agmtw logo
search

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time (2001)

Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time (2001)

The Very Best

9.0

A thoroughly engaging documentary about a solitary artist collaborating with nature.

Movie

Canada, Finland
English
Documentary
2001

What it's about

Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.

The take

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist, whose art is specific to the natural locations he creates them in and made only from the natural materials he finds in them. This is putting it very technically: Goldsworthy is a solitary wanderer, absorbed in the moment, unworried about what comes after him. Using often only his bare hands, he creates fleeting works of art that often looks like nature itself could have created them. The opening has him calmly forming a spiral out of icicles using the heat of his hands to fuse the pieces together. As painstaking as this process is, his art is not meant to live forever. Once completed, it is handed over to the rivers and tides to do with it as they please. Directed, shot, and edited by Thomas Riedelsheimer, a German filmmaker, Rivers and Tides takes an in-depth look at Goldsworthy's ideas and craft, everywhere from upstate New York to his home village in Scotland. A calming and inspiring journey.

Comments

This is a one of a kind documentary. It blends nature and art in such a way that can only felt when seen. From the first to last you will be amazed by it.

Your name

Your comment

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

UP NEXT 

Anora (2024)

An exciting and heartbreaking fairy tale with a modern, class-centric twist

9.0

A Real Pain (2024)

Two cousins bond as they trace their roots in this powerfully emotional dramedy

8.0

Close Your Eyes (2023)

A quiet and thought-provoking film linking life, cinema, memory, and identity

7.4

Hail Satan? (2019)

Forget everything you think you know about the Satanic Temple

8.0

Incendies (2011)

Part melodrama, part war thriller, Incendies is gorgeous and heartbreaking from the first scene

9.9

Blink (2024)

Equal parts stunning and touching, this family adventure trip doubles as an ode to the beauty of life and the preciousness of childhood

7.2

The Edge of Democracy (2019)

Mixing personal history with hardcore journalism, this is the story of Brazil's fragile democracy.

9.0

Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)

A darkly hilarious portrait of the inevitability of death

7.9

Slow (2023)

A simple, beautiful, and deeply necessary ode to asexual intimacy

8.0

Honeyland (2019)

A cinematic achievement in the portrayal of the last wild beekeeper in Europe

9.3

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw logo

© 2025 agoodmovietowatch, all rights reserved.