The title of this engrossing documentary on the lives
and work of design icons Charles & Ray Eames is somewhat misleading as we
soon discover that there were so much more than just an architect and a
painter. They were also furniture
designers, filmmakers, graphic designers and visual communicators par
excellence. In fact this multi-faceted highly influential pair are rightfully
credited with giving shape to America’s 20th Century.
Charles was already married when he first met Ray at Design
School in Michigan in the late 1930’s but by 1941 they were married to each
other and set off for LA to start a working life together. After designing a
revolutionary splint for the war effort, they developed the same technique further to create some brilliant
molded furniture that is still made by the Herman Miller Company today. Eames's philosophy was ‘the best for the least
for the most’ and thus started decades of projects that was influential in
bringing their stunning design aesthetics
to the widest possible audience.
As the film follows major projects that the Eames undertook
with large corporations, you appreciate that the breadth of their work is extraordinary. Based in Venice California the Eames Studio
was a constant hive of activity that attracted a whole slew of designers and
crew who were instrumental in providing this prodigious output alongside
Charles and Ray but who were never allowed any public acknowledgement or credit for their
contributions.
Everyone interviewed, without exception, described the
devilishly handsome Charles as charismatic and although behind the scenes Ray
was an equal partner, Charles was always the one in the limelight. Their
relationship proved strong enough to survive Charles’s romantic love affairs on
the side.
This remarkable film gives a real insight into the
lives of this influential couple who had such a way of making people look at
the world differently, and had a mission of putting joy back into life. And boy did they so succeed with that!
Charles insisted that an ‘artist’ is a title you earn
and cannot give yourself, but it is one that the world is truly happy to use to describe
both him and Ray.
Unmissable.
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