Eames: The Architect and the Painter

  • Co-Repping with Films Transit International

    The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely considered America’s most important designers.

    They gave their name to an era. "Just like Queen Victoria represents an attitude toward life that is reflected in Victorian art and literature, Eames also embodies a certain approach to life and to ideas," notes film director Paul Schrader early in this eye-opening documentary about the iconic American industrial designers.

    The "Eames Era," which began in the optimistic flush of American victory in WWII, ended when Charles died in 1978. Yet their impact grows unabated. The work of Charles and Ray Eames remains for designers and consumers an ideal of design at its most virtuous – an alchemical combination of beauty and purpose.

    Perhaps best remembered for their mid-century plywood and fiberglass furniture, the Eames Office also created a bewildering variety of other products, from splints for wounded military during World War II, to photography, interiors, multi-media exhibits, graphics, games, films and toys. Narrated by James Franco, the film draws from a trove of archival material, primarily the stunning films and photographs produced in mind-boggling volume by Charles, Ray, and their staff during the hyper-creative forty years of the Eames Office. Family members and design historians help guide the story, but it is in interviews with the junior designers swept into the "24-7" world of "The Eamery,", that a fascinatingly complex picture of this husband and wife creative team really emerges.

     

credits

  • director(s): Bill Jersey
  • editor(s): Don Bernier
  • executive producer(s): Shirley Kessler
  • producer(s): Jason Cohn
  • production company: Quest Production and Bread and Butter Films

technical data

  • film format: HD
  • audio format: Stereo
  • aspect ratio: 16/9
  • production year: 2011
  • runtime: 84'
  • countries: UNITED STATES
  • genres: biography
  • languages: English

Festivals

  • DocAviv
  • DOC NYC
  • Docville, Belgium
  • Encounters Documentary Film Festival
  • Kassel Documentary Film Festival
  • Mill Valley Film Festival
  • New Orleans Film Festival
  • Revelation Perth International Film Festival
  • Seattle International Film Festival

media files Print

trailer

view trailer

press pictures

Picture Picture