Objectified

United States

2009

75 Min

Color

English, French, Dutch, Japanese

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

PROD Sharon Hustwit, Jakob Trollbäck

CAST Paola Antonelli, Alice Rawsthorn, Davin Stowell, Jane Fulton Suri, Rob Walker

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves? —ObjectifiedFilm.com

Director

Gary Hustwit

Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker based in New York and London. He has produced and directed a number of documentaries including the 2007 film Helvetica.

A former independent publisher and Vice President of Salon.com, he is the founder, along with Sean Anderson, of Plexifilm, an independent DVD label and film production company. Hustwit is best known for his Design Trilogy which is composed of the documentaries Helvetica, Objectified and Urbanized. The trilogy deals with aspects of graphic design, typography, industrial design, architecture and urban planning. He said in an interview in Dwell magazine: “I like the idea of taking a closer look at the things we take for granted and changing the way people think about them, whether it’s type or objects or whatever”.

He was nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit “Truer Than Fiction” Award for Helvetica. —Wikipedia

Wall

Displaying 4 of 6 wall posts.

see all

FailedImitator

5May13

Interesting. Not as good as Helvetica, but certainly better than Urbanized.

Andre Rehal

31Aug12

Some of the interviews were hit and miss for me but overall I found the doc had some interesting moments.

rameil

28Aug12

Cool documentary.

ramosbarajas

7Aug12

It sets out to explore consumers and (importantly) individuals' relationship to design. However, it falls short and limits itself greatly to merely some designer's relationship to their work. They do talk about design in a greater sense, but it's not as exhaustive as it could have been.