Bronze: River of Metal (1972)

Here, director Clifford B. West looks at the art of casting Renaissance bronzes as a historian, appreciator, critic, and craftsman. This film traces bronze from its discovery in Mesopotamia in the third millenium BCE to the 20th century. The film begins with historian Bruno Bearzi showing Donatello's modifications, and his 14 separate castings, on the colossal bronze of St. Louis of Toulouse at the Museo dell'Opera. Then, a visit to the Hades-like Fonderia Ferdinando Marinelli, where four workers prepare casts for the lost-wax process, then laboriously hoist the heavy, molten bronze crucible, and carefully pour off its terrible contents, to a soundtrack of ambient noise made by sculptor Harry Bertoia. Finally, the director turns to the past, through the doors of Ghiberti in the Baptistry of Florence. For more on filmmaker Clifford West, visit http://www.afana.org/westbio.htm