After seeing the disappointing Walking on Water, a documentary about Christo’s latest art installation, I added other documentaries such as The Gates to my queue in the hope that I would find a film that did a more effective job at depicting the artist, the process and the reception of the work. I enjoyed The Gates so much that I watched it two times in a row with my mother a little under a year ago.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude are a married couple of artists. The Gates is not only the title of this glorious ninety-eight minute documentary, but the title of their large outdoor art installation in Central Park, which I never saw in person, but admired in a framed photograph that I purchased at some open studio in Massachusetts. The photograph was a way to stay connected to my eternally evolving hometown. Somehow this installation felt faithful to the past, the spirit of my memories of the city while simultaneously being something that I never experienced. I was really eager to learn more about these artists, this particular work and the experience. This documentary exceeded my expectations.
I do not want to raise yours because some viewers may find The Gates to be completely boring whereas it is completely my type of documentary. The directors started filming footage since 1979, and the film was released in 2007 so it was around a thirty-year process because I am certain that before the filming even started, there were numerous conversations and preparations. I love when a documentary makes me feel as if I am witnessing an event firsthand as it unfolds.
The Gates’ narrative does jump around the timeline a bit, but in a brilliant understandable way that actually uses the How We Got Here Trope effectively. It is almost as if a kid hearing about the exhibit innocently asked before it opened, “How did this happen?” Then we get to literally witness the past unfold before returning to the present then moving forward with a verbal teaser to the next project, The Floating Piers. It is a shame that the directors, Antonio Ferrara, The Maysles brothers and Matthew Prinzing did not shoot the footage of that installation too.
The Gates is not only a documentary about the installation, but it depicts the process of creation, production then releasing the artist and decisionmakers’ ownership of the work and process to the public. The public creates its own narrative about the work, which may or may not reflect the original intention and is only tertiarily relevant once it exists. Maybe it is the attorney side of my personality coming out, but it is almost impossible to get anything done without going through a lot of bureaucracy. Walking on Water never was able to go beyond the reality television limited obsession with personality instead of the inherently fascinating and probative world of logistics that provides deeper insight into individual power’s psychological makeup, the overall life and function of a place, which should be its own character, then the life of the people who only see the end result and are not privy to the behind the scenes machinations. By depicting it, you see the overlap of creative vision between the artist and the people collectively and unconsciously reaching towards each other over the bureaucracy’s imagination of fear and what it takes to overcome that fear because it is not enough to have resources, money and fame to accomplish one’s goals because this couple had all of that, and it still took forever to bring their work to Central Park.
The Gates excels at capturing what makes people and their relationship to the work special even when that person is in opposition to it. I thought that the film brilliantly captured the real role of a lawyer, and it was obvious that Theodore W. Kheel is a good one because he understood that the most effective way of dealing with bureaucracy was not only understanding the process and the rules, but soft power—throwing a cocktail party, appealing to the person’s senses, i.e. fighting on ground that is more familiar to the artists than the bureaucrats so having the higher ground. It was only when they left the world of soft power that they hit bureaucracy.
The Gates reflected the complex role that race and class played in the success of this installation. It may be counterintuitive to some viewers that the diversity of the city would actually help the project, but it did. Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work is available to everyone and apparently extended into Harlem, which was a point in its favor. Indeed the most positive reception was from black people and my favorite type of street vendor, hot dog vendors, who are experts on Central Park and the artists’ work whereas the establishment appointed to judge art and protect Central Park’s legacy was the opposite-closed-minded, vigilant against change, protective of power.
One third of The Gates is devoted to the public’s reception and simply showing the work, which I know some viewers found repetitive, boring and redundant. I think that the silence and stillness between sounds and action are as important as dialogue and interaction. Using diegetic sound permits the viewer to interact with the titular work without having someone else’s view push out our own thoughts. The directors give us an opportunity to judge for ourselves albeit a limited two dimensional one. The absence of narration and a soundtrack was a wise choice.
Even though it was completely unintentional, The Gates also felt deeply Christian to me. Complaints of waste are usually levelled at art as if it did not come with an inherent priceless value so whenever someone in the documentary complained about Christo and Jeanne-Claude deciding to waste their own money, it reminded me of a Bible story. Christo and Jeanne-Claude parallel the women with the perfume who anointed Jesus’ head with oil. The disciples are disgusted by the waste of resources that should go to a better cause. I do not know the artists’ personal beliefs, but there is something delightful in this waste of time, resources, energy to interact in an ephemeral way with past art, Central Park, and people yet it creates something tangible that gives us a glimpse of what the communion of the saints really looks like on Earth as it is in Heaven-abundant, profligate joy, an ability to turn winter into the spirit of summer and spring. It even transcends distance by reaching me and others who were not present. Waste can be a synonym for joy or praise. These artists are like children coming to the Kingdom of God, and they make us children by feeling something and looking at something in a new way.
If I had to complain about The Gates, I would whine about the fact that the DVD that I watched had no closed captioning. I think that I understood what everyone was saying, but it is the only way that I enjoy watching anything. Listening is not my strongest sense. Vision is. I highly recommend The Gates, especially now that we are yearning to go outside and enjoy the nice weather, but cannot. It will transport you to the past and return you to the present transformed and hopeful that modern miracles can happen even in the face of bureaucracy.