
Tall: The American Skyscraper and Louis Sullivan. 2004. USA. Directed by Manfred Kirchheimer. 85 min.
America’s greatest contributions to world civilization are jazz, baseball, the musical—and the skyscraper. Using vintage postcards, photographs, and architectural renderings, Kirchheimer offers a lively account of the rise of this technological and aesthetic wonder in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, focusing on the rivalry between Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, and other modernist architects to evoke the power, wealth, and progress of a newly ascendant nation in iron and steel, glass and stone.