THE SCIENCE OF ART. THE ART OF SCIENCE.
This is a short documentary (55 minutes) about origami which originally aired in 2009 on PBS Independent Lens that explores how ten people from varying backgrounds have become obsessed with the possibilities of a simple square of paper. We received the DVD as a Christmas gift and watched it last night while waiting for the season premiere of Southland. Aside from the narrator's voice, which halfway put one son to sleep, I was impressed this was Vanessa Gould's first and only film. What fascinated me instantly was whom she chose, their individuality, and the diverse explanations of the process each used. Due to limited funding, the number of paper folders was only "the tip of the iceberg" to quote the filmmaker.
The small audience last night included the sleepy animation/film/computer graphics major son, the computer science/math/physics son who can fold origami with his eyes closed, my environmental/magician/former technical writer/atheist husband who would have rather been watching the Bruce Willis Die Hard marathon, and myself, who can only fold cranes but saved, collected, made about 250 myself, then sent 2000 cranes to Hiroshima Peace Park in the year 2000 for the yearly August 6th ceremony of remembrance.
But back to the documentary, the main threads running through this were curiosity, creativity, and the overlapping outlooks and outcomes that happen from people willing to step outside the box, unexpected people becoming drawn to origami to the point that they leave professions to fold paper. Imagine, language barriers falling down, children and physicists, professors, professional artists, an old man from Japan who once used origami to teach geometryto factory workers, all thinking and smiling, just using hands and a simple square of paper.