[auctioneer speaking French]
[in English] Three million,
three million two, three million five.
[auctioneer speaking French]
[in English] The next bid is 19.
Nineteen million is the next bid.
-[auctioneer speaking French] -[dings]
Merci beaucoup.
[auctioneer speaking French]
[Eileen] Oui.
[auctioneer speaking French]
[in English] ...in the room, at 19.5 million.
[auctioneer speaking French]
[gavel thumps]
-[auctioneer speaking French] -[applauding]
[light music]
[camera shutter clicking]
[female reporter]
[camera shutter clicking]
[man 1]
[applauding]
[calm music]
[clicking]
[clicking continues]
[clicking]
[clicks]
[light music]
[maid]
[Eileen in English] I remain one of his most
passionate admirers.
Le Corbusier.
[Le Corbusier] An architect must be more
than just a man of knowledge,
but a man of heart.
A scientist...
as well as an artist.
[Eileen] If only he had understood.
[Le Corbusier] Ms. Gray deliberately amended
my modernist mandate
to suit her own willful whims.
She resolutely refused to follow
my five-point plan frame working four.
We'll try to save her house.
If only for the sake of my murals.
But where on earth was the rooftop terrace?
Marie-Louise!
[in French]
Ah. Well...
[auctioneer]
[in English] It is my intention
to preserve the property and, uh, to...
restore it to its original state.
[in French]
[chuckles] Mon dieu, no.
[in English] That graffiti's got to go.
[in French]
[gavel thumps]
[in English] You have to be joking.
[in French] You are joking, right?
[in English] Are you telling me
I paid the price for a large luxury yacht
for this dilapidated plant-box?
[in French]
[Le Corbusier] No! No!
-Marie-Louise! -[shatters]
[light music]
[Le Corbusier] Probably among her least luxurious pieces.
But when I first saw her exhibits
at the Salon des artistes in 1923...
the innovation filled me
with jealousy and awe in equal measure.
Not that we were contemporaries,
Le Corbusier is still a struggling painter,
with architectural ambition was barely born.
Eileen Gray,
the great creator of luxurious interiors
had already arrived.
[in French]
[Le Corbusier in English] Our careers
were about to collide.
[man in French]
[Le Corbusier] Jean envied my architectural achievements
our entire adult lives.
But I could never compete with this prodigious advantage
when it came to women.
Which is why my own occasional publication
is dedicated to modern architecture.
Le Corbusier is a regular contributor
to L'Architecture Vivante
And you want a picture?
A picture of you.
All, all your work, I mean to say.
For Wendingen. It's a Dutch publication.
One of the most advanced architecture--
Yes, I know.
I had a very nice note from J.P Oud at De Stijl.
Well, they would very much like to dedicate
an entire issue to you and your work.
If you'd be so kind as to permit me
to understate the article.
An entire issue of Wendingen?
[Jean] It's to be an in-depth piece.
And during isolation...
is the price of my freedom.
I immerse myself in my work, you see.
To escape the perils of life...
drowning the people around me.
[Jean chuckles] Well...
Perhaps if we were to find the time to work together.
[in French]
Ah.
[in English] I will...
collaborate on your article.
[Jean] Would you mind if I asked you something?
If it's not too indiscreet?
Not at all.
I can't promise response.
Is it a self-portrait?
More of a personal piece.
I called it "The Knight...
of the dark days of the war."
It's very beautiful.
[light music]
[Eileen] The world's a very different place since the war.
We were frivolous then.
Oh, the folly of our ways.
Now, I find functional form is refined,
and defined as art.
It's a question of intention, of function,
what's the use?
How would you use this?
Luxuriously, the bed, for example.
It is not originally designed for any purpose,
but, rather for effect.
[Eileen] Ah.
Quite the pose.
Don't you think?
[Jean] Post-war, those pieces were almost priceless...
preserved of the rich and famous.
I even promoted her myself,
at the expense of my own architectural projects.
The mad musings of a man still struggling
to find himself on the left bank of self-belief,
of the soundness of mind.
Still struggling to find clients
sufficiently courageous to execute my plans.
Le Corbusier
was barely born...
Eileen Gray had arrived.
[foreboding music]
[audience applauding]
[singing in French]
[Le Corbusier] I was...
delirious...
desirous...
But why women were not for going to bed with?
[singing in French]
There is much uncertainty about sex.
Unless it's paid for.
And so much certainty about the work...
even when it isn't.
[singing in French]
[audience applauding]
I long to act...
recklessly.
[audience applauding, cheering]
And I could hear your heart was singing a different symphony.
[audience applauding, cheering]
[calm music]
[calm music continues]
In art, I can see clearly.
In love, not so well.
To me, they were incompatible and confused.
[Le Corbusier] To you, they seemed...
utterly, intrinsically infused.
Life and art seemed to...
coexist.
[snipping]
[Le Corbusier] Intellect and instinct...
artfully combined,
in a perfect sense of harmony,
setting all their senses at once.
[light music]
[speaking French]
Was there ever...
never, a more...
conventional suitor?
Marriage has never appealed to me.
Or... a non-conventional suitor?
I do tend to distinguish.
I mean... [sighs]
...a male lover?
I need freedom to think, to...
work.
To create.
"Freedom." [snickers]
Freedom can be lonely.
Lightly.
There.
Draw down.
Stroke.
[light music]
Do you know that you have the most beautiful profile.
C'est magnifique.
[light music]
A triumph of modern living.
It's my piece of value for women.
"Spiritual content,
form, and matter fuse
form a unity of rare delight."
[Eileen] It's fabulously comfortable.
As an indoor and outdoor idea.
I could call it the "transat."
Inspired by our first transatlantic trip.
Her art is on the contrary, cerebral.
[Eileen chuckles]
It is born of a strong and powerful land.
It shows a willingness
to build purely, ideal spaces.
I often wonder where there's art, there's analysis.
As it's a form of analysis in itself.
[in English] What am I looking for?
I'm looking...
I'm looking for love.
[snickers]
[Jean] Is it drive or desire...
that most motivates the creation of meaningful work?
You're so impassioned by architecture.
Why don't you work or at least write more?
You could write a new edition of L'Architecture Vivante.
What more could I add?
There's so much more to say.
You could dedicate an entire issue
to local musée for example.
Wouldn't that be more about what is good to say?
I just feel like you're putting away your talent in furniture.
You're 46 years old.
Why don't you build a thing that will last?
A boat?
More of an architectural legacy.
Like a house.
Maybe I can ground an ocean liner.
Not just an interior, a whole house.
Mm-hm.
For you.
For us.
A house by the sea.
Where?
Here.
On this coast.
[both laugh]
[birds chirping]
[light music]
[Le Corbusier] A perfect site for the perfect house,
as daunting as it was beautiful.
Where it would, all of us come to feel like one,
with... the forces of nature.
[engine rumbling]
[indistinct chatter]
[all laugh]
Eileen. [clears throat]
[in French]
[Le Corbusier] Naturally, I assumed,
that my elegant friend and admirer
Jean Badovici would commission me
to design and construct his villa.
And that the independently wealthy Eileen Gray
would pay.
[in English] A modern villa.
[in French]
[Le Corbusier] While he had some architectural ambitions,
he had not an ounce of the experience required
to undertake such a project.
I very much enjoy the work
of incorporating some of the tendance
into my drawings, thus far.
-Which ones? -[Eileen] Well...
the side lines itself very well,
to the erosion of differentiation
between the indoor and outdoor space.
[in French]
[Eileen] On the contrary,
I think it matters very much.
The external design is integral to the site
which in turn, impacts on the interior.
[Jean] Surely, so long as it's on structural stilts,
with non-supporting walls,
an open interior with floor to ceiling windows,
an intensive roof terrace,
the plan subscribes.
[Eileen] For me, that's nothing.
Life is everything.
Simultaneously, mind and heart.
Excuse me.
[dogs barking]
[sighs]
[Le Corbusier] Never for a moment, did I imagine
that the elegant designer of interior, Ms. Eileen Gray,
would have the autodidactic arrogance
to attempt such a project herself.
There are buildings which are mute,
buildings which will talk to you and then...
[calm music]
[calm music continues]
If you prefer Corbusier to design the house that--
It's a house for us...
Not for him.
And anyway it does reference the five point plan.
It's to be my gift to you.
If we are designing it then--
We should sign it as us together.
The Gray-Badovici residence.
Maybe just initial it.
How?
Villa B-G?
The Badovici-Gray Villa?
Oh, Gray-Badovici. Villa G-B.
As in Gray Britton?
[both laugh]
E-G, J-B.
E-G. J-B.
For example Jean Badovici. [both laugh]
J-B, E-G.
Uh, Jean Badovici for example.
Oh, I'm trying to think of something more subtle.
We could use numerical code.
-Ten for "J", two for "B"... -Mm-hm.
"G" is the seventh letter of the alphabet.
What happened to "E" for Eileen?
Ten, two,
"E" for Eileen. Seven.
Ladies first, you know?
"E" then ten.
Two, seven...
ten, twenty-seven.
We are all entangled now.
To adjust.
[light music]
[in French]
Mm-hm.
Perhaps proof, if proof were needed
that ornamentation can serve a function.
Always elegant, demure.
And dignified.
Oh, did I detect the look of disdain?
Hm?
I have no objection to a women's touch.
But then again, apparently that cheap.
Machine for living. Machine for living.
Did I rue the day I was required to defend that remark?
But where is a machine? A motor?
Why not a house?
and is it not due call of a house
to make life easy and agreeable?
So what is the world is saying?
that our family roof, the a sacred shelter
of our household guards
the villa of our relaxation
and the castle of our dreams are all just machines?
[clicks tongue]
Well, for a man with your proclivity to entertain
I can't imagine you alone.
In any event, the guest room is downstairs.
And if desired entirely alone.
[Le Corbusier] I could have caressed her that moment.
In my murderous mind,
the act of love and the making of buildings were...
inextricably bound.
[in French]
[light music]
[light music continues]
Hm?
It's a manhole.
Circular, rounding off
at the top of the spiral staircase.
This is the fifth.
The only Corbusier terrace you missed.
The gift of a garden to replace what the building stole
I didn't necessarily see the point.
What would you do up here?
It's a roof terrace.
Le Corbusier's fifth tenant,
if one wants to adhere absolute.
I wonder why one would climb up here,
what, with the wonderful terraces below.
Our sentiments exactly.
Nature has its own language.
I found him disquieting on the point, Le Corbusier.
An organic challenge to the spread of formalism
Eileen has personalized the project
in a very particular way.
Much more than advisory.
Let me take you on the tour.
You must come in by the front door
to get the right effect.
Thank you.
(tranquil music)
[in English] And what's this?
[in French]
[grunts] Ah.
[laughing]
There's also a separate sleeping area...
with a reading lamp, bookshelf,
vide poche.
For the man who likes to read in bed.
For the man who likes to breakfast in bed,
an adjustable side table.
For the modern man,
who like to work, play sport, and entertain.
Designs with independence
and style in mind.
A room of one's own.
[grunts]
[chuckles]
[laughs]
I adore you.
I was all for you.
For your amusement, you see.
[in French]
[calm music]
[chuckles]
I meant it at the time.
And on this page, I was thinking...
[in French]
I should color these in.
I would leave them in black and white.
[Jean] Mm-hm.
[papers rasping]
Is that how it's done?
Perhaps you are on the left hand side.
We can print this how we like.
As long as the publisher
and date of publication appears somewhere.
[in French]
It's us.
[in English] As you wish.
[door closes]
Your road or the high road.
[Le corbusier]And so it began.
By signing his name to the editorial.
Technically attributing
authorship of the article to himself
as was his moral right.
He failed to specify the architectural credit due to her.
So we threw a party to celebrate publication,
my publisher promoting her designs
over my architecture.
And for what? For the price of the villa on Le Corbusier.
Designed, as if in my name and registered in his.
Yes, it was his house, her gift to him, but...
his misattribution whether it was intentional or not.
It was a magnificent omission.
[in French]
[crowd applauding]
[Jean]
[indistinct chatter]
[laughing]
I'm not sure which of you flatters me the most.
[indistinct chatter]
I can't imagine whether you find the position...
I think the perfume is gone.
What distracts all sense of smell?
I wonder for which of your many accomplishments
you'd be most remembered.
I gather there's been some dispute
as to whether or not I invented
the first piece of tubular steel furniture.
Marcel Breuer says he was struck by the idea
while riding a bicycle.
Is that so?
The steel handle bars.
The handle bars.
A bicycle. Hmm.
We've been completely ignored by the press.
Darling, well, you are the press.
I suppose it's because of the depression.
Everything is affected.
[sighs]
I'm going to have to close the gallery.
[Jean] Is it suffering too?
More from neglect and economic crisis.
[Jean sighs]
Oh, we really are just keeping the best of times.
[in French]
[in English] I'm gonna miss you.
[in French]
[chuckles]
Adieu.
[sombre music]
-[clatters] -[gasps]
[grunts]
[scoffs] Nonsense.
Nobody bought because nobody liked it!
Simply not good enough.
Out it goes.
[in French]
-Hello. -Hello, sir.
Eileen.
[sighs]
Why don't we take a trip...
just to cheer ourselves up.
Mm. I never peek at everyone else has been doing.
Who?
We could pay a visit to Le Corbusier at Villa Savoye.
See what he's up to.
He still hasn't finished.
The owners have taken the crew to court.
The roof leaks when it rains.
An inconvenience I admit
but hardly a crime.
I still contend we were the first
to commence construction on the modernist villa.
Ah, Le Corbu?
That it was first to complete.
Has he invited us?
He would if he thought of right about it.
Hmm.
Le Corbusier
is not the only architect you could be promoting.
Yes.
I mean, no.
There is something I wanted to show you.
[Jean] Mies van der Rohe.
It's his pavilion in Barcelona. Look.
He calls it "skin and bones,"
skeleton structure.
Less is more.
"God is in the details," he says.
Over here.
Photographs...
of Pierre Chareau's glass house.
[in French]
No?
[Le Corbusier]
[Le Corbusier in English] You were right about her.
Very serviceable, very.
I refuse to be a card carrying member
of this boys only club.
Eileen.
And I won't be traveling to Athens.
I don't recall that you are invited.
Exactly.
That's why.
[in French]
-[thwacks] -[groans]
[tense music]
[dramatic music]
Louise?
Oui?
What's the old French for proverb?
[Eileen in French]
[in English] "Figs mature...
in straw, with time."
Time and straw.
[in French]
[Louise] Oui.
Really?
Oh. Oui.
Oui.
[Louise]
[rotary phone dialing]
[phone ringing]
[ringing continues]
[dramatic music]
[knocking on door]
[Eileen]
[Jean in English] Please, Eileen.
Some other time.
What's with all the urgency?
You never know I just draw--
This is an endless exercise of futility.
Open the door.
[Charlotte grunts]
[Charlotte moans]
This is so uncalled for.
Where is the folding chair?
What?
Louise said, that you asked her
to send the "S" shaped transit chair here.
When I had expressly requested that it be thrown out.
[in French]
[in English] I have a perfectly pretty house
of my own now.
It's called Tempe à Paille.
[in French]
[somber music]
[in English] It means everything.
Everything but yours, with time.
[dramatic music]
You're working too hard.
We never see you.
People go to work when life gets too easy.
[paper rustling]
L'architecture Vivante has ceased publication.
Morancé shut it down.
I'm out of a job.
You have my sympathy.
But in my view, success requires a life of solitude.
[somber music]
Maybe I should go up to isolate for a time
to think things through.
I've taken an apartment in San Tropez
for the summer to be near Natalie and Roman.
[birds chirping]
[in French]
[Le Corbusier] Mm.
[sighs heavily]
[in English] There is nothing so urgent
than the charge to commit to canvass.
No more complete rejection than an unsuccessful exhibition.
[in French]
[Le Corbusier] So from here on in,
we only practice painting privately
on the walls of friends.
[laughing]
Intellectual women are incurably complex addiction
engaging in enormous burden of emotion and effort
in exchange for little in return.
[Le Corbusier] Expressive painting, I find,
provides for some...
sexual relief in recompense.
[dramatic music]
"I genuinely regret having arrived here too late,
to been able to spend some time with you in your house.
I hope that you will give us the pleasure
of paying us a visit in Paris."
[in French]
"I would be delighted to relate how much
those few days mainly appreciate the rare spirit
inside and outside."
[in English] A rare spirit.
Which has given the modern furniture and installations,
such a dignified, charming,
and witty shape.
Hm?
[in French]
I would have been the first to raise a glass
were they to reconcile.
But in truth, Jean was drinking himself to death
and his womanizing was more waring than appealing.
Eileen just couldn't cope with his communal lifestyle.
If never either of them understood.
The house with the shell on the land.
His extension, his release,
his emanation.
Hm?
[Le Corbusier] Hm?
Ah.
[laughs]
[Le Corbusier] He was ill prepared
for the manner of her departure.
No drama, she simply left
taking the moral high-ground a little further up the hill.
And equally ill prepared for her reaction
to my wonderful wall murals.
Furious apparently.
It's just such a shock.
Why would he do such a deliberate thing?
A fellow architect, a man I have admired for years.
There's got to be something you can do legally.
After all it is your house.
Technically, actually, it's Jean's house.
I registered it in his name at the time of building...
as my gift to us.
But, darling,
[in French]
[in English] So arrogant and I minded of you.
[in French]
But you're intellectual property rights
have been utterly undenied.
Not just your right to the property title,
but also you are more right to be recognized
as just the architect of your work.
You should take up residence again.
I can't imagine I could ever go back now.
[Le Corbusier] Why would she ever again
spend a night in the house?
But then war did intervene.
Is it late?
Or is she?
[indistinct chatter]
[dramatic music]
[dramatic music continues]
[gunshot]
[distant gunshots]
[somber music]
[somber music continues]
[woman shouting]
[woman coughs, whimpers]
[woman shouting]
[somber music]
[approaching footsteps]
[sighs]
[Eileen sobs]
[somber music]
[giggles]
How was Vézelay?
As good a place to sit out the war as any.
Corbusier was kind, um...
of torturous. [both laugh]
Didn't he pass some time in Vichy?
There are some who say, he might have collaborated.
He played the Pétain card for a while.
But, you know, Le Corbusier doesn't have a political bone
in his body beyond self-interest.
We're all communists in Vézelay.
[snickers]
What will you do now?
I've been appointed
adjunct chief architect of reconstruction.
In Maubeuge and Solesmes.
But that's marvelous.
[both laugh]
Well,
if I had any actual experience in architecture.
Hmm.
I was rather wondering
if you would work with me on some of my proposals?
Unless you have other plans.
I need to rebuild...
like everyone else in Europe.
[calm music]
[grunts]
I should be taking sole credit for this project.
Perhaps you'd like to participate.
Just a little.
[sighs sharply]
Just say the word.
I need your eyes on this.
No, you don't.
No one needed my eye or anything.
[Jean sighs]
Sure I do.
I'm going blind...
and I'd like to see the house before I do.
[somber music]
[groans]
Let me go first.
I was thinking, of taking a trip south...
just to see how the house has survived.
[Le Corbusier]
[chuckles]
I'm coming.
Ah. [chuckles]
-Right? -Cobu...
[somber music]
Is that a Helen O'Riley?
Mm-hm.
"The Badovici
and Helen G-r-e-y house
at Cap-Martin.
Mirrors free of charge."
No more periodicals, do you hear me?
I wish the Germans had burned the whole lot of them.
Well, at least if the Italians had just...
painted over it.
[Le Corbusier] And the attribution
remained uncorrected.
As time went on,
the ownership, authorship, and architectural credit
further confused the points.
So that over the years the world perception was of a house
called Villa Badovici, built by Le Corbusier.
Constructing the Cabanon here, right beside it
probably contributed.
As I catch the plane, 45 minutes.
A low cost masterpiece for minimal lodging
in honor of my wife's innocence
and simplicity.
Good architecture combine with art and nature
in equal measure
is the perfect medicine.
Of course, I had.
[Louise in French]
[in English] "Come, I won't be well.
Liver cancer.
Happy to see you before treatment.
Jean."
[somber music]
[labored breathing]
I was on my way to Dubrovnik
and got as far as Venice.
They brought me back on a stretcher.
And what did the doctor say?
He'll operate.
And then two to three months, if I'm lucky...
[groans]
[pants]
I need to put my affairs in order.
Of course.
I want to put back the house into your name...
quickly.
Can you arrange it for me?
Don't fuss about that now.
There be time for that later.
I always say that word.
and I need to make a will.
[heavy breathing]
So much to do.
She has the keys to the house.
[in French]
[heavy breathing] [gulps]
[exhales deeply]
[whimpers]
[snorts]
[whimpers]
[shower pattering]
[in French]
[Eileen]
[foreboding music]
I painted that, free of charge, for the original owner.
I'll prove from political right, wherever I can.
Chirst it hurts!
That after 40 years of architectural excellence,
I do not possess the purchase price of the house!
No. No.
[clanks]
[somber music]
[crashes]
It was I who protected her
priceless pieces of art, like music.
Each a unique act of love invested with her
signature sensuality.
My murals for all their diversion,
my mode of self-expression,
fresco's of my sexual...
obsessions.
[light music]
[Le Corbusier] The legacy of my work, they say,
was to fundamentally alter
the way in which we live in the world.
The legacy of her work,
was that the world in which I worked
was fundamentally altered
by the gift of this house.
The house that I and Gray...
built...
here I have truly lived.
Here I have loved.
And died.
Never shedding lights on the shadow I cast
over her legacy in the past.
I remain one of his most passionate admirers,
Le Corbusier.
If only he had understood.
There is a road which leads upward
and there is a road which leads downward.
Both are one and the same.
Whoa, why don't you...
This is Bruce Chatwin, Eileen.
The Australian writer I mentioned.
He'd like to interview you about the auction.
Congratulations, Madame Gray.
One hundred and seventy-six thousand francs.
-Phenomenal achievement. -Thank you.
It doesn't necessarily mean it was a good piece.
Just that it was expensive, that's all.
[all laugh]
So, what do you think of it?
I'd really need to sit in it.
Please.
[chuckles]
Lift one centimeter here.
-[Bruce] Okay. -And...
Hmm.
Three centimeters, at least,
-here and here. -Okay.
Sorry, um...
what is this?
It's a place I've always wanted to go.
A map?
Of where?
Pategonia.
You should go there.
-Nah, I'm too old to travel. -Hm.
Why don't you go for me?
[light music]
[indistinct chatter]
[somber music]
[Eileen in French]
Poppycock.
[somber music]
[Eileen] To create...
one must first question everything.
The future projects light.
The past only shadows.
The value of a thing
is determined by how much love was invested
in the creation of it.
[closing theme music]