MovieChat Forums > My Architect (2003) Discussion > Did not like this film

Did not like this film

posted 20 years ago by ruens
29 replies | jump to latest

I did not find this film particularly engrossing. Kahn's buildings' exteriors looked inert and depressing--like countless urban college campuses. And the man himself left a lot to be desired--when one of his fellow architects says "I don't know how he juggled the three families," I almost laughed. He didn't. That's how he did it! Having an artistic vision or nature does not justify abandoning two women and your children. I'd have to agree w/the old gal in Maine who said she didn't get his number or understand his charm.

[–] robodork1 20 years ago

Well, I think the point behind Kahns depressing buildings is somewhat symbolic of the life he led.

As per your comment on the juggling three families... ok, I see what you mean there.

[–] breached_25 20 years ago

I think your comments on this film are unfounded-you sound as if you think that you are more clever that people that wonder about Louis Kahns abilities to juggle three families(personally I was astounded that Kahns responsibilities did not catch up with him to a greater degree before he died);I must point out, however, that you see the subject as being the film itself, and that is a mistake. The film is not about just buildings. Obviously.
What made this an EXCELLENT documentary, was the narrative provided by Kahn's son Nathaniel, and the tensions between his own arrested development which leaves him somewhat childish, and the austere exteriors of Louis Kahn's buildings. This is demonstrated most poiniantly in the scene where Nathaniel Kahn is roller-blading around the grounds of the Salk Institute. This would, I am sure, be seen as an insult to works of Modernist Architecture, which is often elevated to the level of Ivory Tower;isolated from life, and certainly not to be worked in or lived in, let alone roller-bladed upon. Indeed what I found wonderful was a scene where a camera flew overhead the Kimble Art Gallery under construction, while Hank Williams is played on the radio. This brings Modern Architecture down to the ground, where it too is often not habitant.

I do not know if Nathaniel percieved the shadow of his own father's ego, which I think is expressed in the alien-ness of his Architectural exteriors. Kahn's Architecture is indeed cold and removed, and the symetrical nature of his style bores me to be honest. But then, the film wasn't really about that was it?

[–] dragoneyez01 19 years ago

I saw this at a film festival while in a creative writing class (not sure the relevance there, somehow I don't think there is...?).

Anyway, I honestly did not care for this film either.

The subject of the documentary is completely smarmy and unlikable. While some of his buildings look intriguing (esp. the Salk Institute in California - which I remembered from the movie 'Gattaca'), most of them are ominous and sterile. Lifeless and boring. The guy may have been "brilliant," but it's not a stretch of the imagination to see WHY he failed in most of his endeavors and ended up broke and alone. While the guy's personal life really should be sacred (which will lead to another criticism below), you have to admit he as an *beep* all capitol letters. Three families, several kids, and he remained aloof towards all of them. He played with lives and relationships and left when he got bored. Now, you can't judge the film on it's subject, but it certainly doesn't help the film.

Onto the movie... I found the entire thing to be dry and draining. Not the good movie-draining - the draining you get after being totally engrossed that you walk out of the theater with an adrenaline overhang - the draining you get after having a rollercoaster of emotions. This movie is draining because it's slow and frustrating and largely pointless.

As I said, Louis Kahn was a horrible person and at very least, an invisible dad, but that really doesn't given license to piss on his grave (which, essentially, is what this film is, once you get beyond the sappy sentament and intrusive structures). Even if the writer/director was his son, some things should be sacred. However, if Kahn needed to be outed as the jackass he was, at least it should have made a good movie. What's more dramatic than a repeat never-there father? Aparently paint drying, because the way the story is presented sucks any life out of the family "plot."

Nathaniel Kahn (the filmaker), does go for some comic relief to counteract the "drama." Needless to say, that's fairly tasteless, too. Old people can be hilariously funny in small doses, but at some parts this film seems to be taking the elderly jokes a little too far. I hope someone interviews Kahn when he's 80-odd years old so he can look "funny" and old.

The film does have some good parts. A few of the interviewees were genuinely interesting and had good things to say aside from the "oh, how cute, they're old" things. The cinematography is striking throughout the film, easily the best thing about the entire project.

Overall, this film manages to do two things I long thought was impossible. If a film manages to annoy you, it's usually not boring. This one, however, was an exception. It managed to bore me to death AND annoy the *beep* out of me. Maybe (though I doubt it) if I had someone like Kahn for a father, I'd metaphorically piss on his grave too. But, yeah, I doubt it.

[–] cookiela2001 9 years ago

<< Louis Kahn was a horrible person and at very least, an invisible dad, but that really doesn't given license to piss on his grave (which, essentially, is what this film is, once you get beyond the sappy sentament and intrusive structures). Even if the writer/director was his son, some things should be sacred. >>

Why should this son feel obliged to keep his father's secrets? This guy was a selfish, morally bankrupt husband and dad...and everyone's answerable for their choices and actions.

What I find lacking in the film is a real sense of who this man was and WHAT made him make the (highly questionable) choices he did. It's very...opaque on that level.

[–] natediggy43 18 years ago

What made this film unenjoyable was the fact that the director left little to be intrigued by Kahn. Kahn's architecture wasn't very gripping, so you don't connect with him in that sense. Second, he was made out as a man who couldn't tie his family life together BECAUSE of the dull architecture he was preoccupied with. There's two down and none to go. Uninteresting buildings that create a deadbeat dad don't inspire the sympathy Nathaniel kept expecting out of me. And Nathaniel decided not to venture much further. Kahn's ineptitude in family life and his architecture are circled around over and over in this film, never gaining momentum or showing us anything thing new over two hours. At least if it had been stimulating architecture and/or a colorful private life this film structure might have had somewhere to take the audience.

Instead of developing an understanding of the mans exalted body of work thru images, we're left primarily with his peers talking endlessly about his greatness. The film images of Kahn's work just can't muster anything on their own, or at least Nathaniel cuts us short and has us believe. In one scene he even speaks with an architect about the shame of having to film his building, because only being in it can its greatness be understood. And so we're left with the architect sputtering off about the building instead of seeing it for ourselves, admitting defeat to the audience as though the movie we're watching isn't working and we need an emotional intellectual to help find the connection to Kahn's legacy. In this case, was film really an appropriate method for the project, or was the cinematographer just not up to speed and this was the way to relinquish its shortcomings.

very little insight into Kahn is gained thru rambling about his integrity. After the integrity bit, Nathaniel has them comment on Kahn's personal life, and then they shy away and admit he had issues. OK, an architect with issues has been established, what more can Nathaniel provide me with in two hours?

Very dichotomous structure, very little to hold your attention. What's left to wonder about? what more is there to the man? Somehow something was missing to connect the audience with the subject matter. While this was a personal quest of Nathaniel searching out his father's life, he seems to have gotten trapped in experiencing him as the exalted mystery figure of his life, a mystic who need not be among mortal men, because of his uniqeness. But if that's the case, show it to me in your film so I can experience that too and stop being so mousy about it all.

Besides the muddled structure, many of the scenes seem outright contrived and manipulated. It's difficult to determine what really happened whilst filming and what he thought would be a good idea to 'smooth out' his production.

[–] naquib 19 years ago

i won't pass any comments regarding Kahn's ethical standards or libidinous prerogatives. I enjoyed the film for the way it presented him uncontaminated by academic posturing or blind devotion, extracted from his numerous quotables and scholarly pronouncements. On the qualities of his buildings, however, i must disagree with the opinion that they are "lifeless" and "sterile". His concepts go beyond the ornamental and decorative, and presents instead a concentrated expression of space through a subversion of the qualities often applied to certain materials (concrete and brick are turned into gracefully and pliable elements), and the contectualization of light. Where his geometric obsessions tie the plan of each buildings together, it is his uncanny and inspired insertion of light that unifies each work sectionally. In the end, all his buildings are about the pause and moment of experience.

Check out my website of photographs i took of his buildings, and please send feedback.

http://www.naquib.com/kahnpics

[–] JenBob 19 years ago

Your photos were excellent. Thank you for the link. I wanted to see a few more after watching the documentary. Although I know very little about architecture - and felt no connection to the buildings in most of the film --- the Bangladeshi captial was absolutely beautiful to me. Something from another world. Thank you for adding photos of it so I could see more of it.

[–] cinematicheroes 19 years ago

See, now I felt just the opposite - I was truly touched by this film, and I think this documentary was maybe the best feature-length doc in the last 10 years!!!! Though it was nominated for an Oscar, I still am baffled that it didn't win. How it didn't win is beyond me. I don't think that FOG OF WAR had half the emotion that this piece had.

As for the writer who found it dry. I think anyone who's ever had issued with either or both of their parents would truly relate to this film. Seems to me that most of the people who disliked it missed the point of the film entirely. No one in the film was saying Louis Kahn was a great guy, not even Nathaniel, his son. That much is evident by the section labeled THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BASTARD. But I think the journey that Nathaniel takes to try and get to know his father - and even harder understand him - through his buildings is amazing. And how he comes to cope with his father's double life.

I especially thought the exchange between Nathaniel and his mother was interesting where she is relaying that Louis Kahn was on his way back home to be with them forever. Nathaniel expresses, that while that's nice to believe, it really is a fairy tale, and his mother grows increasingly more angry and emotional. How could anyone find this dry? This is real life.

There were parts where I was moved to tears and had to fight them back, and the music in the film was picked perfectly. I actually liked that sequence a lot where Nathaniel roller-blades through the Salk Institute, and I think this film had a lot of heart.

Again, to me, I felt it was the best feature-length documentary in the last decade or so. I enjoyed it so much, and I saw it at the Cecchi-Gori Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, where it had an eight-month or so run. Amazing.

As a producer and writer myself, I advise anyone wishing to make a documentary with heart and real emotion to watch this first.

[–] Limeginger 18 years ago

The section entitled "The Truth about the Bastard" is referring to the filmmaker himself. He is literally a bastard--i.e., a child of an unwed mother.

The closing line uttered in the "The Truth about the Bastard" sequence---as the camera pans out on the lovely, expensive, warmly lit Martha's Vineyard house, in the midst of a perfect sunset---is by his level-eyed, aristocratic New England auntie, who, in her best dispassionate Brahmin drawl, marvels aloud to Nathaniel "while settling Mother's estate, even the solicitor found it astounding there was a bastard--in our family," or words to that effect. He's wielding the term "bastard" in the strict sense of the word, but also with enormous irony, and one might imagine, a touch of hurt. The panning out shot is warm and homey, but the narrative is in stark contrast--truly a cold sharp slap in the face...though delivered with the inimitable blase subtlty of a New England artistocrat.

I didn't like this film as much as I'd have liked to because it was edited poorly. The pacing is off. Furthermore, the filmmaker would have benefitted with sitting with and digesting the material longer before rushing into a film. Yes, I know, it took 5 years. But this is several people's lifetimes wrapped into one film--not to mention all the work of one influentual American architect. The filmmaker was too close to the information he'd uncovered, and the resulting ambiguity of the film translates not only to the "message" or "story," which is ok, but creates an ineffectively uneven, tentative effect throughout. A skillful editor may have helped somewhat. However, I believe the film could have reflected greater depth and artfulness had Nathaniel been able to wait another couple of years to figure out what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.

The "Bastard" scene mentioned above, and some of the Bangladesh work, are excellent examples of what the film might have been.

[–] architect_2k 19 years ago

It's been some time since I saw this documentary but I enjoyed it and am hoping to buy a copy. The film, like Kahn's architecture, will not appeal to all - just as you would expect from any form of art that has conviction.

In this case, an environment that appears to be stark and boring to one person is another person's solace or sanctuary. I hazard to guess that quite a few minimalists actually live chaotic lives which they are trying to make sense of or even escape from through their creations.

The comparison to a bleak urban campus is pertinent although I disagree that Louis Kahn's architecture is as such. Kahn used a similar language of concrete and masonry but employed them with artful skill. The repetition those campuses overuse for practicality is instead precise and limited. His facades are often austere but they achieve balance and harmony and do not lack in thought or detail. Adding trees, grass, wood and glass can help many a sorry building but even stripped down to their bare elements, Kahn's creations feel humanistic in spite of their monumentality.

As for the man, Kahn is never made out to be a hero in the movie but we are challenged to see the mysterious figure in a better light. As for the documentary, I believe the younger Kahn's search for the truth was done in an honest and heartfelt manner. Funny moments and a few real-life eccentrics give punch to the raw but deliberately crafted footage. Nathaniel did an excellent job of telling an entertaining true story.

MH

---
I did not find this film particularly engrossing. Kahn's buildings' exteriors looked inert and depressing--like countless urban college campuses. And the man himself left a lot to be desired--when one of his fellow architects says "I don't know how he juggled the three families," I almost laughed. He didn't. That's how he did it! Having an artistic vision or nature does not justify abandoning two women and your children. I'd have to agree w/the old gal in Maine who said she didn't get his number or understand his charm.

[–] billymac72 19 years ago

You raise some good points.

I'm not really understanding why many apparently feel that in order to appreciate this film, one needs to actually like Louis Kahn's buildings. I have to admit that his style is not my cup of tea either.

What I found extrordinary about this film is that Nathaniel, through his cinematography, focuses on many differing perspectives of the same buildings. For instance, when we visit Salk Institute, we see the stark angularity of the place set to classical music. In terms of photography, these scenes are quite beautiful. Actually being at the site, may be different, however. We're informed of the "exposed process" and shown detail of material that doesn't have much visual appeal, much like Kahn himself. And of course there is the Trenton bath house which, although significant, looks pretty decrepit. I have little doubt that Nathaniel didn't intend for us to see the sides.

But then Nathaniel uses the opportunity to roller blade through the institute's concourse, not to classical music, but to Neil Young's "Long May You Run." Louis Kahn likely didn't listen to Neil Young, but we can surmise that Nathaniel probably does. Here, Nathaniel inhabits the space in a way that has nothing to do with architectual aesthetic or structural integrity, but everything to do with his own personal acceptance. In this way Nathaniel, long abandoned (as evidenced by Louis' collegue's revelation about him spending Christmases with he & his family), makes the space his own, perhaps as a child visiting his father at work may do. There is initiative here that speaks not for architecture, but for a son's birthright to share in the glories and life of his father.

For any child who's lived with the reality of an estranged parent, I would imagine that My Architect resonates. After living with years & years of anger, many come to terms with the sins of a parent and simply want to know who these people were.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] billymac72 19 years ago

Or: short, without support and really just meant nothing.

I just read a worthless piece of writing. I will no longer read books.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] billymac72 19 years ago

Congratulations.....that is the best response I've gotten from anyone around these boards in ages.

[–] ladyodalisque 19 years ago

Thanks to naquib for posting those beautiful photos of Kahn's buildings. I have to admit I don't like all of Kahn's architecture, but having seen the Exeter library in person, I'm quite sure the film / photos don't do the buildings justice. There is something about the space and light that can only be experienced in person and simply cannot be captured. I also agree with architect_2k's opinion that the reason the architecture resembles so many "countless urban college campuses" is because other architects shamelessly, and unsuccessfully, copied Kahn's style.

The man himself is no angel, but I don't think he would have cared much if you said so to his face. He was obviously far more obsessed about his work than anything else in life. I remember the point when one daughter asked why he never designed a house for them... it showed that he couldn't combine his architecture, which was supposed to be spiritual, with his family life, which was quite the opposite. It would have been hypocritical. I think what's most fascinating is that, despite all his shortcomings (and there are a lot of them!), these 3 women loved him to the end. What did they see in him? Were they in love with the man or the vision?

"Having an artistic vision or nature does not justify abandoning two women and your children." Sorry, he didn't abandon anybody. In fact, he visited his other families quite regularly... it just never seemed often enough because he was so engrossed with work. But that's semantics... I think what you're trying to say is that even if he had just had one family, doing great things doesn't justify neglecting your children. I agree with this, but at the same time, I understand his actions all too well. There are plenty of faithful husbands and fathers today that still neglect their families b/c 1) they're workaholics and 2) they think they are fulfilling their duties as a man by providing for the family financially. Louis Kahn didn't exactly live in the day of Mr. Mom.

Of course, this raises the bigger question, which I have yet to answer for myself. If you look at the examples of "great men", how many of them were terrible husbands and fathers? I'd venture to say the majority. Do leaps of progress require a sacrifice that most of us are unwilling to accept because we are caught up in our petty moralities? Have you forgiven all our presidents who have been guilty of dishonesty or indiscretions? Do you see them for their accomplishments or their lies? This is what I think is the most interesting fact the film brought to light for me - that it is possible to leave a deep, positive impact on the world (just ask the Bangladeshi people, the Dallas art lovers, or his devoted lovers and friends) without being what society commonly considers a "good" man. Perhaps Kahn's problem was not lack of love, but too much love - he wanted to give himself to so many people that he spread himself too thin and died alone and penniless.

There is one more thing I wanted to mention. I missed the film in the theaters, but finally had a chance to watch it on DVD, which has several deleted scenes that I strongly believe should have been included. In one interview, a former client of Kahn's talks of how Kahn once came to his house and spent an hour crying. Kahn said his father never respected what he did because he didn't work with his hands, because his father was a bricklayer. That nearly broke my heart. Kahn was about as far from perfection as a man can be, but it's not like he was frolicking about happily while other people suffered; I'd venture to say that he might have suffered the most out of everybody in the film, including the "bastard son".

[–] nedwong2000 19 years ago

I think it's ridiclous and disappointing how many of you appear to critique the film solely on the moral shortcomings of Kahn, the subject. I think a documentary or biography can be well made in spite of whether one chooses to scrutinize the subject in a moral light.

In response to ruens, who said the director, Nathaniel, was challenging you to accept his artistic vision along with his domestic abandonment? It really bothers me how black and white some of you see the world.