Glimpses of the U.S.A. Film

This film was the centerpiece of the American National Exhibition in Moscow for the 1959 USSR-USA cultural exchange, the first between the two countries since the Russian Revolution. The Eameses were assigned the task of introducing Russians to “a day in the life of the United States.” To do this, they presented more than 2200 still and moving images simultaneously on seven screens, each thirty feet across. The images provide a visual expression of the complexity and diversity of American life. Music by Elmer Bernstein.

12 minutes, 15 seconds

The U.S.I.A. commissioned the Eameses to make this film on “a day in the life of the United States.”  Projected on to seven twenty-by-thirty foot screens installed in a 250-foot diameter geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park, during the American National Exhibition.

1959
For its first USSR-USA cultural exchange, the United States Information Agency (U.S.I.A.) commissioned the Eames Office to make this film on “a day in the life of the United States.”
The thirteen-minute film was narrated by Charles Eames. It was projected onto seven twenty-by-thirty foot screens, which were installed in a 250-foot diameter geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, in Moscow’s Sokolniki Park.

The multiple images communicated what no typical lecture could. They demonstrated that, for better or worse, highways and automobiles were part of the fabric of American life; however, the images also depicted loving images of families hugging goodbye before work and kissing goodnight before bed. A modern marvel of technology was being used to show its overseas viewers the humanity of their rivals.
The film made for a dynamic introduction to the American National Exhibition. It concluded with an image of forget-me-nots—a metaphor that was not lost on the audience, since the translated name for the flowers is the same in Russian as it is in English.