Rivers And Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time (DVD)

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"Art for me is a form of nourishment," Goldsworthy says. "I need the land. I want to understand that state and that energy that I have in me that I also feel in the land, the energy of life that is flowing through the landscape, that intangible thing that is here and then gone." The two biggest influences on his work are the sea and the river, and all of his installations—even those far removed from water—bear resemblances to the snaking impertinence of a river that goes where it goes without apology. In one such installation, Goldsworthy is shown walking about his sleepy little Scottish town gathering up dandelions. It looks like simply the mark of eccentricity until the camera cuts to a field in nature where a solid mass of violet flowers are cut by a bold and snaking line of dandelions.

The camera follows Goldsworthy as he works in his native Scotland and on commissions in Nova Scotia, France, and upstate New York, the quiet interrupted only by the artist's own quiet ruminations, backed throughout by a New Age score by Fred Frith that includes stringed instruments and a didgeridoo. When Goldsworthy arrives, he begins almost immediately, working intuitively after "shaking hands" with the place.

Just after sunrise the camera shows Goldsworthy on the coast of Nova Scotia breaking icicles apart and biting them and using his saliva and water to reattach them to take a snaking strand that appears to weave in and out of a coastal rock outcropping. And the filmmaker captures the sun as it backlights the site-specific sculpture, as Goldsworthy muses, "The very thing that brings the work to life is the thing that will cause its death." All of this is fascinating, especially to people with a mindset like mine, who think of art as being more permanent than fluid. Goldsworthy is a fascinating man, and "Rivers and Tides" is an equally fascinating film.

Video:
Given the challenge of natural lighting, Riedelsheimer has done a fantastic job of minimizing halos, shadows, and overly dark or washed-out frames. Though it's not stated anywhere in the publicity, to my eye, the film appears to be presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and as I said, the camera work is wonderful. In only a few spots—the opening and later when we see a close-up of Goldsworthy—there's slight graininess.

Audio:
The audio might have been a little more friendly, though. I personally would have liked to have the enveloping feel of 5.1, rather than the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo that relegates the sound to the center channel, for the most part. That's the announced mix, but it almost sounds to me as if it could be Mono, it's so center-specific. Then again, it marries the sound to the image all the more, so I suppose there's an argument to be made for each side. Somewhere in the middle between robust and flat lies the word I would use to describe the sound quality for "Rivers and Tides." Not extraordinary, and certainly not noticeably deficient.

Extras:
There's a photo gallery of Goldsworthy's works, along with short textual bios of Riedelsheimer and Goldsworthy. But the cream of the extras are "seven never-before-seen short films," which are outtakes, really, filmed by Riedelsheimer in the same style as this excellent documentary. The longest is a 20-minute segment on the Storm King Wall that Goldsworthy and his crew (it's a BIG wall) build in upstate New York. The other segments, just as fascinating for their documentation of his art, are on his autumn works (3:46 minutes), garlic leaves (3:05), the ice arch (4:28), black stone (5:06), leaf works (5:40), and the old studio (1:56).

Bottom Line:
"Andy Goldsworthy, Rivers and Tides, Working with Time" won Best Documentary from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, and Grand Prizes at the San Francisco Film Festival and the Festival Du Film Du Monde Montreal. With Riedelsheimer's accomplished camerawork and Frith's massaging New Age score, Goldsworthy's emotional core finds a perfect showcase. This is the meditative life illustrated, a meandering journey that links art, nature, and humans. At one point the camera shows Goldsworthy watching a sheep give birth, and after talking about the qualities of the sheep we cut to see Goldsworthy trying to find a new way to look at the creatures that dominate the crags of his native land by arranging snaking lines of sheep's wool across the landscape. With child-like wonder, Goldsworthy sums up his attitude and the spirit of this film in one succinct observation: "I am so amazed at times that I am actually alive."