Architectures

Work, travel, and baseball have all cut into my movie-watching time over the past two weeks, but what really preempted my viewing was this 17-episode half-hour documentary series from European tv. Informative and well-photographed, each episode covers one building by a different architect. The narration dubbed into English lacks pizzazz and point, however, each blackout leaving you hanging in some way. Maybe in Europe you don’t have to sell the story the way you do in America. I’ve selected four to make up the initial program for my “Documenting Architecture” film series at the Clark next Fall: the Paris Opera and Ecole des Beaux Arts, then the Bauhaus and back to Paris for the Pompidou Center. (1995-2004, dvd, n.)