I recently had the chance to view a fascinating documentary (if you enjoy modernist architecture or architectural photography) entitled Visual Acoustics The Modernism of Julius Schulman. The subject of the film was the life and career of Julius Schulman (1910 – 2009) a man whom many consider one of the greatest, if not the greatest, architectural photographer of the 20th century.
Schulman captured the work of nearly every modern architect since the 1930’s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, Gregory Ain, R.M Schindler and Frank Gehry. Many of the images captured by Schulman will be the only exposure most of us ever have to these fantastic buildings.
The film, directed by Eric Bricker contains a number of interviews with Schulman and his daughter as well as the children and friends of a number of the architects that Schulman worked with and current residents of some of the homes. For a number of the home restorations, the only remaining references of the original structures were in Schulman’s archives.
Schulman is fascinating to listen to and is amazingly energetic for a man in his mid 90’s. He was a Photographer of architecture, naturalist, educator, and commentator on urban form. Shulman’s images played a major role in crafting the image of the Los Angeles and “Southern California lifestyle” to the rest of the nation and world during the 1950s and 1960s. A prolific author, consultant, lecturer, exhibitor, and editor of his own vast archive, Shulman remained active up until his passing away in July of 2009.
Much of the information for this review was found on the web site for the film which can be found here along with a link to purchase the film. The film is also available from Netflix for those that have a subscription.
I found this to be an extremely enjoyable film about a fascinating and talented man and welcome comments from anyone that has seen the film or is familiar with Schulman’s work.
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