filmswelike… GARY TOPP & RON MANN present

RIVERS AND TIDES:
ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME

"Very few art documentaries are as deeply in tune with the spirit of their subjects, and the implications are enormous, since Goldsworthy is the rare contemporary art star whose work is actually about something." --LA WEEKLY

WINNER: “Best Documentary”
--San Francisco Film Critics Circle

Using materials from nature, Scottish 'land' artist Goldsworthy allows the elements to have the last say in his beautiful creations, as his ingenious patterns of wood, leaves, stone and ice move and erode over time. He spends his days paying close, patient and almost relentlessly devoted attention to natur's mystical rhythms, structures and laws.

What takes this sacred regard into the realm of high art is what the artist creates: temporary structures made out of nature itself, which he then leaves for nature to reclaim or transform into something else. A finished work can last for as long as a few days or as short as a minute before a light breeze or an eddying tide picks it apart like a carrion.

Although some of his work, like a winding stone wall that he built at an art centre in New York State has longevity, most of Goldsworthy's projects are documented in photographs that are exhibited in galleries and published in very popular art books. "When I make a work," he explains, "I often take it to the very edge of its collapse. And that's a very beautiful balance."

"A natural wonder" --WASHINGTON POST

“The images are rapturous events that make for mesmerizing cinema. Only Henri Georges Clouzot ’s THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO, with it’s images of Pablo applying his master strokes, explores the artistic process with such penetrating revelation. Like a Buddha making sand castles, Goldsworthy crafts little Zen miracles that are the essence of harmony, and RIVERS AND TIDES gives its delicate subject sweet sanctuary.”
--TIME OUT, NEW YORK

"RAVISHINGLY BEAUTIFUL" --NY TIMES

"A surprisingly magical experience...intoxicating and meditative by turns, helped by Fred Frith's minimalist score, this film opens a portal into a singular creative mind." --LA TIMES

"...breathtaking...it lingers long after the images leave the screen." --SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"I was enchanted as this movie wove me into its haunting and peculiar spell." --RICHARD EBERT

"A film that audiences hungry for beauty will likely devour with their eyes... the images captured are among the loveliest I've seen on film." --SEATLE TIMES