The Le Corbusier Spirit
A film by Gilles Coudert
Year of production: 2018
Duration: 52 min.
Original Version
French & English subtitles
Award for the best documentary in the « documentary short » section at ReelHeART International Film Toronto 2019. Film selected for the Milano Design Film Festival 2019, Beirut Art Film Festival 2019, FILAF Perpignan 2019 and FIFA Montreal 2019 as part of the carte blanche of the Louvre International Film Days on Art (JIFA).
Told by Charles Berling, the film by Gilles Coudert juxtaposes the director’s experience as an adolescent growing up in the biggest project ever built by Le Corbusier in Europe, in Firminy, France with insights from several contemporary artists including architects, a choreographer, a filmmaker, a designer and a composer. Architectural historian Jean-Louis Cohen provides comment as do several inhabitants and users of Le Corbusier’s complex in Firminy, and each feels, in his or her own fashion, a kinship, influence, or a sense of heritage from Le Corbusier — something of his work and his spirit. Three major sites of Le Corbusier’s work are featured as the film takes us from the Firminy buildings to the Cité Radieuse in Marseille and the Cabanon de Roquebrune for the interviews. Exceptional images of the architecture and 1970’s archival images of the daily life of the people who lived there accompany the testimony.
With Marc Barani, architect; Neal Beggs, artist; Daniel Buren, artist; Jean-Louis Cohen, architect, historian of architecture, professor at the Collège de France; Domènec, artist; Frédéric Flamand, choreographer; Pierre Grange, filmmaker; Ora-ïto, designer; Pascale Jakubowski, composer; Kengo Kuma, architect; Alexandre Périgot, artist; Dominique Perrault, architect; Xavier Veilhan, artist; etc.
Le Corbusier’s architectural work was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2016.
© a.p.r.e.s production / Mona Lisa Production / France Télévisions