Christo's Valley Curtain

Colton Peterson

Dr. Kyburz

English 1010

13 September 2012

Christo’s Valley Curtain Summary

            Christo’s Valley Curtain starts out with Christo in a room filled with drawings.  He is carefully sketching and looking over his newest project, which is to drape a huge orange curtain across a valley.  It shows sketches of other projects that he has done in the past or that he might do in the future.  He is very articulate about his sketch of the valley curtain.  He is going over it very cautiously using a ruler to make sure his spacing is perfect and to make sure his lines are straight.  He has a woman with him in the room, who you assume is his art assistant, she periodically puts in her input on his drawings or ideas.  It then jumps to the valley where there are many construction workers starting to build his latest project.

            Christo is helping the construction workers by tightening a bolt and asking them questions about how they are going to do this or how it’s going to work.  He shakes hands with some construction managers and watches as they slowly raise the curtain to the top of the cable that connects the two mountaintops.  It then shows some people on a golf course talking about Christo’s project and how excited they are to see it, because of how unique it is. 

            The film jumps back and forth between Christo perfecting his sketch of the valley curtain, and the construction workers suspended in the air from the cables trying to get his curtain attached.  Christo is on the ground yelling his concerns as the construction workers try to connect the curtain to the cable.  It then jumps back to him in his art studio cutting out fabric to put on his sketch; it shows you what it will look like when this bright orange curtain is draped across the valley.

            People on the golf course are saying that it’s taking them longer than they thought and it looks like they haven’t made any progress today.  Christo is frustrated it’s taking so long and they work late into the night.  However, the construction manager calls it off and sends them home, because it’s too dangerous to work on it at night. 

            The next day the construction workers are back at the site, expressing their concerns as a group about this gigantic curtain.  They decide that they will take off the fabric covering the curtain, and so they proceed with this.  Christos watches as they take off the layer covering the fabric.  He yells, “Don’t cut the fabric,” as he watches the construction workers pulling as hard as they can to get it off of the curtain.  Christo and his art assistant are getting very frustrated that it’s taking so long and have no trouble voicing their concerns with the construction workers.  The construction workers are still trying to take off the layers covering the fabric and finally get it.  Christo and his assistant are very grateful and are now getting anxious for it to be complete.

            Christo has finished his sketch of the valley curtain and frames it.  He brings it to a man and shows it to him.  They have a small replica of the valley and his curtain and begin testing the wind against the curtain, seeing how much it can withstand.  It jumps back to the construction workers as they communicate their concerns of how scared and nervous they are about this project.  They are joking around about going to jail the next day, because what they are doing may be illegal.  Christo is very frustrated and is asking why they aren’t done yet.

            They begin to drop the curtain, but it gets hung up in the middle.  Christo runs down and starts to yell at the construction workers to “pull, pull, pull, pull, PULL!” The curtain is still hung up and Christo keeps on yelling at the construction workers.  He eventually calms down and watches as the construction workers go up there to see what it’s snagged on.  They fix it and the curtain finishes falling down through the valley.  Everyone cheers and they stand and look at what they have accomplished. 

            It then shows the finished project from multiple views.  Christo and his art assistant are very happy and stand there admiring it.  It shows how happy the construction workers are that it is finished and how beautiful it really is.  They acknowledge that it was a team effort and just stand there admiring it.  The film ends as the camera slowly zooms out over the valley showing Christos valley curtain and just how magnificent is really is.