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Film Review: Rivers and Tides

A documentary by Thomas Riedelsheimer.

by Janey | 2002.10.19

Please see this film.

You probably won't have the opportunity to do so, but if you get the chance, please see it. Please go out of your way to see this film.

Rivers and Tides is a documentary about an "environmental artist" named Andy Goldsworthy. I can't really explain his art, although I'll try, but understand at the outset that my best explanation of it will probably just make you go "huh" and decide to give it a pass. There's just no way to describe it to do it justice.

Goldsworthy makes art outside, using found objects from nature, like stones, and sticks, and flowers and leaves. His work is intrinsically ephemeral -- lasting a moment, or a day, or a few days, or in some cases a year or two, but it's part of nature and so it changes with the seasons and the tides. Sometimes he stacks slate on the beach to build a honeycomb like structure. Sometimes he arranges leaves in patterns according to their color. Sometimes he attaches twigs together with thorns to create a gigantic spider web. Sometimes he sews leaves together into a snake and floats them down the river. Sometimes he throws snow in the air. But always the effect is to highlight the quotidian, to make us see things in a way that we have not before, to give us new appreciation for what already is here and is already changing.

He photographs his work as a part of the process. He says that the photographs are the way that he talks about his art, and the books of his photographs that I've seen are tremendous -- but this film is better. The film captures not only the art (although it does capture that), but also the process and the difficulties and the failures and the artist. The nature of his work is hard on him, physically, and the film gives us a sense of this.

"I equate this medium with bleeding hands" he says of bracken, and then goes on to create my favorite piece in the film.

"It can get very cold but it doesn't work to wear gloves when you're working with these," he says as he tries to warm his hands a bit as he's creating a sculpture from icicles.

It's a very quiet film, both in terms of the speed of the action and in terms of the amount of talking. Much of what we do as the audience is watch Goldsworthy at work. And it's filmed well. The quality of the filming is extremely high, much higher than one usually sees in documentary films.

The fragility of his compositions is underscored by the number of times we see them fall apart. He is frustrated, we see, but that doesn't stop him. It may mean that he has to wait another day to make his structure, because the tide is already coming in, but that's only after the fourth try.

There's so much in this film. There's so much about art and the nature of the creative process. There's so much about beauty and perception and the transitory nature of each. There's so little ego in him but so much of him in his work. And there's so much joy in the work. Throughout the film, as the camera pulled back to show a finished piece, the entire audience lets out this quiet little "oh" of surprise, as the impact of the piece really hits. There are a handful of these moments in the film and for these alone, you owe it to yourself to seek out and watch this film.

Please.

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