This documentary dedicated by Sigrid Faltin to Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), who considered himself, immodestly but with good reason, as the greatest American architect of the 20th century, seems to refer to the right sources and to make the licensed specialists speak. Without boredom, he remains, alas!, on the surface of things, contenting himself with fairly general repetitions. Karajan. Portrait of the maestro (2019), signed by the same director, had the same flaw.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the phoenix of architecture seems moreover not to find its angle and its axis: the title could foreshadow the analysis of creative renewal by periods that so many artists experience. But not really at Wright: if the Guggenheim Museum in New York remains in the eyes of the general public his most famous construction, this building of singular genius is perhaps the least typical of its author.

Wright has certainly evolved, but it is above all characterized by the permanence of architectural gestures (flat or low-pitched roofs, headband windows, opening to the outside, communicating interior spaces, combination of concrete and Gothic, etc.) . This can be seen from its first houses in the Prairie style to the famous Fallingwater House, scratched on the side of a waterfall, through its massive and monumental constructions inspired by Mayan temples.

Amorous escapades

The title of the documentary actually evokes the fires that ravaged his residence in Taliesin, in the countryside of the architect’s native Wisconsin, in particular the one which, in 1914, had hit the headlines after a servant had murdered with an ax seven people – including Wright’s partner who remained at the estate in his absence – and then set fire to the building.

Emphasis is placed on the contrasting character and the turbulent sentimental life of Wright and his companions, mistresses and wives… For this purpose, T. C. Boyle is questioned: in addition to having bought a house built by Wright, the writer has made of the architect, his amorous escapades and his school-phalanstery the plot of The Women (2009, Les Femmes, Grasset, 2010).

The documentary uses and abuses the tics of the time, with animated figurines and other artefacts to fill who knows what void, the height in the case of Wright who avoided the walls where one could hang paintings… As for the tape -sound, it offers very dubious arrangements of classical music.

At one point, however, we hear Appalachian Spring (1944), by Aaron Copland, which embodies the Prairie and the great American spaces. A development on these emblems of Americana that are the musician and the architect (very music lover) would have been welcome. We would have preferred to skip it. Damage.