Sketches of Frank Gehry 2005

In his first documentary, Hollywood director Sydney Pollack (Tootsie, Out of Africa) provides a lucid and engaging personal introduction to one of the most intriguing and popular architects of our time, 77-year-old Frank Gehry, who happens to be his close friend. In an effort to better understand Gehry's architecture, he delves into his childhood and passions, even talking to his 94-year-old therapist. Gehry talks modestly, but with appealing enthusiasm, about his ideas and the process of turning them into buildings. We see how his strong, hastily sketched curves become structures, and how computers and technology (which he doesn’t pretend to understand) have changed his ability to translate what he sees into swirling, structural icons like the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Pollack talks to happy Gehry clients and assistants, to artists Ed Ruscha and Chuck Arnoldi, and even finds a token detractor to bemoan the branding power of Gehry’s fame.

"Refreshing, instructive and very satisfying." — Richard Shickel, Time