WORDS · THOUGHTS · PICTURES

A fascinating and beautiful movie set in New York in the 1920s. Based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, the story centers around two friends, both black, who have once again found each other through a brief encounter in a hotel tea room.

Irene (Tessa Thompson) has gone out for the day, attempting to pass as white. A mother of two boys, she is married to a doctor and is living a comfortable life in Harlem. She runs into her old friend Clare (Ruth Negga), although not recognizing her at first, and the two go off Clare’s room and politely reacquaint themselves with each other. Clare is also passing as white. But while Irene’s passing is but for an afternoon, Clare is living her life as white. She and her white husband have a young girl.

As they sit in Clare’s hotel room sipping from a flask, Clare’s husband returns. He has no idea that Clare is black and emphasizes how he hates negros. Irene, who he also believes is white, says nothing of Clare’s secret and leaves. Irene wants nothing more to do with Clare. But Clare is persistent and shows up at Irene’s house in Harlem after writing several unanswered letters. And it is this relationship, this friendship, that takes us on this journey. We are viewing this primarily from Irene’s perspective.

The movie, shot in black and white, follows this relationship as the two women seem to struggle with their well-to-do lives. There is a great deal in this story as it deals with race, racism, sexuality, and gender among others. It is masterfully presented by writer and director Rebecca Hall. Highly recommended.

Visual Acoustics – The Modernism Of Julius Shulman (2009) Documentary (Dir. Eric Bricker)

Considered to be the best known, if not the best, photographer of Architectural Modernism, Julius Shulman is featured during his final years through a whirlwind look at his life’s work. This 2009 documentary, released in the same year as his death at 98 years old, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, is primarily told through photographs, friends, colleagues and participants as they visit several of the classic modern houses.

Shulman’s work, which began in the 1930s, highlights key modernist architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His photography, found in Life Magazine, among other major architectural publications and later books, introduced the world to this movement most noted in the Southern California area.

Shulman’s photos, at times more beautiful than the actual subjects, have been credited with inspiring the movement and architects in the 1950s and 1960s. He maintained his passion throughout his life and commissioned his own modernist house in the Hollywood hills in 1950. While taking some pause during the height of the post-modernist phase – a form he disliked immensely – we see him here in his final year working and discussing the modernist form with confidence and thoughtfulness. His best know work is that of his Case Study #22 photographs (1960) of the Stahl House, designed by architect Pierre Koenig’s, overlooking Los Angeles.

Even for someone like me, who doesn’t care much for modernist architecture, this is an interesting and inspiring documentary. Technically, it lacks most of the beauty and structure of Shulman’s photography, but substantively it offers an intimate look at one of the important contributors to modern architecture and photography. Unfortunately, Hoffman’s limited narration is poorly done and leaves aspects of the historical evolution wanting. Thankfully, it is limited.

Shulman’s larger-than-life personality is the real story. Even in his late 90s, delightful, funny, and comfortably immodest, his joy and passion for modernism in architecture shines through. His enormous body of work, now with the Getty Center in Los Angeles, will live on as the foundation of this period in modern North American architectural history.