A real estate attorney in the sharp new documentary “Urbanized” (at the Siskel through Thursday) is peppered with questions from filmmaker Gary Hustwit about urban sprawl in cities such as Phoenix. Finally, exasperated, he looks his interviewer in the eye and drops all pretense.
“Here’s the deal,” he says. “Let’s be honest. I live on a three-quarter-acre lot and I like my backyard and my swimming pool. And I think living in a condo would be cute and interesting and I’d like to do it about two months out of the year, but I like the way I live. So there you are.”
“That is probably the majority opinion in the United States,” Hustwit said when we talked last week. A self-professed design geek, he just recently completed work on “Urbanized,” a stylish examination of the way cities are currently tackling problems of gridlock and expansion, and creating distinctive spaces through design.
The film debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and it is the third in an informal series from Hustwit — beginning with 2007’s “Helvetica” (about the ubiquitous typeface) and 2009’s “Objectified” (about our relationship to mass-produced goods) — to focus on the merits and nerdy joys of innovative design.
It is Hustwit’s personal curiosity that drives the films, which is part of their appeal. Here’s how he describes, on his website, the impetus for his first film: “Since millions of people see and use Helvetica every day, I guess I just wondered, ‘Why?’ How did a typeface drawn by a little-known Swiss designer in 1957 become one of the most popular ways for us to communicate our words 50 years later?” What he digs up is nothing short of fascinating, a look at our consumerist culture from a completely new point of view.
Gorgeously composed images dominate Hustwit’s films, backed by a persistent score of indie rock. They are clean and efficient in their depiction of objects and exploration of ideas. The films feel like fabulously designed objects themselves. (They run about 75 minutes apiece, which seems just right.) Anyone with an appreciation for architecture — of buildings, of the way letters are shaped and mashed together, or even the elegantly slender lines of a Macbook — will find a kindred spirit in Hustwit’s films, which will screen this week as a trilogy at the Siskel Film Center (at discount rates if you see more than one).
“Urbanized,” in particular, is a film Hustwit thinks should be seen in a theater. “The film is about being immersed in cities, and seeing it on a 50-foot-wide screen with a surround sound, you definitely feel like you’re there. So I think for this film, definitely more than the others, a cinema setting is much more effective.”
Throughout each of the films, Hustwit talks to a slew of smart, thoughtful people who have droll insights that go beyond the obvious. Asked to describe Helvetica — the clean, modernist font that has become the default for signage almost everywhere — a designer interviewed for the film offers this pithy remark: “It’s hard to evaluate it. It’s like being asked what you think of off-white paint. It’s just there.”
Or the woman Hustwit tracks down in “Urbanized” to talk about Mumbai’s ever-expanding slums. The Indian city is on track to become the largest in the world, and the problems associated with that are discussed in terms of ratios. Fifty people to a single toilet is considered adequate, according to the government. In reality, she says, the numbers are closer to 600 people per toilet. But the government doesn’t want to build more toilets on the assumption that it will encourage more people to come to the slums: “As if people come here to (expletive),” she says, using the blunt bathroom verbiage to underscore the absurdity of the policy.
In Bogota, Colombia, Hustwit examines the public transit system, which has been revamped so that there are dedicated bus-only express lanes. Buses zip along from stop to stop like a train rather than another vehicle stuck in traffic. “A bus with a hundred passengers has a right to a hundred times more road space than a car with one,” says the city’s former mayor, who makes no bones about de-emphasizing the importance of the car. In Copenhagen, Denmark, city officials landed on the ingenious idea of simply changing the layout of the street so that a parking lane separates car and bike traffic, creating a far saner option than what we have in the U.S.
Some of the projects Hustwit profiles are utter failures, such as the city of Brasilia, Brazil, an expansive, modernist city spread out with large, open, green spaces. It looks fabulous from an airplane, but it is a logistical nightmare if you want to get anywhere on foot.
In 1900, only about 10 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. Today we’re looking at roughly 50 percent — and in less than half a century, experts predict that number will jump to 75 percent. That’s a lot of people stuffed into urban areas, and Hustwit offers both the glimmering images and the sobering realities.
The Siskel Center is also showing the new documentary “Eames: The Architect and the Painter” this week along with Hustwit’s Design Film Trilogy. For more info go to siskelfilmcenter.org.
Films from Poland
The residents of a small Polish town enter a dance contest in 2010’s “Dance Marathon,” which kicks off the 23rd Polish Film Festival in America at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge. The fest runs through Nov. 20 with a number of directors and actors in attendance. For more info and a complete lineup of films go to pffamerica.com.
Spotlight
Highland Park High School senior and varsity football captain Ariel Small, diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome when he was 6, is the subject of the documentary “Different is the New Normal,” which airs at 6 p.m. Sunday on WTTW-Ch. 11. For more info go to arielsmall.com.
Goth guy
Tim Burton’s “Edward Scissorhands” from 1990 took alienation and hedge-clipping to cartoonish — if melancholic — new heights. The film screens for free at 8 p.m. Sunday in Logan Square as part of Cole’s Bar Cinema Minima series. For more info go to cinemaminimachicago.tumblr.com.
The story of a podcast
Former Chicagoan and comic performer Jodi Lennon brings her documentary short “Marc Maron: The Voice of Something” to her old stomping grounds at the Annoyance Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday, along with a group of up-and-coming stand-ups. In the film, future “WTF” podcast host Maron rambles entertainingly and neurotically to the camera in the week after 9/11. It’s not clear why Lennon is showing the film now, 10 years after she shot it, but it is amusing all the same. “It’s as if he is the topic of his own ‘WTF,'” she said by email. “‘WTF’ discusses comics’ process, this shows Marc’s process.” Well, sort of. For more info go to annoyanceproductions.com.
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