#425: TESHIGAHARA, Hiroshi: Antonio Gaudí (1984)

TESHIGAHARA, Hiroshi (Japan)

Antonio Gaudí [1984]

Spine #425
DVD

Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926) designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. Here their artistry melds in a unique, enthralling cinematic experience. Less a documentary than a visual poem, Teshigahara's Antonio Gaudí takes viewers on a tour of Gaudí's truly spectacular architecture, including his massive, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família cathedral in Barcelona. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject's organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film.

72 minutes
Color

Monaural

in Japanese

1:33:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2008

Director

Hiroshi Teshigahara was 57 when he directed Antonio Gaudi.

Other Teshigahara films in the Collection:

#393: Pitfall (1962)
#394: Woman In The Dunes (1964)
#395: The Face Of Another (1966)

The Film

God’s architect.

Shot entirely on a 28mm lens, Teshigahara manages to capture the finest details of Gaudi’s incredible work.

Only the haunting music of Tōru Takemitsu, Kurôdo Môri and Shinji Hori accompanies the richly photographed images, until around the 1:00:00 mark, when Teshigahara interviews Isidre Puig Boada (1891-1987) — Gaudi’s collaborator and successor.

The straight line was surely Gaudi’s principal enemy; his friends, the ever-towering elephantine trunks, the sensual, undulating, palpitations of everything that moved and grew.

Teshigahara captures all this with a magical cinematic flair.

Film Rating (0-60):

57

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-page booklet featuring essays by Dore Ashton, Teshigahara, and A Photographic View of Travels in the West.

“Gaudi’s pictorial and sculptural penchant has always astounded viewers, and Teshigahara was no exception. But with his craftsman’s eye for detail, he scans with his camera the particulars of Gaudi’s sculptural fantasies, most notable on the rooftops of his Barcelona apartment houses and in the famous Park Güell. From close-ups to middle-distance shots, Gaudi’s exuberance as both a sculptor and a mosaic painter becomes eminently legible. Clearly Teshigahara had armed himself with a knowledge of Gaudi’s architectural sources — from Spanish Moorish sites such as the Alhambra to medieval Catalan churches to photographs Gaudi had seen as an architectural student of Byzantine structures and Gothic cathedrals — and deduced his originality. Gaudi may have been familiar with the old Arabic technique of trencadis, or fragmented tile or glass, but in his extravagance he turned it into a new pictorial technique. Teshigahara explores the sculptural chimneys and ventilators on several of Gaudi’s rooftops, and offers a summary in the lingering shots of the famed Park Güell. There Gaudi ceded to his longtime collaborator, Josep Jujol, the undulating surfaces of the terrace, covered finally with marvelous mosaic patterns created with shards of broken glass and tile.”

Commentary

None.

Video interview

With architect Arata Isozaki.

Gaudi, Catalunya, 1959

Footage from director Teshigahara’s first trip to Spain.

Twenty-five years before he made.the film, the director first visited Barcelona and shot on 16mm — the images are nevertheless extremely beautiful!

Additionally, there are scenes of his meeting with Salvador Dalí.

Visions of Space

God’s Architect, a one-hour BBC special on Gaudi’s life and work.

Robert Hughes takes us on a delightful tour.

Program

On Gaudi by director Ken Russell.

Reverential.

Sculptures by Sofu — Vita

A short film by Teshigahara on the sculpture of his father, Sofu Teshigahara.

Wonderful extra, made around the same time as Woman in the Dunes (Spine #394).

Original theatrical trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

36

57 + 36 =

93

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