Review: Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman by Eric Bricker, director

Abstract

Eric Bricker, director. Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman . Arthouse Films, 2008, DVD, 83 mins., http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com, $29.95 As the opening credits to Visual Acoustics roll to a close, a voice, which we later realize is that of Julius Shulman, advocates for architecture's importance: “Every part of a person's life is based upon an architect's presence.” Enveloping us, architecture provides spatial, formal, and textural coordinates for much of human existence. Yet only a few seconds later, the film's narrator, the actor Dustin Hoffman, complicates the equation. “Architects,” we hear, “live and die by the images taken of their work, as these images alone are what most people see.” Despite the fact that buildings surround us, the most famous among them can be elusive. That is especially true in Southern California, where Julius Shulman photographed for more than half a century. On mountain ridges and alongside desert washes, detached houses embody the region's leading architectural response—the desire of affluent Californians to dwell within a private yet probing architectural landscape, a framework of walls and windows encrypted by structural technologies of steel and glass and open to panoramic views of nature and distant cityscape. Since most of us see these private domains primarily through photographs, how does a photographer's approach structure our architectural impressions? Why did certain photographs, the kind Julius Shulman was famous for, become icons of modernism? Visual Acoustics, the title of first-time director Eric Bricker's film about Julius Shulman's architectural photography, sounds enigmatic at first. Can photographs of buildings capture the world of sound? What Bricker and Shulman, who suggested the title, are getting at, I believe, is the ability of a photograph not only to facilitate a viewer's perception of architectural space, but also its potential to engross that viewer's emotions within the optical journey. Successful concert-hall acoustics reverberate the sounds of performers on stage with an audience's ears, transporting listeners out of their ambient and …