Critic Reviews

• Ty Burr, Boston Globe

  Precise as a blueprint, the film convinces you of Shulman's worth (and, by extension, of the architects he helped immortalize) without imparting the passion the filmmakers so obviously feel. It's functional, but it could have used a little more form.

• Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

  Eric Bricker's glowing portrait of Shulman uses its subject's photos to persuade the viewer that one picture is worth a thousand architectural masterworks.

• Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

  Bricker doesn't have much filmic pizazz, but Shulman's photos encompass the entire history of modernist architecture.

• Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

  The Shulman we see is a man of sharp humor, with an ego to match some of the architects he worked for. He's been slowed down by time, but relishes all the attention lavished on him as a living master.

• Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

  Visual Acoustics is nominally about the life and career of landmark Southern California architectural photographer Julius Shulman, but it's more about the buildings he photographed than it is about him. Which is probably the way he'd like it.

• Andy Webster, New York Times

  Architecture aficionados, and design mavens in general, will have an agreeable time with Visual Acoustics.

• Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle

  Shulman's still photographs are essential to any study of the style's vast popularization and commercialism.

• Gerald Peary, Boston Phoenix

  Eric Bricker's documentary celebration of America's most renowned architectural photographer is effusive in its praise, tame in its public-television-style execution.

• Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  Although Shulman died after Visual Acoustics was completed, this stylish film reminds us that great images endure after bodies and buildings crumble.

• Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

  Architectural photographer Julius Shulman was a pivotal figure in US popular culture. He's the one who taught Americans to love modernism.

• Jerry Portwood, New York Press

  Shulman is such an interesting character due to the influence he wielded in Modern architecture's ability to flourish in America that all the gushy conversations with architects and academics actually seem merited.

• Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru

  A thoroughly compelling, well-edited and illuminating documentary that rarely has a dull moment.

• Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

  "Visual Acoustics" offers a history lesson, biopic, and visually harmonic essay via Julius Shulman's gifted focus.

• Matthew Nestel, Boxoffice Magazine

  Schulman's passion to be present in the here and now and "stop time" with his photographs is indicative of a mortal who has channeled the powers that be to make something that wasn't there before: Art in its greatest sense.

• Bill Weber, Slant Magazine

  Gives a convincing, contagious taste of its protagonist's playful optimism.

Read all 15 critic reviews