PBS American Masters: 'Sketches of Frank Gehry'

Award-winning filmmaker Sydney Pollack (left) puts Frank Gehry under his lens in this portrait of the renowned architect. (Fernando Goméz; courtesy of Thirteen/WNET New York)

Director and producer Sydney Pollack was online Thursday, Sept. 28, at 4 p.m. ET to discuss his PBS American Masters film, " Sketches of Frank Gehry ," and the life and work of the legendary architect, whom he has known for 30 years. As an Oscar-winning director, Pollack's previous films include "Out of Africa," "The Way We Were," "The Interpreter" and "Tootsie."

" Sketches of Frank Gehry " airs Wednesday, Sept. 27, at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings).

The transcript follows.

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Sydney Pollack: Hi, this is Sidney Pollack and I'm looking forward to chatting with you for the next hour and answering your questions.

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Washington, D.C.: The Walt Disney Concert Hall was designed to be acoustically advanced (I also love the design visually, by the way). Has it lived up to expectations? Also as an architect is Gehry experienced musically? He must have had a complex understanding of music to understand such a design.

Sydney Pollack: From experts to lay people, the consensus is that the hall has absolutely lived up to its expectations. Frank is not a musician, but he spent hours and hours with Essa Pekka Solinen and an army of acoustic engineers preparing himself for the physical requirements to make the hall acoustically state of art.

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New York, N.Y.: Pollack - it says that you have know Gehry for 30 years - do you think you gave a fair representation of his work, or are you fawning over the character throughout? Was there anything new that was very interesting about Frank that you learned researching this effort?

Sydney Pollack: Since I'm not a professional documentarian, I didn't really attempt what I would call a traditional documentary. I was trying to satisfy my own curiosity about Frank's creative process. So, for me, it was a perfectly selfish exercise in trying to understand what went on in Frank's head when he created something as beautiful as the Guggenheim in Bilbao. What I learned in the course of it was a reaffirmation that the creative process in all of us is terribly dependent on keeping the child alive in all of us. What you see in the film is Frank "playing" the way a child might, with blocks or toy soldiers. It was also somewhat reassuring to see that the anxieties, concerns, highs and lows are similar in all creative people.

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Alexandria, Va.: Hi Sydney - love your work and film compositions. Dorky tech question for you - in the picture of you and Gehry in The Post it shows you filming with a Canon GL... did you shoot the piece with the GL or was it just B-roll stuff?

Sydney Pollack: I filmed all of the architecture in Super-16 because I needed it to look as perfect as possible. In the interviews, particularly with Frank, I wanted him to be absolutely at ease and completely candid so I could not use a crew or lights. I therefore did, in fact, shoot all of it with the Canon GL.

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Arlington, Va.: Can you take us back 30 years to when you met? Were you already both established in your fields? With people like Gehry people often claim they could sense their talent ahead of time. Please describe how you got to know him.

Sydney Pollack: I actually met Frank at a party in the early 80's, not quite 30 years ago. And I suspect we were drawn to each other because we were both big complainers. We were complaining to each other about the difficulties of working in fields where you have to be validated by masses of other people. The world of commercialism, if you will. I had done the film Tootsie, so I had some standing. Frank was the up and coming, avant garde, interesting, anti-establishment guy. He had not attained anywhere near his present stature, but he was a guy to watch.

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Washington, D.C.: As a famous director of many box office hits (and currently in an amusing TV commercial), what drew you to this project? Was it hard conveying the essence of Gehry?

Sydney Pollack: What drew me to it was, as I said before, my own curiosity frankly. It wasn't a job for me, there was no venue originally for its exhibition, it was kind of an abstract exercise in learning. So I would say the primary thing was curiosity. It was really impossible,ultimately, to convey the essence of Gehry, but I felt like certain truths about him were conveyed in the pursuit of trying to find the absolute essence.

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Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Was Gehry easy to interview?

Is he enjoying his boat?

Sydney Pollack: He was enormously easy, he was totally candid, completely honest, and willing to display all the warts possible. We had an easy conversational way with each other for years prior to shooting and that ease continued through the shooting. Second part - Frank adores sailing, but is so successful now and so busy that the irony is, now that he can afford the kind of boat he's always wanted, he has no time for it.

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Alexandria, Va.: Mr. Pollack,

I know this is off topic but is there any chance that "The Yakuza" will be released on DVD soon? Also what was it like to work with Robert Mitchum?

Sydney Pollack: Yes, it's been released on DVD this year as a matter of fact. Robert Mitchum was an amazing guy, a great raconteur. He told stories endlessly. He was, as you probably know, a pretty good drinker, and could put away enormous amounts of alcohol and still perform. It was odd to be in Japan with him because he is too big for the hotel rooms in that country and was constantly banging his head on the rafters. He was quite popular with the Japanese who knew his films very well. And was a real pleasure to work with.

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New York, N.Y.: Tootsie is one of my all time favorite movies. It ran on cable a few weeks ago and several friends and I kicked up our heels and had a great time watching it. How does it feel to make a movie, and know that 20+ years later that same movie is still entertaining the masses?

Sydney Pollack: Well obviously its a good feeling to know that something you've done has lasted. Making films is much more difficult than people imagine, and so the experience of actually directing them is not one I've ever relished. But I love having made a film and watching it when it affects audiences in a positive way. It was always fun for me to hide in the back of a theater and watch Tootsie with an audience and hear them laugh. And it's gratifying 20 years later to imagine that they still can find it amusing.

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Herndon, Va.: Mr. Pollack: In your occasional stints as an actor, do you ever feel the temptation to offer advise to whomever is directing?

Sydney Pollack: The impulse - yes. The temptation - never.

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New York, N.Y.: Frank Gehry and you are both creative talents but in very different ways. How much common ground is there in creativity among artists of different fields and how do you think about what is genuinely creative?

Sydney Pollack: No one that I know has ever been able to define in any precise way what creativity is. We know certain things about it. We know that it is a product of your unconscious in a way. We know that it's a reaction to what exists and an attempt to make it better so that in some way all creative impulses come from a dissatisfaction with what's there. One life or one world isn't quite enough. One wants to be able to experience being other people, remaking a reality, remaking a life, remaking a certain world. In Frank's case, rebuilding the environment, re-experiencing what you see around you that is permanent. I think those traits are common with creative people in all art forms. But I don't know how to define creativity. There are differences in the craft that each of us practices. Frank starts with a blank page. I do not. But there are similarities. One of the reasons we got on so well is that we sense ourselves in each other, or traits that are similar in each other. I can't tell whether those are personality traits or creative traits. The line gets blurred.

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Arlington, Va.: Do you think that his buildings and homes will stand the test of time and future critics?

Sydney Pollack: I'm not a very good predictor in any area of art, particularly my own. I don't know how to evaluate that. On the one hand, I'm not very literate as an architectural observer or critic. And on the other hand, I don't have any particular experience or equipment that would enable me to even make an educated guess. I can tell you that my own gut reaction to the museum in Bilbao was sufficiently overwhelming that I would guess it's not something that's going to go away or diminish quickly.

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Alexandria, Va.: Do you have any future plans to do more documentaries? If you are able to tell us, what is the next project you are working on?

Sydney Pollack: I would do more documentaries if I found the same degree of curiosity that I had with Frank. But I have no wish to just do profiles of people. My partner, Anthony Minghella, and I have four films which we've produced in post-production right now. Two will open this fall, and two will open next year. One is a film called Catch A Fire. The second is Anthony's film, Breaking and Entering. The third is a film with George Clooney which will open next year called Michael Clayton. And the fourth is a small film called Margaret. I did not direct any of them, but produced the four.

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Boston, Mass.: With the success of the Guggenheim in reviving Bilbao, it seems every town is clamoring for a Gehry-like building downtown. Does Mr. Gehry worry that these cities are simply looking for an economic magic bullet (that doesn't likely exist) and in the process putting up ugly buildings? (Maybe the cinema analogy is the profusion of big effects summer movies after Star Wars.)

Sydney Pollack: There's no question that Frank is pestered by the idea that he's being asked to create destination cities basically. Reasons for people to want to travel as tourists. Sometimes that coincides with the possibility to do a great building, but most of the time not.

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Fairfax, Va.: How was Streisand to work with on "The Way We Were?"

Sydney Pollack: She was fantastic for me. You must remember it was early in her career. I know that for some people she's been difficult, but she was fantastic to work with at that time. Both as an actress and as a friend.

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Washington, D.C.: I enjoyed your piece on Gehry, as I thought some of the camera shots in Bilbao did his building justice, as most often do not do. Just wondered, Meryl Streep seems to like saying you didn't think she was sexy enough for "Out of Africa." Did you think that then and if you didn't think it then, do you now?

Sydney Pollack: I never thought she was not sexy enough. She likes to tell that story, but the fact is it had nothing to do with sexy. It had to do with the fact that she is such a brilliant actress, almost a chameleon, and as a result, I never felt I knew who she was. So it wasn't until I actually met her personally and got a sense of who the woman was that I got excited about casting her.

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Washington, D.C.: Please talk a bit about The Interpreter and working with Nicole Kidman. It is an engrossing film. What drew you to that script/plotline? Thank you.

Sydney Pollack: Nicole has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I've produced two of her films. The first a small film called Birthday Girl. And the second Cold Mountain. I acted in Eyes Wide Shut with Nic and Tom when they were together. And I've known her for a long time. And had hoped to work with her for a long time. What drew me to the film was the opportunity to do a thriller which is a difficult and challenging form, that had both a potential love story in it and an idea that appealed to me which was the exploration of the power of words. The power of diplomacy if you will. The world of it was fascinating to me and I felt that I could do a thriller that had real suspense and still explorer some reasonably intelligent ideas.

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Alexandria, Va.: Architecture is usually considered an art, but doesn't it also involve a heavy amount of engineering? What is Mr. Gehry's educational background?

Sydney Pollack: I personally don't know any more about his educational background that what he revealed in the film. But you are right, architecture requires a great deal of technical skill, some of it done by other people. There are people who can help with things like tensil strength of certain materials or structural engineering. But Frank must be thoroughly familiar with it. I do not need to be cinematographer myself, but I have to have a working knowledge of light, and optics, film emulsions and their properties, and lenses, otherwise I can't create the shoots that are the vocabulary of the films. But as I say it is not necessary for me to be a cameraman, I can hire a cameraman.

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Arlington, Va.: In a promo shot of you and Gehry you're holding a hand-held camera, shooting him on video. Did you shoot your own video for this documentary?

Sydney Pollack: I did. I shot all of it. All of the interview material that I shot was with the GL and I shot it myself.

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Boston, Mass.: How did directing this film compare with the others you've directed?

Sydney Pollack: Since it's the first documentary it was completely different than any other experience I've had directing. When you work without a script, you are in a sense working in a much more improvisational way than when you are prepared totally. I found the experience very liberating and wish I could find a way to bring some of those techniques into the making of fiction films.

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Virginia: You've done so many memorable movies over the years, I was curious if there are any movies you passed on that went on to do well. If so, which ones, and do you regret passing?

Sydney Pollack: There are so many that went on to do well that I can't remember all of them. But I don't regret them because had I done them they would have been different enough that they might not have done well. You mustn't in this business regret decisions that you make. Because the decisions are made out of your gut in a way and you have to stick with them.

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Alexandria, Va.: Sydney - what was it like to play the uber-wealthy, coke and sex addict Victor Ziegler in Eyes Wide Shut? I would imagine that a great deal of fun to play someone so wildly different from you (presumably!). Additionally, what was Kubrick's presence like on the set?

Sydney Pollack: I'm glad that you see a difference between myself and Ziegler. It's always interesting to play people different from yourself, it would be boring for me to play myself. Kubrick was a fascinating, larger than life guy who had been a friend for many years prior to our working together on that film. I found the best part of working with him to be the long conversations we had between set-ups. Talking about everything from film critics to films that were our favorites, to directors or actors that we liked, to economy in writing, to the power of words, authors that were our favorites, etc.

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Arlington, Va.: Frank Gehry worked on the plans for the new proposed Nets basketball arena in Brooklyn, a project that's gotten a lot of objections from area residents. What obligations does an architect have to the wishes of a community? Should Gehry have held off before lending his name to the project?

Sydney Pollack: I don't know how to predict or analyze what Frank should or should not have done. It seems to me that an architect does have some obligation to the people in the environs of the buildings. But not necessarily to the extent of being forced into creative decisions that he feels are unsound or limiting or being made from inferior standards. I make films, and I hope that people come to see them. If they don't, I pay a big price. But I can't make decisions where I would change my own standards or my own taste in order to court the public in some way.

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Mason, Ohio: Mr. Pollack, As a result of making the Frank Gehry documentary, what surprises you about the architectural profession?

Sydney Pollack: The part that surprised me with Frank was how the computer had become integrated into the design process. Enabling him really to make any shape he could dream of.

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Columbia, Md.: In Columbia, Maryland, Mr. Gehry designed and built two buildings in the mid-60s. One of these is the headquarters for the Rouse Company which built the planned city starting in 1966. The Rouse Company building is being threatened with demolition to build a road. Do you have a sense of how he would feel about this? (We residents are incensed.) I noticed that Frank mentioned Jim Rouse in the interview.

Sydney Pollack: Again I must confess to my ignorance about both architecture and documentaries and would have to plead my inability to answer the question. I don't know how he would feel about it. I don't k now how he feels about that building. I know that I have heard him speak regretfully about some of the buildings he's done. So he's capable of looking less favorably on certain of his work. But I don't know which buildings fall into that category.

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Chantilly, Va.: You've looked the same for the past 40 years. How do you do it?

And what did you think about the amount of time and takes Kubrick reportedly did (many) for Eyes Wide Shut?

Sydney Pollack: As to the first question, I drink a lot of wine! I wish your statement was correct, but thank you! And it's difficult if you're an actor to go through the painstaking detail attention that Stanley lavishes on everything. But it's exciting to watch. And it's what makes him Stanley Kubrick. It's oftentimes a trial for the actor to repeat as much as Stanley wants you to, but results justify it in his case.

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From a film student: A couple of folks have already asked you about shooting with the GL for this project. I was hoping you could expand a bit on how you view shooting on film vs. shooting on video. As a budding documentarian, there are definite financial advantages to shooting on video. Often video is talked about as being close to film in terms of image aesthetics, but never vice versa. Your thoughts on film v. video?

Sydney Pollack: I personally still am highly prejudiced toward film. And that is perhaps out of habit. I am however tremendously excited about the new light-weight hi-def digital cameras. If I were going to make a documentary now I would probably do the entire doc with the light weight, hi def digital cameras. There are certain sequences in a motion picture that I think can be done extremely well doing hi def digital. Michael Mann has done it in two films, and is becoming an expert at it. I'm curious myself and will probably begin experimenting with it.

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Del Ray, Va.: To what extent is Gehry's style facilitated by technology? You show his extensive staff using high tech to translate his folded paper models into real plans, but I couldn't help but wonder how any of this could have been done 30-40 years ago. Watching your film and FG reminded me forcefully of a film on the artist Alexander Calder which shows him late in life playing with a toy circus he constructed. There was a combination openness, energy, playfulness, and wit.

Sydney Pollack: Frank and I have talked an awful lot about how the world would look radically different had the computer existed 1,000 years ago. Almost all of the buildings Frank has done in the last ten years could not be built without the computer. The computer that Frank uses originated with aircraft design. If you think of the shape of an airplane's wings, particularly modern, high performance jet aircraft, and the shapes of the tail and fuselage, they are all curved, tapered, they move in many directions at once, they are not linear or square or geometrically easy to define. The computer figures out what the innards are, what is required for the outer shapes to look the way it is, and what's needed to support it. So these sculptural shapes that Frank is building could not be figured out with plain, geometrical blueprint drawings. The computer has changed all of that.

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Washington, D.C.: Who are your favorite film directors?

Sydney Pollack: I have many favorite, I'll try to mention a couple. But they're not exclusive to anyone else. I'm a huge fan of Kristof Kieslowski, and his ability to make complex moral themes into everyday melodrama. My early favorites were directors like Kazan and any of the new wave directors - Truffaut, Bergman, Kurasawa. But I've learned from everyone I've watched.

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Alexandria, Va.: What's next up for you?

Sydney Pollack: Looking for a small film to direct and preparing more films to produce.

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Sydney Pollack: I enjoyed talking with all of you and am very appreciative of your questions. So long for now!

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