Michael Reuben
Senior HTF Member
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- Real Name
- Michael Reuben
Studio: New Video
Rated: NR
Film Length: 87 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Audio: English DD 2.0
Subtitles: None
MSRP: $29.95
Package: Keepcase
Insert: None
Theatrical Release Date: June 5, 2009 (NYC)
DVD Release Date: Dec. 15, 2009
Introduction:
This forum is filled with enthusiasts who should relate to the passion for collecting vividly captured in this remarkable documentary. The collection is of modern art, and the documentary chronicles how a couple of modest means amassed one of the largest and most impressive collections in America – then donated it to the public.
The Film:
Herb Vogel grew up in New York City. His wife, Dorothy, came from the small upstate town of Elmira. In the late Fifties, Dorothy moved to Manhattan, where she met and married Herb. Herb spent his entire adult life working for the post office. Dorothy worked for the city at the Brooklyn Public Library. They shared a one-bedroom rent-controlled apartment.
They also shared a passion for art, and over the next forty years, they became a fixture at every show, gallery and auction in New York. They befriended artists long before they became famous, often becoming their first patrons. They ventured into Soho when it was still an undeveloped and dangerous neighborhood filled with studios (today it’s a tourist attraction and a giant mall). Whenever they heard about a new artist, they went to view the work.
And they collected. The Vogels acquired works based on only two rules: (1) they had to be able to afford the piece, which they often did by paying over time; and (2) the piece had to fit in their small apartment (which was often a challenge, especially if the artist was a sculptor). Dorothy’s salary provided their living expenses, while Herb’s fed the acquisition fund.
I don’t know the art world, and most of the artists interviewed for Herb & Dorothy were unfamiliar to me, though they’re celebrities to afficionados. The notable exception is Christo and his late wife Jean-Claude, whose 2005 project “The Gates” in Central Park drew visitors from around the world; footage is included in the documentary. (The Vogel Collection includes a collage rendering of an earlier Christo project, “Valley Curtain”, that the artists “sold” to Herb and Dorothy in exchange for cat-sitting services while Christo and Jean-Claude spent the summer of 1972 in Colorado building the actual project.) The artists to which the Vogels were attracted pursued a style that many of the documentary’s interviewees describe as “difficult”, “rigorous”, “unfriendly”, etc. The style came to be known as Minimalist, and as you look at many of the works on screen, you can hear a lot of people (and maybe yourself) asking, “That’s considered art?”
Herb and Dorothy Vogel never cared what anyone else thought. They were never guided by fashion or critics or anyone’s taste but their own. They simply sought out and experienced everything that was being created by artists and then bought the pieces they loved and could afford. Over the years, many of the artists they found were “discovered”, and the early works acquired by the Vogels became valuable, especially during the art boom of the Eighties. But Herb and Dorothy never sold a single piece. They loved each one too dearly to sell any of them.
And that is the real subject of this documentary: not the art itself, but a love for art so pure and so self-sustaining that it trumped all concerns of wealth or, at times, even practicality. After decades of collecting, the Vogels’ apartment was so filled with art that it barely had room for the two of them. Herb had already retired from the post office, and as Dorothy prepared to retire from the public library and faced the daunting task of buying a computer and cataloguing thousands of works, she and Herb began to consider the advantages of accepting one of the many offers they’d received from museums around the country. They eventually settled on the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. The story of how the Gallery’s curator laboriously packed up and trucked the contents of Herb and Dorothy’s apartment to Washington is one of the most entertaining in the film.
The Vogels could have sold their collection and made millions. Instead they gave it to a museum whose charter specifies that works in its collection can never be sold. In recognition of their generosity, the management of the National Gallery arranged for the Vogels to receive an annual stipend to ensure that they would be able to continue paying their living expenses.
So what did Herb and Dorothy do with the money? They bought more art. After all, now they had the space.
The Vogels had received publicity before Herb & Dorothy. The documentary contains clips of appearances on 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose, as well as shots of news stories from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other major publications. But Herb & Dorothy is a much more personal portrait in which this unique couple, now quite elderly, has a chance to speak for themselves about their shared passion and their life-long adventure as collectors. In a moving shot near the end, they stand quietly together before a wall at the National Gallery on which is engraved the names of major contributors. Their names are at the very top.
Video:
Herb & Dorothy was shot on consumer-grade digital video, and the 4:3 image reflects both the advantages and limitations of that format. Detail and depth of field are quite good for NTSC video, so that when we’re in the Vogels’ apartment or an artist’s studio, there is a good view of the surroundings. But aliasing and digital noise are constant companions, and colors are somewhat washed out, particularly when the lighting isn’t strong. The archival footage varies in quality as one would expect.
Still, even if one might wish for a more film-like look, there’s no question that digital video, with its light equipment and lack of need for any crew, is what allowed director Megumi Sasaki to establish the intimate rapport that was essential to obtaining the footage for this film. The look of the film can’t be separated from the film as it exists.
Audio:
The DD 2.0 track is encoded at a bitrate of 224kb/ps. Voices are clearly rendered, as is the low-key score by David Majzlin. It’s a solid, serviceable track.
Special Features:
Deleted scenes (app. 17 min.). There are 7 scenes. All of them are interesting, but they cover ground already covered in other scenes. The one exception is the scene where Dorothy visits the library where she used to work, which is a bookend to the scene that remains in the film in which Herb returns to visit his former work place at the FDR Post Office in Manhattan. I like this scene, but I understand why it was cut. With Herb, there were a number of people still working at the post office who remembered him and could speak about him. This was not the case with Dorothy, and most of the footage involves her reminiscing, which she does elsewhere in the film.
Festivals and Premieres (app. 15 min.) (16:9 enhanced). The film played extensively at festivals before being released in theaters and shown on PBS. This section contains footage from the Hamptons International Film Festival in Nov. 2008, the Provincetown Film Festival in June 2009, and a special premiere event at the Cinema Village in New York City in June 2009, where the film continued to play throughout the summer.
Trailers. Two trailers are included. The first is a traditional theatrical trailer in 4:3 aspect ratio. The second is labeled a “PBS Promotional Trailer”, and it is 16:9 enhanced. Just over 4 minutes long, it uses clips from the various festival and premiere collections to build the equivalent of an EPK, introduced by the Vogels themselves.
In Conclusion:
My favorite documentaries are about individuals and events that, if they were included in a work of fiction, would prompt people to protest, “No! That could never happen.” Herb and Dorothy are two such individuals, and the collection they built is such an event. Even if the art isn’t to your taste, the story of how it was collected is so compelling that you won’t care.
Equipment used for this review:
Denon 955 DVD player
Samsung HL-T7288W DLP display
Lexicon MC-8
Sunfire Cinema Grand amplifier
Monitor Audio floor-standing fronts and MA FX-2 rears
Boston Accoustics VR-MC center
SVS SB12-Plus sub
