My Movie
Tonight I watched a superb documentary on DVD, My Architect, directed by Nathaniel Kahn, the son of the film's subject, the late architect Louis Kahn.
The movie is a mystery story on several levels, chief among them an investigation into who his father was, a man he knew only as a weekly visitor in his childhood, a man who was married with a daughter yet who had two mistresses who each also had a child by him, one of whom grew up to be the filmmaker. Louis Kahn died of a heart attack in the men's room of New York's Penn Station when Nathaniel was eleven, and there's also a mystery surrounding his intentions at the time of his death that I won't give away. It's a moving, informative, haunting documentary.*
There's a scene when Nathaniel Kahn enters the capitol building in Bangladesh, which his father designed, and looks around in silent wonder at this masterpiece of architecture. I got the sense that it must have felt as though he were entering his father's mind at that moment. It was both an intimate and grand sensation for me, the viewer; I can only imagine what Nathaniel thought because he doesn't directly comment on it, though he hardly needs to. It's a great visual moment.
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* Yet another thing that I don't do nearly as much as I used to is watch movies, either in the theater or on DVD. I didn't put "watch more movies" on my list because it's a list of things I plan to do every day. (And I did all six today! Of course, it helped that I didn't go into work.) I have no desire to watch a movie every day even if I could. But this is another part of my identity -- i.e., that of a movie person -- that has fallen by the wayside in the last three years. (Those infamous last three years I allude to so often!) Perhaps because so many movies are bad or disappointing these days? That's certainly one reason, but not the whole story. Anyway, there's nothing like the excitement of a good movie.
The movie is a mystery story on several levels, chief among them an investigation into who his father was, a man he knew only as a weekly visitor in his childhood, a man who was married with a daughter yet who had two mistresses who each also had a child by him, one of whom grew up to be the filmmaker. Louis Kahn died of a heart attack in the men's room of New York's Penn Station when Nathaniel was eleven, and there's also a mystery surrounding his intentions at the time of his death that I won't give away. It's a moving, informative, haunting documentary.*
There's a scene when Nathaniel Kahn enters the capitol building in Bangladesh, which his father designed, and looks around in silent wonder at this masterpiece of architecture. I got the sense that it must have felt as though he were entering his father's mind at that moment. It was both an intimate and grand sensation for me, the viewer; I can only imagine what Nathaniel thought because he doesn't directly comment on it, though he hardly needs to. It's a great visual moment.
______
* Yet another thing that I don't do nearly as much as I used to is watch movies, either in the theater or on DVD. I didn't put "watch more movies" on my list because it's a list of things I plan to do every day. (And I did all six today! Of course, it helped that I didn't go into work.) I have no desire to watch a movie every day even if I could. But this is another part of my identity -- i.e., that of a movie person -- that has fallen by the wayside in the last three years. (Those infamous last three years I allude to so often!) Perhaps because so many movies are bad or disappointing these days? That's certainly one reason, but not the whole story. Anyway, there's nothing like the excitement of a good movie.
posted by Billy at 11:45 PM
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