The stakes could not be higher as one of the theater's finest stage directors teams up with one of the world's leading opera companies to tackle opera's most monumental challenge: the production of Wagner's epic Ring cycle - the four-part, 16-hour work that the composer first presented in 1876. For the past 130 years, the quest to produce a perfect Ring has stymied directors, including Wagner himself, who struggled to meet the immense theatrical demands of his own creation. The cosmic vision of gods and mortals vying for power and destroyed by greed calls for astonishing stage visuals of fire storms, flying warriors, and underwater and heavenly actions.

This documentary recreates a genuine sense of the personal presense of the late modern architect, Paul Rudolph, and the ambience of his studio. Mr. Rudolph was widely recognized within the architectural profession as spontaneously brilliant, and the unchallanged master of space and the manipulation of form. The episode during the construction of the chapel at Emory University gives insight into the kinds of frustrations artists often suffer at the hands of short-sighted patrons. A fine film, based upon the reality it conveys, if for no other reason.