In late February of 2005, I found myself walking along a path in Central Park when, at dusk, a light snow began to fall. As the snow blanketed the landscape, it sucked up the sounds of the city, leaving only one thing audible: the sound of the saffron curtains over our heads lazily flapping in the breeze. Suddenly, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates stood out in brilliant contrast to the ear just as they popped from the visual landscape against the newly white backdrop. Two years on, Albert Maysles and Antonio Ferrera’s documentary The Gates transported me back to that evening, accomplishing the difficult task of recreating in pictures a work of art best experienced first hand.

Albert Maysles and his now deceased brother David had a long-standing relationship with Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which resulted in five previous films on the enigmatic pair and their larger than life environmental pieces. In 1979, when the artists first brought their idea for a temporary installation in Central Park to the city of New York, they brought the Maysles along with them. The Gates opens with a brief introduction in the present, and then carries us back to those first days of meetings with lawyers, parks commissioners, neighborhood groups, and endless parades of committee meetings. Their idea dies a slow and painful death, as various figures raise objection after objection. As it becomes clear that the circus of sour faced public officials isn’t going to let the pair near the park with so much as a swatch of fabric, Christo is reduced to sitting lonely and crumpled in a corner while public servants rip his idea to shreds.