SYNOPSIS:
Frank Gehry loves to sketch; it is the beginning of his architectural
process. And it is his love of the sketch that gave Sydney
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.
MOVIE
REVIEW
Sydney
Pollack just can't stop expanding his portfolio. He's already
an award-winning director of hits such as "The Firm"
and "Out Of Africa", an established producer ("Cold
Mountain") and also an accomplished actor ("Eyes
Wide Shut").
And now
he has made his very first documentary, "Sketches of
Frank Gehry".
To
the uninitiated, Frank O. Gehry is neither a superstar nor
a politician. He's an acclaimed architect who has designed
some of the world’s renowned buildings. And yes, his
design were among the few finalists selected for our Sentosa
IR bidding. Remember that white mass of tissue-like building?
Yup that’s from Gehry. However, Sydney is not here to
dissect his friends’ works in detail. He is more into
the creative process behind and the man himself.
What makes Frank Gehry's designs so fascinating is his child-like
doodles and his creatively usage of art materials to create
a ‘prototype’ of his building on every project.
He's simply not just an architect but an artist as well.
Sydney
and his crew spent a period of at least 5 years carefully
capturing each of the processes on digital video. To bring
out the qualities of the designer, Sydney recorded many conversations
with Gehry’s friends, colleagues including Disney ex-CEO
Michael Eisner and Dennis Hopper.
At
the end, this is a decent tribute to an extraordinary architect.
A behind-the-scenes look at how an abstract drawing turns
into the Guggenheim museum in New York for example. No heavy
political propaganda to bore you and no gossipy news bits
to entice you.
Oh
and did I mention it’s cool to have a filmmaker as a
friend around.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL because I guess there's no point including a
making of feature on how to record conversations.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The audio and visual quality for "Sketches" is decent
enough for a movie let alone a documentary.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
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