Amazon.com: Objectified: Dieter Rams, Marc Newson Jonathan Ive, Gary Hustwit: Amazon Instant Video

Product Details

Synopsis: OBJECTIFIED is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. Director Gary Hustwit (HELVETICA) looks at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets, profiling the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It's about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. Through verite footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world's most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

Starring: Dieter Rams, Marc Newson Jonathan Ive

Directed by: Gary Hustwit

Genre: Documentary

Runtime: 1 hour 16 minutes

Release year: 2009

Studio: Plexifilm

ASIN: B002SOUVKU (Rental) and B002RU1O2O (Purchase)

Rights & Requirements

Rental rights: 3 day viewing period Details

Purchase rights: Stream instantly and download to 2 locations. Details

Compatible with: Mac and Windows PC online viewing, compatible instant streaming devices, TiVo DVRs. System requirements

Format: Amazon Instant Video (streaming online video and digital download)

Theatrical Release Information

US Theatrical Release Date: March 14, 2009
Production Company: Plexi Productions, Swiss Dots

Video Format Details

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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's great material, but a second part is needed., February 19, 2010

By

Patricio C. Ortiz "Patricio Ortiz" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Objectified (DVD)

I saw this documental three times. I also played it in my user centered design class. It's great material for educative purposes, but for first or second semester design students, and particularly the design process at Smart Design and IDEO. I do personally empatize with the way design is done at those two firms. Dieter Rams interview is great. Although it shows the state of affairs and different points of view, it's scope is too narrow, mostly focusing in well known designers, curators, critics and studios from the US, Europe and only one from Asia (N. Fukasawa) Design book publishers (Phaidon) started to realize that there is a lot of good design activity beyond the U.S. , Europe and Japan. I't would be great to see a second part showing the work of Filipino, Brazilian, Kenian or Mexican designers or small design consultancies in emerging countries who have to apply a lot of creativity, obtaining great designs in cultures with less corporation oriented design philosopies, and more technology limited environments. I do agree partially with "JW's" review, Most of this people are involved with a small fraction of the produced goods in the world but it does generally sample the way many design professionals do their work.
Overall its a good introductory film, but I hope more deep filmed material on I.D. will show up in the future.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as Helvetica but good, March 12, 2010

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J. Coates (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Objectified (DVD)

I enjoyed this movie but, it did not feel as tight as Helvetica. I think a slightly different direction in filmmaking and editing was needed. It felt slow and ponderous at times. Maybe it was the subject - limited to commercial product design? Just not enough juicy material to bite into. Maybe industrial design is too young, too commercial, too much built to meet the buyer's needs - despite any radical concepts or methodologies that emerge?
I would like to have seen more 20th C. history. Joe Columbo, AEG: Peter Behrens (the worlds first industrial designer and first to create and use all types of design at a corporation in a consistent manner), Buckminster Fuller (maybe), 1920s American design, Raymond Lowey, etc.. Even as a short 15 minute segment or interspersed throughout, it would be nice to see the history that lead to the "object".

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24 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Designers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world! (Or so they would have us think), September 5, 2010

By

George W - See all my reviews

This review is from: Objectified (DVD)

I was quite interested in the topic of the movie, especially since it promised to explore our interactions with objects in the world. Even the title suggested that it might consider not just the ways that humans transform their environments through design, but the ways that those objects transform our sense of what it is to be human, in the process (perhaps) objectifying us. Instead what this movie offers is a wholly uncritical celebration of design and designers, which culminates in the claim by one designer that they deserve the status formerly accorded philosophers (and, presumably, megalomaniac architects like Corbusier).

I don't really blame the designers for their bombast, but I do blame the filmmakers for their inability or unwillingness to probe beneath these claims and to ask hard questions about the relationship between design, capitalism, and the lives of ordinary folks. There are a couple of gestures toward the environmental impact of all our goodies, but these don't go anywhere. For that matter, neither does the movie. If you watch the first 10 minutes and nothing else you will already have taken in the basic point of the movie, which is to tell you how cool design is, how cool designers are, and how much we should be grateful to them for the sleek functionality of our MacBook Pros (though I would have thought $1700 would be gratitude enough).

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Non-involoved viewpoint
I am not an industrial designer. But I care and can appreciate a long term viewpoint - being middle age. Industrial design is important in the long run, period.

Published 1 month ago by Richard Sibley

5.0 out of 5 stars "Quiet obsessive!"

A seminal approach for those who wants understand the "quiet obsessive" way of of a professional designer thinking all kind of objects surround us.

Published 2 months ago by EDMAR FERREIRA JR

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, but Lacks Focus
This film tries to answer the question, "What is industrial design and what is our relationship with it?" The task is far too ambitious. Read more