The term visual acoustics probably doesn't peak the interests of many people. When I told some of my friends that I was going to watch a film with a title of Visual Acoustics I was greeted with a sarcastic, "Have fun." Well I did my best to have fun, and I have to say that seeing a film about the photographic works of Julius Shulman was very rewarding. Julius Shulman was a photographer who's pictures documented the architectural movement of modernism that swept through America in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. For a reference of Shulman's photographs click on reference.
Eric Briker's 2008 film Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman not only praises the artwork of an artist who has brought an appreciation of an architectural movement but also celebrates the vitality of a man who has strived for the recognition of a greater architect of design, and that is a spiritual one. Now it is not to say that Shulman was a believer in a Judeo-Christian God, for in fact the film does not so much go into his spiritual beliefs. But the film does show Shulman walking in his garden in his southern california home in which he says that this is his church, his sanctuary. A moment that is transcendental but also compliments his ideals of photographing architecture. The intricacy and design of the very defined modernist buildings is evidence of a aesthetic beauty and harmony. This harmony not only exists in nature but it exists in the photographs of Shulman.
Throughout the film Shulman revisits the sights of some his famous photographs and his recollections of taking the pictures are revelatory. In one instance a house that he photographed was once surrounded by pristine mountain landscapes. Now a run of the mill development is next to the house, blocking the beautiful view that once graced the photo. Shulman knows that times do change but there is a cost to the way we change things. Part of the documentary focuses on Shulman's advocacy of the environment. Footage of an interview, from the nineteen seventies, is incorporated and shows Shulman proposing conservationist rhetoric but the rhetoric is looked down upon. Not only does Shulman wish to conserve the moments captured in his photographs he also wishes to conserve the word in which he lives. By following Shulman and hearing his insight we are shown a world that has a beauty that is parrellel to what Shulman was able to capture in his photographs. A stillness that shows God's design and man's design working in harmony. Maybe that is hard to see for some but one photograph that may very well touch upon this balance is Case Study House #22.
In this one photograph a glass walled room hovers over the lights of Los Angeles. Inside the house two women on couches that are precariously close to the glass edge. Their demeanor is non-chalant, the round chinese lantern type lights that hang inside the house seem to also hang outside of the house. The picture is a moment in time, nothing seems out of place but yet there is a transcendent quality that the stillness offers. Maybe it is the possibility that in structural order of design there can be a structured world. Shulman revisits the house and its owners and mentions that the shot was nothing more than a chance opportunity. The photo was just one of many different shots of the house taken that night. While Shulman is at the house he is asked about how he was able to create such an effective image. Dante Spinotti, cinematographer, creates a highly organized series of dolly shots around the same set up that Shulman had captured years before. The shots that Spinotti creates are evocative but yet do not fully capture what Shulman had photographed in nineteen sixty.
Shulman's charisma and passion for photographer continued his exploration into capturing architectural spaces on photograph, even up to his death in two thousand and nine. In one scene towards the end of the film Shulmans archive of photographs are donated to the Getty Museum. Shulman bears witness to giving over his collection of photo's, and knowing Shulman these are not your ordinary photo's. A treasure trove of beauty and the profound are continually being released even though Shulman has now passed away. Watching a film about photographing houses may not sound exciting but for anyone who has ever created something or has had the desire to create, the potential for beauty and connecting to others is always a possibility. We may never fully understand how it is that art can be such a moving force but maybe we can come to understand when we are still and take in the design that is around us.
