I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, God. A movie about architecture.” Stick with me though, okay? This isn’t so much a movie about architecture as it is a movie about an artist and the creative process.

Frank Gehry is not your ordinary architect. He’s playful. He’s a rule breaker. He takes huge risks. A few minutes into the movie, someone recounts Gehry’s solution to the lack of light in his bathroom: he took a hammer and knocked a hole in the wall.

This documentary is made by Gehry’s close friend, Sydney Pollack. Although one designs buildings and one designs movies, it’s quite clear that, as artists, they understand each other. Gehry asked Pollack to direct the film. When Pollack protested, saying he knew nothing about documentaries, much less architecture, Gehry asserted that was why he was perfect for the job.

The opening dialogue is interesting, and introduces an ongoing discussion of the creative process to the film:

“Is starting hard?”
“You know it is. I don’t know what you do when you start, but I clean my desk, I make a lot of stupid appointments that I make sound important. Avoidance. Delay. Denial. I’m always scared that I’m not gonna know what to do. It’s a terrifying moment. And then when I start, I’m always amazed. ‘Oh, that wasn’t so bad.’”

I think most artists can relate to that feeling. In fact, as a writer, I related to a lot in this movie. Although it follows the life and career of one artist, a lot of it could apply to all artists.

One of my biggest issues with this movie is the way Pollack tends to shoot Gehry – from a camera resting in his lap. This creates a lot of annoying, MySpace-esque angles of his subject. However, Gehry’s buildings are presented beautifully, or at least as beautifully as they can be in a two-dimensional medium.

The film also explores Gehry’s relationship with clients, the way he takes risks with building materials, how technology has given him more freedom, and his relationship with his design partners. It’s an hour and 24 minutes long, which I suppose is average for a movie if not a little shorter. However, it starts to drag toward the end. You reach a point where you think, “Oh, God. It really is a movie about architecture.”

Sketches is worth a look if you’re curious about Gehry, his buildings, or architecture. If you aren’t interested in at least one of these things, I suspect your attention span will start to wane at some point.