The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller

Sam Green's "live documentary" on Fuller, performed with in-person narration and music by Yo La Tengo.

The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller is a live documentary by filmmaker Sam Green tracing the career of the twentieth-century futurist, architect, engineer, inventor, and author R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983). It presents Fuller as an early proponent of environmental stewardship who argued that design and architecture could address sustainability and conservation and drive radical societal change.

The work belongs to Green's genre of "live cinema": at every screening he narrates the film in person and cues images from a laptop while the band Yo La Tengo performs its original score live. Because each performance is unrepeatable, the film has been described as "a movie being born as you see it and hear it, as alive as music" (Rebecca Solnit). It is a follow-up to Green's acclaimed live film Utopia in Four Movements, which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and it draws on traditions ranging from old travelogues and the Japanese benshi narrator to the TED talk.

The film toured widely, with screenings at venues and campuses including Duke University, Skidmore College, and Thalia Hall through the late 2010s.

See Also

• R. Buckminster Fuller (R. Buckminster Fuller) — the central figure
• Sam Green (Sam Green) — the filmmaker

Sources

• Buckminster Fuller Film — A Live Documentary by Sam Green