The Films of
Charles & Ray
Eames
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“We have not supposed there is a poetry of ideas.”
– Charles Eames
Chuck Pratt
Architecture 4395
The Constructive Vision
Prof. Ed Baum
Fall 2003
Glimpses of the USA was commissioned by the U.S. Department of State for a major exhibition to be held in Moscow in 1959 as part of a “cultural exchange.” The commission came indirectly via George Nelson, the designer of the exhibition, who flew to California to persuade the Eameses to prepare a film about “a day in the life of the United States.” They accepted, and they also offered ideas about the exhibition as a whole. Nelson later recalled that his three days of intensive discussions with the Eameses culminated when the three of them, plus Billy Wilder and Jack Macey, the U.S. Information Agency”s coordinator of design and construction, spent an evening at the Eames House, during which “all the basic decisions of the fair were made.”
The Eameses were given a virtually free hand with the presentation, not only by Nelson but also by the U.S. government. “Dressed like a boy scout and girl scout,” Charles and Ray arrived in Moscow the night before the premiere, having personally transported the precious cans of film. Nobody saw the presentation before its public viewing. Nelson and a host of government officials were anxious, but they need not have worried; the “totally new type of presentation” went off flawlessly.
The presentation was envisaged as a message from one urban community to another at a time when both had had their fill of words but, the Eameses hoped, could still respond to visual images. There was a 12-minute presentation of 2200 rapidly changing images (most of them still but some moving), accompanied by music composed by Elmer Bernstein. The images, projected onto seven 32-feet screens, emphasized everyday life.
The Moscow show illustrated the ability of images and music to touch the heart as well as the intellect. It preached that the world is about human beings who all shared the same planet, and that similarities should be considered as important as differences. One particularly noteworthy example of this is the use of a short film clip of Marilyn Monroe. Charles Eames had asked Billy Wilder for a short piece of film to use in the middle of the presentation, and Wilder had suggested a close-up sequence from Some Like It Hot in which Monroe breaks into a big smile and winks. That Marilyn Monroe was not known in Russia at the time did not matter; the ovation each time the clip was shown came from the recognition of an attractive woman caught by the camera in a basic but powerful human act of communication. Here was the friendly face of America.
The final stroke of genius came from Ray. There was some debate as to how to end the presentation. One idea was to end with a dynamically angled shot of a jet airliner taking off, to symbolize progress and the drawing together of different peoples in the “global village” that some saw as the inevitable result of high-speed air travel and other modern technologies. Ray wanted to end the show on a more human and intimate note. The last few images were of people saying goodnight. This produced a strong sense of closure but had less finality than a formal goodbye.