{"id":4639,"date":"2012-12-18T19:21:57","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T19:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/?p=2702"},"modified":"2023-08-04T15:41:36","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T22:41:36","slug":"filmmaker-qa-vanessa-goulds-path-from-origami-to-obituaries","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/filmmaker-qa-vanessa-goulds-path-from-origami-to-obituaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Filmmaker Q&A: Vanessa Gould’s Path from Origami to Obituaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small square of origami paper can be folded into an infinite number of complicated shapes. Similarly, Vanessa Gould\u2019s documentary career has become surprisingly complex after her first film, Between the Folds<\/em><\/a>, which spotlighted origami leaders throughout the world. The paper-folding craft took her from exploring mathematics and art to obituary writers and climate change. She says they all hold something essential in common \u2014 questions about the nature of life and death.<\/p>\n

Since the making of the 2008 film, many of the artists, scientists, and paper geeks in\u00a0Between the Folds<\/em>\u00a0are still practicing origami. Sadly, the preeminent origami artist Eric Joisel passed away in 2010. Gould was determined to preserve his legacy, and helped The<\/em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0report his obituary. This led her to her latest documentary project about the obit writers at The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In addition to the twists and turns in her career, Gould talked to us about the similarities between art and science, her favorite conceptual documentaries, and her own attempts at folding Joisel\u2019s beloved origami rat (and shared a picture of her handiwork!).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

What got you so interested in origami?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Basically, I heard about mathematicians who were doing it for mathematical reasons and, at\u00a0the same time, what they were making was beautiful to look at. So, first I got interested in\u00a0origami’s connections between aesthetics and science. As I learned more, I started to see\u00a0some hidden ways of exploring deeper connections between art and science, right brain and\u00a0left brain \u2014 and the pretty profound ideas behind turning 2D into 3D. Those things made\u00a0origami fascinating to me, not just the steps of folding and things like that.<\/p>\n

Who are some of your favorite thinkers who mesh science and art?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Musicians, filmmakers, and architects tend to get pretty deep into ideas of form. And into
\nthe art-science connection. Buckminster Fuller did a lot of stuff I admire. Filmmakers Chris\u00a0Marker and Jordan Belson. The composer Terry Riley. Alexander Calder, the sculptor.<\/p>\n

What in your life drew you to be interested in the connection between science and art?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think, just by being human, nearly everyone must be interested in it to some degree.
\nBecause it\u2019s the age-old questions about the universe and how we experience it. You can
\ngo after it in a quantitative or qualitative way, but it\u2019s the same thing: When we stare at the\u00a0sky, how do we understand what\u2019s around us? Where do we fit in? Why is that moving or\u00a0beautiful? And why have we been asking those questions for so long?<\/p>\n

It feels like we are made to ask those questions. For me, the differences never felt as distinct as the similarities. With origami, I was looking for some unexpected exploration of that fundamental common ground \u2014 of how art and science are two tools in the same eternal and evolving investigation.<\/p>\n

After learning more, it became clear that the square mirrors the things the folders are
\ninvestigating. To an artist, a form that draws them in. To a scientist, the materialization of\u00a0a theory that draws them in. After time, those differences start to fall away, and the basic\u00a0pursuit of the most enduring questions of who we are and why we\u2019re here emerges. My hope\u00a0is that, in watching the film, the viewer starts to feel that. Maybe it comes as a new idea, or\u00a0maybe it\u2019s a welcome old familiar one.<\/p>\n

You have a very distinctive documentary style. It is poetic, sensual, and centered on<\/strong>\u00a0interestingness. What are some of your favorite documentaries?<\/strong><\/p>\n

From pretty early on, I knew Between the Folds<\/em> was going to be mostly about ideas. And I\u00a0wanted the challenge of not working towards a narrative arc, but an arc around the evolution\u00a0of thoughts. I\u2019m already drawn to films like that. Sans Soleil<\/em>, for example, by Chris Marker,\u00a0who just died recently. It\u2019s basically a meditation on memory, time, and place. And through\u00a0a series of images and spoken ruminations, the viewer will end up sifting through thoughts\u00a0and memories of their own. It transcends something specific. And everyone will see that film\u00a0differently. I love that.<\/p>\n

I love that film, like music, can go beyond the literal and sometimes reveal things that are
\nhard to articulate\u2026.ideas that are weakened when reduced to words. In this way, through pictures, film can speak to different viewers in different ways. That was challenging to me with Between the Folds<\/em> \u2014 to be not teacherly about origami, but to use it as a metaphor. Since most people aren\u2019t interested in origami, per se, it had to work on a different, more conceptual level.<\/p>\n

What has the audience reaction to Between the Folds<\/em> been like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of mail and email comes in from surprisingly different people \u2013 architects, designers,\u00a0marine biologists, novelists, preachers, prisoners. It\u2019s not because they love origami. I\u00a0think it\u2019s because, in our own ways, we all see a certain complexity in nature that\u2019s often not\u00a0acknowledged in our abbreviated, focused, and hyper-labeled lives. I think we all kind of go\u00a0through life understanding things are more complicated and richer than that.<\/p>\n

And I think the film has resonated with people because in this strange, simple art form you can catch a glimpse of that greater complexity. Origami invites us to think about that, and those are beautiful thoughts. But, even so, I never thought that making a film about such a niche subject matter would resonate so widely.<\/p>\n

How long have you been doing origami yourself? Do you continue to do it?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has only been a metaphor for me. I definitely tried it during the making of the film. I wanted\u00a0to know what it was like to hold something so basic and elemental and have it transform in my hands into something else. But I\u2019m not good at it. [Laughs<\/em>] It\u2019s hard! I mostly did geometric stuff, but recently I was taught by Michael LaFosse to fold Eric Joisel\u2019s much loved Rat. It was really fun, and I could probably never do that again by myself.<\/p>\n

How did you find all the fascinating characters in your documentary?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pretty small world. I have to say it was not so hard. They know each other. I met one of\u00a0the mathematicians and he introduced me to one of the artists, and it just kind of took off like\u00a0that.<\/p>\n

Origami is a pretty collaborative art form where makers share discoveries. That\u2019s part of why it\u2019s accelerating so quickly. They\u2019re all building on each other\u2019s epiphanies. And because so many of them come to it with their own visions and reasons, the sharing doesn\u2019t detract from the power of their own work.<\/p>\n

Have you kept in touch with any of the characters? Where are they now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m in touch with all them. They\u2019re all doing great. They\u2019re all busy doing what they do best.\u00a0Still folding \u2014 they\u2019ve absolutely found their passion and calling in life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry that Eric Joisel passed away in 2010. How did you react when you heard\u00a0<\/strong>about his passing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a dual experience, really. He had become a good friend, so I prepared as best I could\u00a0for the loss of a friend. What I didn\u2019t anticipate were the feelings that come with the early death of an artist. Ideas unfinished. Pieces frozen in time. Singular ambitions and thoughts gone with him. Everything just stopped. Of course, no one else can ever finish them.<\/p>\n

Plus, he was a solitary person. I was afraid that all we knew and remembered of him would\u00a0fade into the past. I wanted him to have some recognition \u2013 for him to be recognized publicly.\u00a0And so I wrote to most of the English language newspapers around the world and informed\u00a0them of his death. About a week later, to my surprise, the first and only paper that contacted\u00a0me was The New York Times<\/em> and they ran a beautiful obituary on him with photos of him and\u00a0his work. It recognized the unique nature of his work. It logged him into the historic record. A\u00a0good account of his life and work is now available. Recognition had mostly eluded him, and I\u00a0can\u2019t even begin to think how he\u2019d feel if he had seen it.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, not surprisingly, out of this experience came my next documentary project \u2013 a film\u00a0about the obituary writers at The<\/em> New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Why obituary writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The obit writers at The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> have a pretty unusual view on the world. Processing\u00a0the data of so many unusual lives, they have an uncommon meta view of our culture and\u00a0who we are, based on who we chose to remember. They have extraordinary knowledge of\u00a0the people who have shaped the world around us. That invites an avalanche of interesting\u00a0questions.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve begun shooting, so we\u2019re in early production. In the meantime, I\u2019m working on a
\ntelevision documentary series about climate change for Showtime<\/em> called Years of Living<\/em>
\nDangerously<\/em>. We\u2019re shooting now and it will air next fall. It\u2019s great. It\u2019s nice to be able to be\u00a0doing both.<\/p>\n

How did the first IL broadcast of Between the Folds<\/em> affect you or your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We had been on the festival circuit for a while. When you hear \u201cdocumentary\u201d and \u201corigami,\u201d\u00a0no one gets that riveted. It was a small circle.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m eternally grateful to Lois [Vossen] for looking at it. Because of the PBS broadcasts,
\nmillions of people have seen it now. It went on to get a Peabody. It gave me the courage to\u00a0tackle subjects that can\u2019t necessarily be reduced to a sound bite or a pitch. Films that, in fact, need the full hour to convey the complexities of their subjects. Everything is interesting if you look closely enough. And that\u2019s the beauty of the documentary form \u2014 to be able to capture the beauty of so many things we might never otherwise see.
\n<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vanessa Gould, the filmmaker behind Between the Folds<\/i>, talked to us about the similarities between art and science, her favorite conceptual documentaries, and her own attempts at folding the late Eric Joisel’s beloved origami rat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-4639","blog","type-blog","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFilmmaker Q&A: Vanessa Gould's Path from Origami to Obituaries - Independent Lens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/filmmaker-qa-vanessa-goulds-path-from-origami-to-obituaries\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Filmmaker Q&A: Vanessa Gould's Path from Origami to Obituaries - 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