Bricks in Flicks is a series of four monthly film screenings that show the different ways in which architecture has featured in films. The films are part of the Power of Place (Shetland’s Year of Architecture and Place 2010) project and are being shown in partnership with the Shetland Film Club. The four films range from documentary to fiction.
The films start on Tuesday 14th of September, with My Architect Louis Khan, a tale of love and art, betrayal and forgiveness, in which the illegitimate son of a legendary architect, Louis I. Kahn, undertakes a five year worldwide exploration to understand his long-dead father. Louis Kahn is one of most important American architects of the second half of the twentieth century. The film represents Nathaniel Kahn’s quest to understand and appreciate the work of his late father.
The next film is The Draughtsman’s Contract by Peter Greenaway. Mr. Neville, a cocksure young artist is contracted by Mrs. Herbert, the wife of a wealthy landowner, to produce a set of twelve drawings of her husband's estate, a contract which extends much further than either the purse or the sketchpad. The sketches themselves prove of an even greater significance than supposed upon the discovery of the body of Mr. Herbert. The third film is Sketches of Frank Gehry, a 2005 documentary film directed by Sydney Pollack about the life and work of the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. The film features footage of various Gehry-designed buildings, including a hockey arena for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The film includes interviews with other noted figures. And finally in Of Time and the City Terence Davies takes us to his childhood and youth in Liverpool. He's born Catholic and poor; later he rejects religion. He discovers homo-eroticism, and it's tinged with Catholic guilt. Enjoying pop music gives way to a teenage love of Mahler and Wagner. Postwar prosperity brings some positive change, but its concrete architecture is dispiriting. Davies' narration is a mix of archival footage, his own reflections and the poems and prose of others.
My Architect Louis Khan is on Tuesday 14th September, The Draughtsman’s Contract is on Tuesday 12th October, Sketches of Frank Gehry is on Tuesday 9th November and Of Time and the City is on Tuesday 7th December. All films are at Scalloway Marine College and start at 7.30pm. Tickets are £4.50 or £3.50 concession and are available on the door.
