"Philip Johnson: Diary of an Eccentric Architect" - Barbara Wolf

U.S.A.

Friday, 6:30 p.m.

Viewers be warned: In order to appreciate this low-key but visually exciting documentary, you need to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the film's subject. In other words, "Philip Johnson: Diary of an Eccentric Architect" is not, heaven forbid, a run-of-the-mill educational documentary.

Significantly, what you need to know beforehand about the 90-year-old American architect is pretty much what Barbara Wolf has elected to omit from her film. Thus, for example, there is next to nothing about the skyscrapers that made him famous, and there is no hint of the various controversies surrounding the man - in regard, first of all, to his notorious flirtation with fascism.

Nor does the film grapple with such pertinent issues as the growing consensus among his peers that his work went into decline once he had abandoned the International Style of his mentor, Mies van der Rohe.

Not that I'm complaining about these omissions - far from it; what Ms. Wolf has given us is a deceptively simple film that takes us on a fascinating tour of Mr. Johnson's New Canaan, Conn., estate. Here, for the past 45 years, beginning with the widely publicized Glass House of 1949, he has been engaged in designing and building what might prove to be his most lasting works.

On the other hand, do these playful, idiosyncratic structures merely offer further evidence that Philip Johnson is, as has been charged, a decadent dilettante with no architectural style of his own? Even here, away from the concerns of a high-powered career, he is controversial.

What grounds this unpretentious, casually structured film is the footage showing us how the architect's final building was conceived and constructed. This is the structure that will serve as the Visitors Center when, after the architect's death, the estate is turned over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Based on an abstract sculpture by Frank Stella, who appears briefly, it is the most extreme and daring building in the New Canaan complex. In vivid detail, Ms. Wolf's camera captures the excitement of creativity, providing the viewer with a rare glimpse of a work in progress, step by step.

As for Mr. Johnson, he emerges in this hour-long documentary as a man of awesome self-confidence. But above all, we sense his extraordinary energy, still at full throttle. Whatever his place in the history of contemporary architecture, he remains a force to be reckoned with.