Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman is an utterly affable look at the life of the now-deceased photographer whose depictions of Southern California modernist architecture made a hippy artistic movement into a lasting cultural phenomenon. Schulman (an active participant in the documentary but passed away before it was released) hooked up with Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry at a time when Los Angeles itself was in a state of re-creation and upheaval. The film provides a glimpse into the rarefied world of modernist architecture and the people who mortgage themselves to the teeth trying to protect it.
Though the bulk of the work depicted in his photographs are private residences, Schulman's complicated relationship with higher education provides the documentary's framework. As a young man he attended seven years of college without completing a degree, when universities appeared in his work he often showed them as imposing institutions but (in a closing scene that has become quite cliche in non-fiction storytelling) by the end of the film Schulman is presented with an honorary doctorate. The film also delights in using animated sequences to illustrate the creation, influence and clashes in the history of modern design starting in the early 1900s all the way to the present. These scenes demonstrate that an appreciation for the fine art is a living thing -- agnostic to where (or why, or if) the viewer attended school.
Because of the
advanced age of so many of the subjects, most of the people available
as experts are the children, assistants, devotees and students of these
men who are, understandably, uncritical. And while not every
documentary needs to be an expose to be interesting, a few interesting
nuggets go by with nary a follow-up question. Several references are
made to Schulman being strongly favored by his mother over his four
siblings growing up. At this late stage in his life one wonders
how that impacted his artistic growth and/or his own parenting
practices (his daughter contributes a great deal of doting, if
content-less commentary). We also hear several sideways comments about
Schulman clashing with his frequent collaborator Richard Neutra but no
further explanation on how that affected their work process over time.
There
are also a few celebrity enthusiasts interviewed including actress
Kelly Lynch, who happily discusses how much she loves her
Neutra-designed home -- even as she and her husband admit in the same breath that
much of the space is impractical and rarely used. Fashion designer and
film-maker Tom Ford delights in providing a cultural context for
understanding how this work was conceived in a time of equal discovery
(landing on the moon!) and uncertainty (Cuban missile crisis!) It goes
unmentioned in Visual Acoustics (probably due to the timing of the
productions), but Ford used a John Lautner-designed home for his recent film A Single Man.
Filling out the celebrity involvement, actor Dustin Hoffman provides
the film's narration.
Director Eric Bricker has created a
comprehensive document of something we're not frequently invited to
consider, the natural beauty of Los Angeles (as interpreted through the
creation of lavish homes). As we sit in the aftermath of a recently
collapsed housing market, that's left an uncertain economy and
thousands of abandoned McMansions in its wake, Visual Acoustics
provides a pleasant psychic sabbatical to a time when enormous amounts
of wealth were being thrown into home construction and it created something with a
lasting legacy and infinite imagination.
Visual Acoustics is playing in select cities. In Portland at the Living Room Theaters.
RIYL: Objectified, The Kid Stays in the Picture, Los Angeles Plays
Itself, No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, Herb & Dorothy, My Kid Could Paint That.
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