Visual Acoustics – The modernism of Julius Schulman
I must have been asleep at the wheel, but last night I realized that Visual Acoustics – The Modernism of Julius Schulman is available to watch instantly on Netflix. This is what the film’s web site says about it.
Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California’s modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.
This film is a must see for anyone who loves modern architecture and for those who would like to get a quick education on the history of modern architecture. Schulman’s life work followed that history from it’s beginning until his death July 15, 2009 at the age of 98. The film won the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature as well as awards at the Austin Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival and the Lone Star International Film Festival. So Netflix’ers, grab some popcorn and login to your account to watch, or if you do not have an account, click here, and start your free trial to watch. Hope you enjoy it.
Here is the Trailer:
Visual Acoustics from wes on Vimeo.
This film was shown at the University of North Florida on Saturday, February 13th. The director Eric Bricker was on hand and Jacksonville turned out maybe a crowd of 13 people, including one young man from Jacksonville who is a design student at SCAD and drove down alone from Savannah. We really should turn out a better crowd for these types of events. Where were the Jacksonville Film Fest types? The Q & A after was really intriguing and Mr. Bricker was very humble. It was really an awesome night for me, a fiend for good design and all things Palm Springs!
Cat,
Sorry we missed the film at UNF. We would have been there if we knew about it. We have been in contact with the people at the http://coastmodernfilm.com/ and http://citizenarchitectfilm.com/ to try to get a showing here. If you hear about any architecture/design films that you think we would be interested in, please let us know about them and we can get the word out with our Blog, Twitter, and Facebook. Thanks for the comment.
I remember hearing something about this showing here in Jax, but like so many others, I did not make it. As Cat pointed out, we need to do a better job of promoting this kind of stuff. There should have been at least 100 people there that night.
However, it is funny the manner in which you came about this movie. We just signed up for Netflix and this was the first movie I tried out to test our streaming capability. Love the film and love Shulman’s work. Aside from a picture of Falling Water that I saw when I was about 10 or 12 years old, Shulman’s case study shot (used above) was perhaps my first foray into modern architecture and a furthering of my love of architecture itself. The man was a treasure to the architectural community.
Thank you.
Amazing movie, amazing buildings, long life to modrn architecture.