BUILDING ON AN ARCHITECT'S CONSTRUCTIONS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Sydney Pollack isn't aiming for huge psychological insights with his deliberately casually titled homage to his architect pal, ``Sketches of Frank Gehry.'' He hasn't come to understand Gehry, so much as to praise him. And, really, with buildings like the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain and Los Angeles' own Walt Disney Concert Hall, who can argue with a salute to the man's genius?

Still, there are more than a few moments during ``Sketches'' in which you wish Pollack had dug a little deeper. Gehry briefly mentions a failed first marriage that sent him into therapy, talks about changing his surname from Goldberg to Gehry after being on the receiving end of anti-Semitism and shares his thoughts about detractors who see his buildings as being monstrous creations of ego. But, whether out of respect for his friend or a lack of interest, Pollack lets each of these topics disappear without further probing.

What excites Pollack, best-known for ``Tootsie'' and his many movies with Robert Redford, is how Gehry takes crumpled bits of paper, turns them into cardboard models and then somehow transforms them into breathtaking buildings that manage to be both of and apart from their surrounding environments. Bilbao director Juan Ignacio Vidarte notes that the massive museum seems to have been dropped from outer space a century ago, which is as perfect a summation of Gehry's work as you're ever going to hear.

Unfortunately, Pollack populates much of ``Sketches'' with fawning testimony from Hollywood moguls -- Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Michael Ovitz -- who don't add much to the discussion. And the one naysayer, Princeton art professor Hal Foster, comes off as a simpering flibbertigibbet. This is the best foe Pollack could find for an iconoclastic lightning rod like Gehry?

Probably not. Probably Pollack didn't look that hard. He has known Gehry for a good many years, and their friendship, though limiting, does provide the occasional simpatico, aha moment, such as when the two men talk about the difficulties of maintaining an artistic vision in fields dominated by commercial concerns.

Gehry, a cheerful, energetic, self-deprecating man closing in on his 80th birthday, makes for an engaging subject. And Pollack, no stranger to being in front of the camera, is a genial host, even if he does insert himself into the movie unnecessarily at times. (Yes, we know you can hold a camera with the best of them, Sydney.)

In the movie's most memorable and perceptive moment, Gehry speaks openly about his envy of a painter's ability to immediately, vibrantly create and explore the sheer beauty of surfaces. Gehry sighs, saying he just can't do that. ``Yeah, right,'' Pollack replies, offering the ultimate rejoinder, a beautiful montage of Gehry's work, showing the way their surfaces shimmer, grab sunlight and interact with their surroundings in a way that achieves a mutual glory. That sequence justifies the movie -- and then some.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY - Three stars

(PG-13: brief strong language.)

Director: Sydney Pollack.

Running time: 1 hr. 23 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Town Center 5 in Encino; Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena; Landmark's Westside Pavilion in West Los Angeles; Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood; Laemmle's Monica in Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Sydney Pollack pays his respects to architect pal Frank Gehry; if anything, he's a bit too respectful. But what the movie lacks in psychological insight, it makes up for with its loving look at Gehry's work.

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Photo:

Director Sydney Pollack, left, and the famed architect during the making of ``Sketches of Frank Gehry.''