Splitting/Spiral Jetty

I felt a couple different reactions for Splitting and The Spiral Jetty. To me, though it was filmed, Splitting seemed like a performance piece more than anything. Like how much of his "anarchitecture" had to be experienced first hand, I feel like Splitting was more of a total experience that couldn't be as well approximated on film as in person. The concept alone, "this guy is going to cut a house in half," is provocative and exciting, but the matter-of-fact workmanlike editing of the piece sucks that excitement and intrigue dry.

The Spiral Jetty certainly had much more of a story to tell, and I felt it was primarily narrative in form. The early focus on dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures gave the proper undercurrent of motivation as to why Smithson may have been interested in building this object, and the bulk of the film is more or less the story of physically constructing it, with the climatic moment being the person (presumably Smithson) traversing the length of it.

That said, I think the "denouement" of the piece--the protracted helicopter shots--ran long and hinted of ego. If not ego, then a lack of objectivity in looking at the formation--pride is uderstandable, but it overshadows the rest of the film when it leaks through the final minutes.