Friday, February 09, 2007

"I Build the Tower": Film about Simon Rodia's Watt's Tower

The ANNOTICO Report

 

The Watts Tower, in Los Angeles CA, (East of LAX, and South of Downtown LA, more specifically ; East of Central Ave and South of Century Blvd, adjacent to South Gate and Lynwood,) now in the center of the Los Angeles Black Community, is probably the single most important source of pride to that community.

 

Watts Towers, is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato (Sam or Simon ) Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. The work is a superb example of non-traditional  vernacular architecture.

 

 Rodia has been hailed by Buckminster Fuller as "one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century."

"One man's artistic fantasy is here given substance: fanciful spires pieced together over a period of thirty-three years from steel reinforcing rods and wire mesh, colorfully decorated with seashells and fragments of broken dishes and bottles."  An "Idiosyncratic, exuberant monumental urban art, created by one inspired individual".

Simon Rodia,was born in 1879 in the town of Campania in southern Italy. He came to America at the age of 12. Rodia worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and eventually moved to the west coast, and worked in rock quarries, logging, and railroad camps as a construction worker. He married and had two children.

Rodia without benefit of special equipment, scaffolding, or drawing board designs, and he worked alone on his towers using simple tile-setter's tools and a window washer's belt and buckle. Rodia surrounded his house with three tall slender towers; a patio; a gazebo containing a circular bench, 3 bird baths, and a spire 38 feet tall; and a structure he called the "Ship of Marco Polo" which has a 28-foot tall spire. All of this is enclosed in walls build by Rodia and decorated with an assortment of embedded objects and materials.

It is a strange tale, starting with the dream, the effort, the vandalism by unappreciative neighbors, Rodia abandoning his completed Towers, driven away by the enormous abuse he received, the determination by the City to tear it down, the equal determination by conservationists around the World to preserve it, the battle between the Towers and the Crane used to test the safety of the Towers,(the Crane lost), and now the Reverence with which it is held by ALL.

 

"I BUILD THE TOWER," the feature-length documentary on the Watts Towers and their creator, Sam Rodia, has been selected by The Museum of Modern Art in New York City to be part of Documentary Fortnight, MoMA's annual festival of non-fiction films. The film will be screened at 6 pm, Monday, February 19, 2007, in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at the Museum, 11 West 53 Street.

 

Directed, written and produced by Edward Landler and Rodia's great-nephew, Brad Byer, the film depicts the life of the immigrant Italian artisan who single-handedly created the monumental mosaic-covered spires of reinforced

cement known as the Watts Towers in South Central Los Angeles. Rodia has been hailed by Buckminster Fuller as "one of the greatest sculptors of the twentieth century."

 

Recognized in Variety as "the most complete visual account of Rodia and his masterpiece," the film has been praised by director Ken Burns as "wonderful, lyrical and compelling" and by critic Leonard Maltin as "heartfelt and

fascinating." Incorporating archival and family materials and the involvement of the Watts community, production has included shooting in Rodia's southern Italian birthplace, the San Francisco Bay area where he lived before and after his years in Watts, and Watts itself where the towers stand as a unique embodiment of natural structural principles.

 

The music for the film - based on aria themes by Giuseppe Verdi - has been arranged for classical orchestra and ensemble by Robert Israel and for jazz ensemble by Nate Morgan. It also features a hip-hop song - conceived and

arranged by Byer and Landler - with Rodia himself as lead vocalist and music composed and arranged by Michael Abels.

 

For further information, contact www.ibuildthetower.com where DVDs of the documentary and CDs of the film's music are also available for purchase.

 

 

 

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