productions LLC. Series: American Masters. EX: Susan Lacy, Sydney Pollack, Hiro Yamagata, Maya Hoffmann, Stanley F. Buchthal. P: Ultan Guilfoyle. D: Sydney Pollack. DP: Marcus Birsel, Claudio Rocha, George Tiffin. Video photography: Sydney Pollack, Ultan Guilfoyle. M: Claes Nystrom, Jonas Sorman. S: Jon Oh. ED: Karen Schmeer. Research: Heidi Druckemiller, Hope Hall.
    Featuring: Frank O. Gehry, Michael Eisner, Bob Geldof, Dennis Hopper, Philip Johnson, Sydney Pollack, Eddie Ruscha, Julian Schnabel, Chuck Arnoldi, Mildred Friedman, Michael Ovitz, Craig Webb, Charles Jencks, Jim Glymph, Svenn Neumann, Edwin Chan, Tim Paulson, Thomas Krens (Director, Guggenheim Foundation), Rolf Fehlbaum, Milton Wexler (Gehry's analyst), Norman Rosenthal, Juan Ignacio Vidarte (Director, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao), Nerea Abasolo, Hal Foster, Herbert Muschamp, Peter Lewis, Esa-Pekka Salonen. 83 min.
    A 35 mm print from Fortissimo viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Cinema and Architecture), 23 March 2012

Works on display:
Spiller Residence – 1979, Venice, California
Norton Residence – 1984, Venice, California
Wynton Guest House – 1987, Wayzata, Minnesota
Sirmai Peterson Residence – 1988, Thousand Oaks, California
Vitra Furniture Museum – 1989, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Disney Ice – 1995, Anaheim, California
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao – 1997, Bilbao, Spain
Richard Serra, Snake – 1997
Gehry fish lamps – 1980s
Fish – 1992, Barcelona, Spain
O’Neill Hay Barn – 1968, San Juan Capistrano, California
Davis Residence – 1972, Malibu, California
Gehry Residence – 1978, Santa Monica, California
Studies for the Lewis mansion, 1991-1995
Maggie’s Place – 2002, Dundee, Scotland
Walt Disney Concert Hall – 2003, Los Angeles, California
DG Bank – 2001, Berlin, Germany

Sydney Pollack's last movie and his only documentary is a great movie on architecture and a fine study of an artist by a fellow artist and friend. Pollack had privileged access with his video camera to Gehry's creative process. The buildings and their enviroments and several interviews were shot on glorious 35 mm.

Topical in Finland because of the hotly debated project to establish a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki. I think it should be done in a spirit of good networking with the Finnish art scene and strengthening the art route from Saint Petersburg (Eremitage) to Helsinki, Stockholm (Moderna Museet), and Denmark (Louisiana).

Pollack and Gehry shared the dilemma of personal expression in a field that makes stringent commercial demands.

"Talent is liquified trouble". Gehry tells candidly of his difficult path. He has even had a therapy of 35 years with Milton Wexler to learn to understand himself better.

Gehry tells that Alvar Aalto was his greatest inspiration in his student years. There is a quick, beautiful Alvar Aalto montage emphasizing the Gehry connection.

The movie is Jewish relevant. Because of anti-semitism Frank Goldberg had to develop a fighting spirit.

"If you go back why stop at the Greek. Go to the fish." "The most important influence is the client". "By the time I get to the building I don't like it". "A building is like one of my children".

I like the playful score by Claes Nystrom and Jonas Sorman.

The visual centerpiece of the movie is Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Made primarily for tv, this movie on architecture works ideally on a cinema screen

The 35 mm print does justice to the visual beauty of the cinematography.