‘Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy’ Is Dreamy and Visually Gorgeous

Andy Goldsworthy, the gallery-resistant Scottish artist known for integrating himself into nature and vice versa, makes for an innately good filmic subject, especially in the hands of a sensitive director such as the German Thomas Riedelsheimer. The director follows up his 2002 classic Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time with Leaning into the Wind: Andy Goldsworthy, a dreamy, refreshingly narrator-free, visually gorgeous, and musically lyrical (courtesy of a lovely score by Fred Frith, also involved with Riedelsheimer’s inspiring Touch the Sound) documentary that paints a portrait of an artist who continues to evolve and invent, with nature and natural forces as guide and passion. In the film, Goldsworthy speaks of an early life as a farmer, attuned to “that rhythm of gathering, building, cutting, stacking, gathering …” and sums up his artistic mission thusly: “I’m still trying to make sense of the world.” Leaning into the Wind wisely and patiently follows the artist’s processes and end products in Brazil, Provence, Gabon, New England, and Scotland. In the striking final shot, we get the pay dirt — a wind-driven artwork referenced in the title.