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
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
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
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
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.
Great
Buildings Web Site: http://www.greatbuildings.com/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Towers
Brief
and Photos: http://www.narrowlarry.com/nlwatts.html
The
ANNOTICO Reports
Can
be Viewed, and are Archived at:
Italia
Italia Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net