By good chance, I was able to watch a special screening of “Holy Frit,” one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen on the process of making an artwork.
Only problem for you is that this documentary isn’t out, not yet at least. It’s on the festival circuit for now. One day, it’ll be on a streaming service.
On that day, go watch it.
If you need prompting to do so, the movie’s trailer boasts about its accolades.
The movie is about the making of the largest stained-glass window project in the world, back in the mid-2010s.
That ended up in, of all places, Leawood, Kansas — a suburb of Kansas City.
Featured in the documentary is the construction not only of the window but also the megachurch it’s now housed in, a United Methodist Church.
The church commissioned the window back around 2014, and the small-but-renowned stained-glass business of Judson Studios in California won the bid — a $3.7 million-dollar project to make the window.
The only problem is that the lead artist at Judson Studios, Tim Carey, doesn’t know how to make the window.
He won the bid without knowing the process by which his creation could come to light. To make the window, he’ll need to invent new techniques and find new materials. He’s only got two years to do so.
Here’s an image of the church when it was under construction, with a simulated image of the window itself.
What’s special about “Holy Frit” is the filming of it. Somehow the director and his crew found this project near its origin. They were therefore able to track it and film it in its development, including interviewing everyone as the window was being created, over a three-year span.
Unlike most documentaries, which would be made in retrospect, this one made during the unfolding of the story feels much more exciting.
For example, we’re told that the stained-glass window industry hasn’t evolved in 1000 years. Carey seems frustrated and even clueless about how to make multi-colored glass, a problem for him in both techniques and materials. His studio also isn’t big enough to produce multiple panels at a time. But he needs to churn out seven panels a month, which seems impossible.
Adding to the film’s probing of how a monstrous artwork is made is Narcissus Quagliata, one of the world’s most renowned stained-glass artists. Judson Studios hires him to help and train Tim Carey.
The result for this film is a magical pairing that would be impossible for any casting director to cast: two unique personalities gelling and clashing about making a massive project with limited time to do so. They are fantastic on-screen together.
Quagliata ends up being a Yoda-figure to Carey, but not before he dominates the project too much for Carey’s taste.
It’s remarkable to watch this film and think about how a master artist gets an apprentice to become a master artist himself. “Holy Frit” miraculously documents that as it happens. Carey will butt heads with Quagliata’s vision, and we realize he needs to do that in order for anything productive to happen.
Because the movie focuses on stained-glass, a really old artform with strong religious ties, you will feel as if you are watching Botticelli teach Fillipino Lippi. I was thinking during this entire movie that we are privileged to watch two masters as they would’ve developed themselves and their craft during, say, the Italian Renaissance.
The film even adds great personalities to spice up the Carey-Quagliata pairing. There’s the mild-mannered boss of Judson Studios, David Judson, who either might be helping or quietly demanding too much of Carey.
Also featured is Quentin Blackmon, a 19-year-old fresh out of prison who finds redemption and even learns from Quagliata about how to master stained-glass techniques.
And then there’s an old curmudgeon who works for Judson Studios. About every twenty minutes during the movie, he’s asked whether the project will finish on time. His answers are delightfully honest and funny, every single time.
“Holy Frit” brings up so many aspects of creating an artwork that I can imagine it being used in Art and Aesthetics classes for years to come.
One of its questions: should any church play that much for an artwork?
And if they do, will they really display it properly? One of the hilariously sad things that comes up is that the megachurch has to hang titantic speakers from the ceiling, and those speakers are going to cover part of their $3.7 million-dollar window, so that no one can ever see it in full.
Will they rectify that horrible error, or will they fulfill the stereotype of tacky Midwestern tastes and keep the speakers there?
Another question: what are the environmental costs of stained-glass? Maybe a lot. Judson outsources their materials from Bullseye, a Portland company that, during the movie, comes under scrutiny for possible contamination problems. As a result, Judson might run out of materials just as they are getting their project under control.
If anything, the film’s weakness is its adherence to convention, which ironically may be a key error that both Judson and the megachurch make with the window.
The movie is too stuck on the redemptive three-act structure of typical commercial films.
I am not sure that redemption is what’s found at the end of this story; in fact, the ending brings up so many questions for me that I want to change this film into the kind of philosophical query that Werner Herzog is so fond of. And some of my questions have to do with the megachurch’s pastor’s motivations, and the speakers he’s happy to install in the church.
Still, the three-act structure is probably more engaging to anybody who wouldn’t care about any topic in the film. In that way, this film could be watched by art enthusiasts or anybody looking for a good movie on the weekend.
And because of that, “Holy Frit” is a winsome combination of entertainment and thought-provoking fare. I am dead sure that it’s better than 90% of the documentaries available on any streaming service you currently subscribe to.
And now, since I’m so close to Kansas City already, I might make a trip down to see this window itself.
As for stained-glass, my appreciation for the artists who are advancing the artform, after 1000 years of similar practices, is sky-high.
Just check out what Tim Carey or Narcisscus Quagliata are up to.
If you are as stunned by this work as I am, then rush to see “Holy Frit” as soon as it’s available to you.