0:00:06 > 0:00:10On 25th March, 1928,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13a young American composer arrived in Paris
0:00:13 > 0:00:15with grand ambitions.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20He wanted to capture the distinctive atmosphere of the city
0:00:20 > 0:00:22in a piece of music.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26The composer's name was George Gershwin
0:00:26 > 0:00:30and his inspiration came from the streets themselves.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33Gershwin was overwhelmed by the noise,
0:00:33 > 0:00:36the pace, and the energy of this city.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39And he used that energy, including the energy of the traffic itself,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42to create one of the most exhilarating pieces
0:00:42 > 0:00:44of music of the century,
0:00:44 > 0:00:46and he called it An American In Paris.
0:00:46 > 0:00:51MUSIC: "An American In Paris" by George Gershwin
0:00:56 > 0:00:59It is a glorious piece of music
0:00:59 > 0:01:02and it captures the spirit of Paris perfectly -
0:01:02 > 0:01:05elegant, exuberant, and romantic.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10Like so many others before him,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12George Gershwin thought Paris
0:01:12 > 0:01:16was the most exciting place on the planet.
0:01:16 > 0:01:17But you know what?
0:01:17 > 0:01:19I think that it was never more exciting than in the year
0:01:19 > 0:01:24he actually wrote that piece - 1928.
0:01:30 > 0:01:351928 was the high point of an unusually creative decade.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39It was the year that the Surrealists
0:01:39 > 0:01:41brought their irrational world order to the people.
0:01:43 > 0:01:49When European emigres set the city alight with their ambitious dreams.
0:01:49 > 0:01:52When visiting Americans launched sparkling careers.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58And when utopian modernists redesigned the world.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01One city, one exceptional year.
0:02:04 > 0:02:09But like all the best parties, it would come to a dramatic end.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14This is the story of Paris in 1928 -
0:02:14 > 0:02:16the Bash before the Crash.
0:02:36 > 0:02:42In the early 1920s, Paris was still recovering from the First World War.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46There were food queues and damaged buildings,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49disillusionment and grief.
0:02:49 > 0:02:51But by the end of the decade,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Paris had somehow rebuilt its reputation
0:02:54 > 0:02:57as the most glamorous city in the world,
0:02:57 > 0:03:01attracting the finest artists, writers and thinkers of the day.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05It was the great interwar utopia,
0:03:05 > 0:03:07where everything was up for grabs -
0:03:07 > 0:03:09and everyone was living in the moment.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15The centre of this party in 1928 was in Montparnasse,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18a cheap run-down neighbourhood on the Left Bank.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22And the centre of Montparnasse
0:03:22 > 0:03:26was a cafe called La Coupole, which had just opened its doors.
0:03:40 > 0:03:45In 1928, La Coupole was the largest restaurant in Paris
0:03:45 > 0:03:48and its interior is an Art Deco masterpiece,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51with Jazz Age colours, Cubist mosaics,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54and 33 famous pillars,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57each of which was painted by an artist from Montparnasse.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06John, so, what was so appealing about Paris in the 1920s?
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Where to start? Um...
0:04:09 > 0:04:13The people coming to Paris in the '20s came here for three reasons,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15one, because they were rich,
0:04:15 > 0:04:17women came here to buy their trousseau,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20to get a French maid, to get a French chef,
0:04:20 > 0:04:22the men came here to go to the brothels,
0:04:22 > 0:04:24to buy art, to hunt and so on.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26At the other end of the spectrum,
0:04:26 > 0:04:28you came here because you were poor,
0:04:28 > 0:04:30because food was cheap.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32If you had to starve in a garret
0:04:32 > 0:04:36while you learn to become a great musician or a great writer,
0:04:36 > 0:04:38you could starve longer in Paris
0:04:38 > 0:04:42than you could in any other civilised city in the world.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44And then, in the middle were people who came here
0:04:44 > 0:04:47because you could do stuff that you couldn't do elsewhere.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51What made Paris so attractive to artists?
0:04:51 > 0:04:55Everybody who came here believed that they were going to succeed
0:04:55 > 0:04:56BECAUSE it was Paris.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59You could go and learn from Matisse,
0:04:59 > 0:05:01you could go and visit Picasso
0:05:01 > 0:05:04and he would explain what he had been doing.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07I mean, that's priceless, where else does that happen?
0:05:07 > 0:05:11It was a magnet, it drew people from all around the world.
0:05:11 > 0:05:16And within this crucible, new movements were formed.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18After all, you cannot point to another city where
0:05:18 > 0:05:25so many artistic movements began and rose to their peak.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28It was a great time to be an artist, really.
0:05:28 > 0:05:29I wish I'd been there, frankly.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43So, what was Paris's next big art movement?
0:05:43 > 0:05:47Well, it would be stranger than anything before or since.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51It was called Surrealism -
0:05:51 > 0:05:54and its ring-leader was a mischievous
0:05:54 > 0:05:57and highly original writer called Andre Breton.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05Breton had been a doctor during the First World War.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08Like many people, the conflict changed him...
0:06:10 > 0:06:12..and it led him to a revelation.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25Breton concluded that Europe was rotten to its core.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27Reason, logic, capitalism -
0:06:27 > 0:06:30the great motors of Western Civilisation
0:06:30 > 0:06:35had led the world into the most terrible disaster in its history.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39What was needed now was a fundamental change.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44A revolution that would come from within every single one of us.
0:06:46 > 0:06:48Breton's antidote to the horrors of war
0:06:48 > 0:06:52was to celebrate the absurdity of the human experience.
0:06:54 > 0:07:00And so, Breton and his friends opened a very unusual office.
0:07:00 > 0:07:04TYPEWRITER CLACKS
0:07:04 > 0:07:07- WHISPERS:- How are you recovering from the First World War?
0:07:07 > 0:07:09Have you ever done...? Tell me your secrets.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12Who do you lust after? What's the worst thing you've ever done?
0:07:12 > 0:07:14Tell me about your nightmares. All this is confidential,
0:07:14 > 0:07:16you can tell me. I used to be a doctor.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23They called it the Bureau Of Surrealist Research -
0:07:23 > 0:07:25and its purpose was to capture
0:07:25 > 0:07:28the disruptive energy of the unconscious.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33The Bureau Of Surrealist Research asked the public
0:07:33 > 0:07:36to come in to the office and confess.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40Now, as a member of the public, you could confess pretty much anything.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44If you had an awful secret you'd been keeping,
0:07:44 > 0:07:48if you lusted after a colleague or even a family member,
0:07:48 > 0:07:51if you'd committed a crime and not yet got caught,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55or even if you'd had some unsettling dream or nightmare,
0:07:55 > 0:07:58this was the place to reveal everything.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02And that was all part of Andre Breton's plan to explode
0:08:02 > 0:08:06bourgeois conventions, to liberate people's unconsciouses,
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and to change their lives for good.
0:08:12 > 0:08:16The Bureau was open to the public every day from 4.30 to 6.30
0:08:16 > 0:08:18in the afternoon. Except Sundays.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25There was just one problem.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29Not that many people took up the offer to confess
0:08:29 > 0:08:32their deepest secrets to a complete stranger.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38The office files remained largely empty.
0:08:38 > 0:08:40But Breton didn't give up.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45In the name of the Surrealist revolution,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48he decided to write a surreal fantasy of his own -
0:08:48 > 0:08:50a book called Nadja,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54which he published in 1928.
0:09:00 > 0:09:05Nadja is a love story - without the love and without the story.
0:09:05 > 0:09:10It's the tale of an illicit affair set in a strange, haunting Paris.
0:09:10 > 0:09:11And it begins with something
0:09:11 > 0:09:14that only a great city like Paris can provide -
0:09:14 > 0:09:16a chance encounter.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22It is a late autumn afternoon.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25Workers are going home for the evening.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29Breton is drifting aimlessly along the street
0:09:29 > 0:09:35when he catches sight of a beautiful and mysterious woman.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48Without hesitation, he approaches her.
0:09:48 > 0:09:50He asks her name.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55She tells him - Nadja.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59And it turns out she's everything he's been looking for.
0:10:03 > 0:10:09The next day, they meet in a secret square in Paris,
0:10:09 > 0:10:11and Nadja begins to tune in
0:10:11 > 0:10:14to a city that Breton can't even see.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21She senses crowds where there are none.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26She's sees bloody visions of the French Revolution
0:10:26 > 0:10:28in the empty streets,
0:10:28 > 0:10:33and even predicts that he'll write a novel about her.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36Breton is captivated,
0:10:36 > 0:10:39but it's not love that's hooked him.
0:10:39 > 0:10:40It seems in Nadja,
0:10:40 > 0:10:45he's finally found the perfect symbol of Surrealism -
0:10:45 > 0:10:50a beautiful enigma with no rational explanation,
0:10:50 > 0:10:54a pathway to the unconscious itself.
0:11:01 > 0:11:06Breton's haunting book poses more questions than answers.
0:11:06 > 0:11:09Who was Nadja? What happened to her?
0:11:09 > 0:11:11Did she even exist?
0:11:11 > 0:11:12But one thing is certain -
0:11:12 > 0:11:18Breton had turned Paris into a great Surrealist dreamscape.
0:11:18 > 0:11:23A place that was as seductive and mysterious as Nadja herself.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41While Andre Breton conjured up surrealist fantasies
0:11:41 > 0:11:43in the cafes of Montparnasse,
0:11:43 > 0:11:45one man would close the gap
0:11:45 > 0:11:50between dreams and reality even more dramatically.
0:11:50 > 0:11:54And he would do it, very discreetly, in the suburbs.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Seven miles east of downtown Paris
0:12:00 > 0:12:04was a sleepy neighbourhood called Perreux-sur-Marne.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07It was an ordinary place, full of teachers,
0:12:07 > 0:12:12dentists and retired accountants going about their business
0:12:12 > 0:12:17and in their midst, was a young man who seemed to fit in just perfectly.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24This man lived quietly and carefully.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27He always wore a suit.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29He worked to a strict routine.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33He walked his dog at the same time every single day.
0:12:33 > 0:12:37And in the evening, his idea of fun was a game of chess.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41All in all, he seemed as unremarkable as all the other
0:12:41 > 0:12:43residents of Perreux-sur-Marne.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47But this man was actually an undercover Surrealist
0:12:47 > 0:12:50and his name was Rene Magritte.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58Magritte was born in Belgium in 1898.
0:12:58 > 0:13:02He had his first exhibition as an artist in Brussels in 1927,
0:13:02 > 0:13:04but it was so unsuccessful
0:13:04 > 0:13:07that he left for Paris to join the Surrealists.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13This one's the...
0:13:13 > 0:13:16- the button.- 'Oui?'- Monsieur Moir? - 'Oui.'- C'est James Fox.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH
0:13:28 > 0:13:31Magritte lived on the top floor of this building
0:13:31 > 0:13:34with his wife from 1927 to 1930.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37Now, Magritte didn't actually have a proper studio space here,
0:13:37 > 0:13:40so most of his painting was done in his sitting room.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43But if that doesn't sound perfect, it obviously suited him,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46because it was here that he started to paint
0:13:46 > 0:13:48his first Surrealist paintings,
0:13:48 > 0:13:51some of the most famous paintings of the 20th century,
0:13:51 > 0:13:57and what's more, 1928 was the most productive year of his entire career.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00That year, he made more than 100 pictures.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03That's what? More than one every three days.
0:14:08 > 0:14:14In his paintings, Magritte played with the bizarre and often amusing tension
0:14:14 > 0:14:16between dreams and reality.
0:14:19 > 0:14:25This painting is called The Treachery Of Images. We see a pipe.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30And underneath it, a sentence that reads "This is not a pipe."
0:14:30 > 0:14:33Now, at first, it seems nonsensical
0:14:33 > 0:14:36but Magritte is, of course, completely right.
0:14:36 > 0:14:38Because that ISN'T a pipe.
0:14:38 > 0:14:41You can't smoke it. You can't even hold it.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45What it actually is is a picture -
0:14:45 > 0:14:49an arrangement of coloured paint on a canvas.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52And it's a reminder - a really important reminder -
0:14:52 > 0:14:56that it's all too easy to confuse images with reality.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03But perhaps Magritte's most eye-opening work of the period
0:15:03 > 0:15:07was this one - The False Mirror.
0:15:08 > 0:15:13Now this has to be one of the more intimidating paintings
0:15:13 > 0:15:14in the history of art.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Because as we look at it,
0:15:17 > 0:15:20it looks back at us.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22It's filled with Surrealist features -
0:15:22 > 0:15:24not least the absence of eyelashes.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27But one of the most enigmatic of them
0:15:27 > 0:15:30is this beautifully painted cloudy sky.
0:15:30 > 0:15:32Now, when you first look at the painting,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35you presume that sky is actually a reflection,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37this eye is looking out at a beautiful world,
0:15:37 > 0:15:40with a beautiful sky and it's being reflected on the surface of the iris.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42But that is not what Magritte intended.
0:15:42 > 0:15:48Actually, that sky exists behind the iris inside the head.
0:15:48 > 0:15:50So, when you look at this painting,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53you're actually looking through someone's eye, into their mind.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56And that's what Magritte did so well.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00He took the interior world and he brought it outside.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12Today, Magritte's paintings are among the most famous images
0:16:12 > 0:16:14in 20th-century art.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18At the time, however, they were virtually unknown.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21They simply gathered dust in his suburban sitting room
0:16:21 > 0:16:24while he carried on painting.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34As news of the Surrealist revolution
0:16:34 > 0:16:36spread through Europe,
0:16:36 > 0:16:40two flamboyant characters from Spain joined its ranks -
0:16:40 > 0:16:44Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47Dali had just been kicked out of art school
0:16:47 > 0:16:51and Bunuel was hungry to make his first movie.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56Inspired by Andre Breton, as soon as they arrived
0:16:56 > 0:17:02in Paris, they decided to make the perfect Surrealist film.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04They had only one rule -
0:17:04 > 0:17:07nothing rational was permitted.
0:17:10 > 0:17:15A man attacks a woman. He turns round. What does he see?
0:17:15 > 0:17:16A flying toad?
0:17:16 > 0:17:18Bad!
0:17:18 > 0:17:20A bottle of brandy?
0:17:20 > 0:17:21Bad!
0:17:21 > 0:17:25Two ropes?
0:17:25 > 0:17:28Yes, but what are they attached to?
0:17:28 > 0:17:29A cannon?
0:17:29 > 0:17:31Bad.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34An armchair?
0:17:34 > 0:17:36Bad.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38A grand piano?
0:17:38 > 0:17:39Yes!
0:17:39 > 0:17:43And on top of it, a donkey.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45No - two rotting donkeys!
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Yes!
0:17:52 > 0:17:56They called their film Un Chien Andalou and it premiered here,
0:17:56 > 0:18:01at the legendary arthouse cinema, the Studio Des Ursulines.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16Everyone who was anyone came to see the film.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20Pablo Picasso was here, the architect, Le Corbusier was here,
0:18:20 > 0:18:24Andre Breton and the entire Surrealist movement were here.
0:18:24 > 0:18:30Now, understandably, the two young film-makers were extremely anxious.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33In fact, Luis Bunuel was so nervous about being attacked
0:18:33 > 0:18:37that he kept stones in his pockets for self-defence.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40And he was right to be vigilant.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43PROJECTOR WHIRS
0:18:44 > 0:18:46OPENING MUSIC PLAYS
0:18:51 > 0:18:55Dali and Bunuel had exploited the new language of cinema
0:18:55 > 0:18:57to create surreal scenes
0:18:57 > 0:19:01that couldn't have been achieved in any other medium.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04The result was sometimes shocking,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07sometimes funny and usually unpleasant.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15But one sequence stood out from all the others.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23Bunuel himself sharpens a cut-throat razor.
0:19:23 > 0:19:26He lifts it to the face of an unfortunate woman.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28And then,
0:19:28 > 0:19:30he slices open her eye.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34I've watched that scene hundreds of times before
0:19:34 > 0:19:36and I know it's fake,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39but I still find it almost unbearable.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42And I think it's not just out to shock.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44I think it's symbolic.
0:19:44 > 0:19:49It's Dali and Bunuel saying to us, "You don't need your eyes any more.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54"Because we are taking you into a world of the imagination."
0:19:57 > 0:20:01In the end, the stones remained in Bunuel's pockets,
0:20:01 > 0:20:03because the audience loved it.
0:20:06 > 0:20:10Un Chien Andalou went on to become a landmark in cinema history
0:20:10 > 0:20:14and it was, in many ways, the unforgettable culmination
0:20:14 > 0:20:18of Andre Breton's great Surrealist revolution.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20You know, we may think of Surrealism
0:20:20 > 0:20:24as little more than a curiosity from 1920s Paris,
0:20:24 > 0:20:28but the Surrealist revolution did work,
0:20:28 > 0:20:31and it did change the way we see the world today.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35After all, you may never have heard to Andre Breton or Luis Bunuel,
0:20:35 > 0:20:38but if you hear the word "surreal",
0:20:38 > 0:20:41you'll know exactly what it means.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58If the Surrealists wanted to reinvent the world
0:20:58 > 0:20:59after the Great War,
0:20:59 > 0:21:03some people came to Paris to reinvent themselves.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10By 1928, there were 200,000 foreigners in the city.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Many of them, emigres from war-torn countries -
0:21:14 > 0:21:17all dreaming of a better life.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23But at least one of them would turn their dreams into reality.
0:21:27 > 0:21:30Tamara Gorska was wealthy and beautiful,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34and married to one of the most dashing men in Eastern Europe.
0:21:34 > 0:21:40But in the midst of the Russian Revolution, he just vanished.
0:21:40 > 0:21:42Now, she searched the whole country for him,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44eventually, found him in prison,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and, somehow, she helped him escape.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50Together, they fled the country,
0:21:50 > 0:21:53and some time in 1918, they arrived in Paris.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00But they'd lost everything
0:22:00 > 0:22:03and with a small child to bring up and a husband too depressed to work,
0:22:03 > 0:22:07Gorska felt her life had fallen apart.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14But then, she began to look around her.
0:22:16 > 0:22:22The streets of Paris were full of women enjoying new freedoms,
0:22:22 > 0:22:25confident, glamorous women living for the moment -
0:22:25 > 0:22:27not dwelling on the past.
0:22:28 > 0:22:34And Gorska realised she too could take control of her life.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37She enrolled in art school,
0:22:37 > 0:22:41gave herself a fabulous make-over,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44and changed her married name Lempitska
0:22:44 > 0:22:47to the more French-sounding Tamara de Lempicka.
0:22:54 > 0:22:56And she made a crucial decision.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00De Lempicka didn't want to be a poor, starving artist.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03She wanted to paint the kind of portraits
0:23:03 > 0:23:06that rich investors wanted to buy.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10She focused on modernity's most alluring new characters -
0:23:10 > 0:23:14sexually liberated, independent and glamorous women.
0:23:14 > 0:23:16Women like herself.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26Paris also unlocked de Lempicka's wild side.
0:23:32 > 0:23:37Tamara de Lempicka had plenty of sexual confidence.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40And after parties, she'd come here,
0:23:40 > 0:23:42to the Bois de Boulogne, to pick out a lover
0:23:42 > 0:23:45from amongst the prostitutes.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49One evening, she was walking here when she saw a woman
0:23:49 > 0:23:52who was attracting a lot of attention -
0:23:52 > 0:23:55de Lempicka thought she was the most beautiful woman
0:23:55 > 0:23:57she'd ever seen in her life.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01But rather than asking her for sex as everyone else did,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04de Lempicka asked if she would model for her.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07The prostitute considered the proposal
0:24:07 > 0:24:10and eventually said, "Yes, why not?"
0:24:16 > 0:24:20The woman's name was Rafaela and she became the subject
0:24:20 > 0:24:23of some of de Lempicka's most erotic paintings.
0:24:26 > 0:24:27Here is Rafaela,
0:24:27 > 0:24:32reclining seductively in de Lempicka's studio.
0:24:33 > 0:24:35It is a voluptuous painting,
0:24:35 > 0:24:39constructed almost entirely of curves.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41In fact, even the bottom of the canvas seems to echo
0:24:41 > 0:24:44the shape of Rafaela's hips.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48And it is filled with the promise of sex.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Rafaela looks expectantly up at the artist,
0:24:51 > 0:24:55her red lipstick seems to glow like a warning light,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58and that red dress is on the verge of coming off.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10And here, it has come off to reveal Rafaela's flesh in all its glory.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14But in some ways, it's not really like flesh.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16De Lempicka's art is all about surface,
0:25:16 > 0:25:21and here, she's used tiny, almost invisible brushstrokes -
0:25:21 > 0:25:23borrowed from the Renaissance masters,
0:25:23 > 0:25:26so that the skin becomes too perfect to be real.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29Almost as if it's been manufactured by machine.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35But de Lempicka's most famous painting
0:25:35 > 0:25:40is of her favourite subject - herself.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45Few paintings capture the glamour of the 1920s
0:25:45 > 0:25:47better than this one.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51It's all shine, sheen and shimmer.
0:25:51 > 0:25:55and an almost pornographic flaunting of consumer products.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58De Lempicka's car, of course, came from Bugatti,
0:25:58 > 0:26:01and her outfit came from Hermes.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04This is the image of the new woman -
0:26:04 > 0:26:07a woman in the driving seat of her own destiny.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12A woman leaving the past behind and hurtling into a brighter future.
0:26:12 > 0:26:16And that's what Tamara de Lempicka did.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18Together with the help of Paris,
0:26:18 > 0:26:21she reinvented herself completely.
0:26:27 > 0:26:29Europeans weren't the only foreigners
0:26:29 > 0:26:31flooding into Paris in the '20s.
0:26:31 > 0:26:36By 1928, there were about 40,000 Americans living in the city,
0:26:36 > 0:26:39and more were arriving every single day.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43They left an America that had become increasingly isolated,
0:26:43 > 0:26:45backward and illiberal.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48And with Prohibition, you couldn't even get a drink.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51Paris appeared to be the very opposite -
0:26:51 > 0:26:55and it had the added benefit of being ridiculously cheap.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07No-one had quite as good a time in Paris
0:27:07 > 0:27:10as the American songwriter, Cole Porter.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19Born in the Midwest back in 1891,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22Porter was a musical prodigy from the start.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26He learnt the violin at six, the piano at eight
0:27:26 > 0:27:29and wrote his first operetta at ten.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32He moved to Paris during the First World War.
0:27:32 > 0:27:34And though he had always been wealthy,
0:27:34 > 0:27:38he found his money went further in Paris than anywhere else.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46To call Porter's lifestyle "extravagant"
0:27:46 > 0:27:48would be an understatement.
0:27:48 > 0:27:52His home was filled with Art Deco furnishings,
0:27:52 > 0:27:54floor-to-ceiling mirrors,
0:27:54 > 0:27:56Chippendale chairs, platinum wallpaper,
0:27:56 > 0:28:01zebra-skin rugs and top-of-the-range Steinway pianos.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04Porter was the kind of man who didn't have one dressing gown,
0:28:04 > 0:28:06he had 16 dressing gowns
0:28:06 > 0:28:08and all of them cost him a fortune.
0:28:16 > 0:28:21Porter spent most of 1928 hosting a string extravagant parties.
0:28:21 > 0:28:25But it was also the year when, at the age of 36,
0:28:25 > 0:28:29he finally found time to write his first hit.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32It was a musical called, simply, Paris
0:28:32 > 0:28:37and one of its songs has since become world famous.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48# Romantic sponges, they say, do it
0:28:48 > 0:28:51# Oysters down in Oyster Bay do it
0:28:51 > 0:28:55# Let's do it, let's fall in love
0:28:55 > 0:28:59# Cold Cape Cod clams, against their wish, do it
0:28:59 > 0:29:02# Even lazy jellyfish do it
0:29:02 > 0:29:05# Let's do it, let's fall in love
0:29:06 > 0:29:10# Electric eels, I might add, do it
0:29:10 > 0:29:13# Though it shocks them, I know
0:29:13 > 0:29:16# Why ask if shad do it?
0:29:16 > 0:29:17# Waiter, bring me "shad roe"
0:29:17 > 0:29:21# In shallow shoals, English soles do it
0:29:21 > 0:29:26# Goldfish, in the privacy of bowls, do it
0:29:26 > 0:29:31# Let's do it, let's fall in love! #
0:29:35 > 0:29:37Thank you, thank you!
0:29:39 > 0:29:43- Cheers, James. What a great performance.- Thank you, thank you.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47So, what do we know about Cole Porter as a man?
0:29:47 > 0:29:51Well, I suppose, one of the key things about him
0:29:51 > 0:29:55is that he's a gay man, who is married, comes to Paris 1918,
0:29:55 > 0:29:57because of the war.
0:29:57 > 0:29:59And Cole Porter's from a wealthy family
0:29:59 > 0:30:01but he depends on his grandfather
0:30:01 > 0:30:05and that depends on behaving in a way that his grandfather
0:30:05 > 0:30:10would approve of and grandfather's very much a man's man
0:30:10 > 0:30:14and has constantly been trying to make Cole into a man and failed.
0:30:14 > 0:30:15So, Cole's in Paris,
0:30:15 > 0:30:19grandfather doesn't know what he's up to, really.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22Paris is a much more liberal city for a gay man,
0:30:22 > 0:30:26and he can tell grandfather and his mother what he's doing,
0:30:26 > 0:30:29but it doesn't mean it'll reflect what he's actually doing.
0:30:29 > 0:30:31What was Cole Porter actually up to in Paris?
0:30:31 > 0:30:34Well, he had a lovely apartment, he's having great parties,
0:30:34 > 0:30:36he's meeting young men,
0:30:36 > 0:30:39he's meeting the demimonde, but also the beau monde,
0:30:39 > 0:30:43he's meeting the important people of the day, and he's singing
0:30:43 > 0:30:45and playing, entertaining and having a few drinks.
0:30:45 > 0:30:47And what was going on in the 1920s?
0:30:47 > 0:30:50Was he particularly successful professionally?
0:30:50 > 0:30:52Well, he wrote loads of songs at Yale
0:30:52 > 0:30:54and he continued to write all the way through,
0:30:54 > 0:30:57but it wasn't until 1928 with Let's Do It
0:30:57 > 0:30:59that he actually had a big hit.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02- So, this was a big turning point for him?- Completely, yeah.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05And suddenly he gets that validation of actually being taken seriously
0:31:05 > 0:31:09and that leads to being taken seriously for Anything Goes
0:31:09 > 0:31:12and into his Hollywood career where he was perhaps most successful.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15The music is playful as well as the words.
0:31:15 > 0:31:16And you can play around with it,
0:31:16 > 0:31:20you can pull it this way and that's very elastic. Great piece.
0:31:20 > 0:31:23You it played beautifully. Thank you very much.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26Thank you, you're a great audience.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36If many Americans spent the evenings listening to music,
0:31:36 > 0:31:38they spent the days
0:31:38 > 0:31:42in a remarkable English language book shop by the Seine.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45Called Shakespeare And Company,
0:31:45 > 0:31:49it was founded by a young American woman named Sylvia Beach.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03This is the fiction room,
0:32:03 > 0:32:06going from floor to ceiling, literally.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09'Sylvia Whitman is the current owner.'
0:32:09 > 0:32:11Poetry nook in the corner.
0:32:11 > 0:32:16- It's the perfect place for poetry, a nook.- It is, it's quite romantic.
0:32:16 > 0:32:20What was Shakespeare And Company like back in the 1920s?
0:32:20 > 0:32:24Well, I wish I could go back in time, it sounds amazing!
0:32:24 > 0:32:29Sylvia Beach opened her Shakespeare And Company in 1919
0:32:29 > 0:32:33and it was really a Mecca for all of the great writers of the day.
0:32:33 > 0:32:38So, she had Fitzgerald, John dos Passos, Ford Maddox Ford,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound. These are all people
0:32:41 > 0:32:44- that would drop in. - Everyone was there in the '20s.
0:32:44 > 0:32:47Hemingway himself used to come to Shakespeare And Company?
0:32:47 > 0:32:49Absolutely, yes!
0:32:49 > 0:32:53He actually described himself as "Sylvia Beach's best customer"
0:32:53 > 0:32:56and she didn't deny it.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59He was in Paris, I think they first met in 1921,
0:32:59 > 0:33:03and he was living here with his first wife, Hadley,
0:33:03 > 0:33:08and he was hungry, he was poor, he was unpublished
0:33:08 > 0:33:11and he was working really hard on his writing
0:33:11 > 0:33:15and he had a letter of introduction to Sylvia
0:33:15 > 0:33:18and he turned up in her book shop with that letter of introduction,
0:33:18 > 0:33:20but he didn't need it because instantly,
0:33:20 > 0:33:24there was a warmth and an affinity between them
0:33:24 > 0:33:27that turned into a beautiful relationship
0:33:27 > 0:33:30that lasted until he died. It lasted 40 years.
0:33:38 > 0:33:43By 1928, Ernest Hemingway was a Parisian old hand.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47A hard-drinking journalist, he was officially in Paris
0:33:47 > 0:33:50as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star.
0:33:57 > 0:33:59Hemingway wrote hundreds of pieces of journalism
0:33:59 > 0:34:01during his time in Paris.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03These are just some of them.
0:34:03 > 0:34:05They cover a whole range of subjects.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08There is an interview here with Mussolini
0:34:08 > 0:34:11whom Hemingway calls "Europe's prize bluffer".
0:34:11 > 0:34:15There's another story here about a Paris to Strasbourg flight
0:34:15 > 0:34:18and I love the way it begins. It begins,
0:34:18 > 0:34:21"We were sitting in the cheapest of all the cheap restaurants
0:34:21 > 0:34:24"that cheapen the very cheap and noisy street,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27"the Rue De Petit Champs, in Paris."
0:34:27 > 0:34:31And there's a story here about Hemingway himself
0:34:31 > 0:34:34being gored by a bull in Pamplona.
0:34:34 > 0:34:36But all of these pieces are written
0:34:36 > 0:34:39in this crisp, economical, journalistic prose
0:34:39 > 0:34:43that was tailored to being sent by telegram across the Atlantic.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50But Hemingway wasn't in Paris solely to write copy.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54He'd come here to turn himself into a world-class novelist.
0:34:55 > 0:35:00He wrote his first novel, The Sun Also Rises in 1926
0:35:00 > 0:35:06and by 1928, he was working on his second and perhaps greatest book -
0:35:06 > 0:35:08A Farewell To Arms.
0:35:08 > 0:35:11A Farewell To Arms is the story of a romance
0:35:11 > 0:35:16between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse
0:35:16 > 0:35:21during the First World War. It is a powerful tale of love and violence,
0:35:21 > 0:35:25but what makes it so remarkable is its style.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29Take this passage for instance,
0:35:29 > 0:35:30when the hero, Frederic,
0:35:30 > 0:35:33first meets the woman with whom he'll fall in love.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37"Miss Barkley was in the garden.
0:35:37 > 0:35:38"Another nurse was with her.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41"We saw their white uniforms through the trees
0:35:41 > 0:35:43"and walked towards them.
0:35:43 > 0:35:45"Miss Barkley was quite tall.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48"She wore what seemed to be a nurse's uniform,
0:35:48 > 0:35:52"was blonde and had a tawny skin and grey eyes.
0:35:52 > 0:35:56"I thought she was very beautiful."
0:35:56 > 0:36:00Now, what's amazing about that is the language
0:36:00 > 0:36:02is stripped back to the bone.
0:36:02 > 0:36:04The sentences are short,
0:36:04 > 0:36:06the words are basic,
0:36:06 > 0:36:10and there is no room for sentiment whatsoever.
0:36:10 > 0:36:16You know, Hemingway famously wrote that prose is "architecture, not interior decoration".
0:36:16 > 0:36:18And that idea - that style -
0:36:18 > 0:36:21came absolutely from his time as a journalist.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30As the novel develops, Frederic and Catherine fall in love.
0:36:30 > 0:36:34They escape the war. They live happily. She gets pregnant.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36But then tragedy strikes.
0:36:36 > 0:36:42"It seems she had one haemorrhage after another.
0:36:42 > 0:36:44"They couldn't stop it.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48"I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died.
0:36:48 > 0:36:51"She was unconscious all the time,
0:36:51 > 0:36:55"and it did not take her very long to die.
0:36:55 > 0:37:00"After a while, I went out and left the hospital
0:37:00 > 0:37:02"and walked back to the hotel in the rain."
0:37:05 > 0:37:07And that's it.
0:37:07 > 0:37:09That's the end of the entire novel.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14She dies, he leaves, and it's raining.
0:37:14 > 0:37:16And, you know, it's the simplicity
0:37:16 > 0:37:19that makes it so unbelievably powerful.
0:37:19 > 0:37:21But the truth is,
0:37:21 > 0:37:23it wasn't simple at all.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26In fact, it took Hemingway 47 attempts
0:37:26 > 0:37:29to get that ending so perfect.
0:37:42 > 0:37:44For another group of Americans,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47Paris offered a more fundamental kind of freedom.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57During the First World War, hundreds of African-American soldiers
0:37:57 > 0:37:59had fought in the trenches defending France.
0:38:04 > 0:38:08After the Armistice, many of them drifted to Paris
0:38:08 > 0:38:11and fell in love with the City Of Lights.
0:38:19 > 0:38:21Paris gave them opportunities,
0:38:21 > 0:38:24and in return, they gave Paris jazz.
0:38:32 > 0:38:36Today, the city still has a thriving jazz scene.
0:38:36 > 0:38:40THEY PLAY JAZZ RIFF
0:38:40 > 0:38:42I asked drummer John Betsch
0:38:42 > 0:38:45why so many African-American jazz musicians
0:38:45 > 0:38:48came to Paris after the war.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58It's very difficult for Europeans to understand
0:38:58 > 0:39:04the INSANITY of the racist climate of the United States back then.
0:39:04 > 0:39:09To be able to walk down the street and be called "monsieur"
0:39:09 > 0:39:12instead of something else, to be able to walk down the sidewalk
0:39:12 > 0:39:13and not have to get off the sidewalk
0:39:13 > 0:39:17when a white person came towards you.
0:39:17 > 0:39:21Yeah, that was very attractive, very attractive.
0:39:21 > 0:39:24Now in 1928, what was life like
0:39:24 > 0:39:29for an average black American musician in the United States?
0:39:29 > 0:39:37Segregation is really, really hard to understand in today's terms.
0:39:37 > 0:39:40Separate toilets, separate water fountains.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44You could be killed easily
0:39:44 > 0:39:48and nobody would do a thing about it.
0:39:48 > 0:39:50What an astonishing thing, back in the 1920s
0:39:50 > 0:39:52in the United States, they were nothing.
0:39:52 > 0:39:55They were treated like second-class citizens.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58And here, they were heroes, they were superstars.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01Yeah, exactly. Exactly right.
0:40:08 > 0:40:10As African-Americans found freedom,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13Paris seemed to embrace their music.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19The French even had a name for their new obsession -
0:40:19 > 0:40:23they called it negrophilie - "love of everything black".
0:40:25 > 0:40:28Jazz nights sprang up all over town
0:40:28 > 0:40:32and it wasn't long before a star was born.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34JAZZ PIANO PLAYS
0:40:36 > 0:40:40One of the greatest performing artists of the Jazz Age -
0:40:40 > 0:40:42Josephine Baker.
0:40:52 > 0:40:56Born into poverty in St Louis, Missouri in 1906,
0:40:56 > 0:41:00Josephine Baker, like many dancers in Paris,
0:41:00 > 0:41:02had escaped a difficult start in life.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09Josephine Baker had an eventful youth.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13She was married aged 13, but allegedly broke it off
0:41:13 > 0:41:17with a bottle of beer to her husband's head.
0:41:17 > 0:41:21Her second marriage, at 15, gave her the name Baker,
0:41:21 > 0:41:25but she abandoned him to become a performer.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32Her first job in Paris was advertised with the toe-curling line,
0:41:32 > 0:41:36"Come and see 25 Negroes in their natural state."
0:41:38 > 0:41:41Baker had no choice but to play along with it.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS
0:41:49 > 0:41:50But once on stage,
0:41:50 > 0:41:53she stole the show completely.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57She sent up the club-owner's casual racism
0:41:57 > 0:42:01with a performance that was uninhibited, knowing and cheeky.
0:42:02 > 0:42:04Paris had never seen anyone dance
0:42:04 > 0:42:08with such inventiveness and freedom as Josephine Baker -
0:42:08 > 0:42:10they fell head over heels in love.
0:42:19 > 0:42:22But for an uneducated girl from the segregated South,
0:42:22 > 0:42:27her instant fame wasn't always easy to handle.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31Josephine had thousands of admirers and dozens of lovers,
0:42:31 > 0:42:33both men and women.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37But Paris was a difficult, even painful place for her -
0:42:37 > 0:42:41she was insecure, unsettled by her fame, and often lonely.
0:42:41 > 0:42:46And to keep herself company, she kept a menagerie of animals
0:42:46 > 0:42:50in her hotel suite, rabbits, a snake a parakeet, a pig called Albert,
0:42:50 > 0:42:55and eventually, a tame cheetah that she gave a diamond-studded collar.
0:43:00 > 0:43:05Baker's eccentricity may have been born from loneliness,
0:43:05 > 0:43:06but Paris loved it
0:43:06 > 0:43:09and embraced her as one of its star attractions -
0:43:09 > 0:43:12she was allowed to set up her own club,
0:43:12 > 0:43:14become a French citizen, and she even worked
0:43:14 > 0:43:17for the French Resistance during the Second World War.
0:43:20 > 0:43:24Josephine Baker had more freedom here in Paris
0:43:24 > 0:43:26than in any other city in the world,
0:43:26 > 0:43:28and while like many other black artists,
0:43:28 > 0:43:31she faced racial stereotypes throughout her career,
0:43:31 > 0:43:34it was here where she became one of the most original
0:43:34 > 0:43:37and distinctive artists of the 1920s.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42Baker's road to success had been long and hard-fought,
0:43:42 > 0:43:45but the unique openness and tolerance
0:43:45 > 0:43:47of Paris had made it possible.
0:43:47 > 0:43:52And in return, she gave the city her loyalty and her love.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56# J'ai deux amours
0:43:56 > 0:44:00# Mon pays et Paris
0:44:00 > 0:44:03# Par eux toujours
0:44:03 > 0:44:07# Mon coeur est ravi. #
0:44:07 > 0:44:08Voila!
0:44:08 > 0:44:10CHEERING
0:44:13 > 0:44:17If most people in Paris seemed to be living for the moment,
0:44:17 > 0:44:21there were some who were more interested in the future.
0:44:23 > 0:44:28Architects and artists who wanted to build a better world -
0:44:28 > 0:44:30a modernist utopia.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33And they took their inspiration
0:44:33 > 0:44:39from the straight lines and smooth surfaces of the new machine age.
0:44:43 > 0:44:46The most enigmatic of these dreamers
0:44:46 > 0:44:50was a Dutch painter called Piet Mondrian.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57Piet Mondrian was quiet, meticulous,
0:44:57 > 0:45:00if you met him, you could even say boring.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04But he saw himself as a man with a mission.
0:45:04 > 0:45:07What he wanted to do was drag Paris, Europe,
0:45:07 > 0:45:10the entire world, into a brave, new age.
0:45:10 > 0:45:15And he thought the best way to do that was through painting.
0:45:15 > 0:45:19After the First World War, Mondrian came to settle in Paris
0:45:19 > 0:45:23where he lived and worked in a squalid building in Montparnasse.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29But inside, his studio seemed to belong to a different world.
0:45:34 > 0:45:39This is an exact replica of Mondrian's studio in Paris,
0:45:39 > 0:45:42and just how it would have looked in 1928.
0:45:43 > 0:45:45What a space!
0:45:47 > 0:45:49Now, in the late 1920s, this was pretty much
0:45:49 > 0:45:52the most famous studio in all of Europe.
0:45:52 > 0:45:56It was a legendary place and it was Mondrian's pride and joy.
0:45:56 > 0:46:00He planned every single square inch of this studio,
0:46:00 > 0:46:04the colour patches, the yellows and blacks and greys and reds,
0:46:04 > 0:46:08even the little mirrors were meticulously placed on the walls.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11The furniture was carefully chosen
0:46:11 > 0:46:15and Mondrian even painted his paint box and his matchbox,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19so they didn't disrupt from the overall colour scheme.
0:46:19 > 0:46:22Now, Mondrian was clearly an obsessive compulsive
0:46:22 > 0:46:23when it came to his studio,
0:46:23 > 0:46:27but that was for a reason, because this, for Mondrian,
0:46:27 > 0:46:31wasn't just a place to live and work, this was his prototype
0:46:31 > 0:46:35for the utopia he was trying to bring to the entire world.
0:46:45 > 0:46:51By 1928, Mondrian had developed and mastered his great signature style.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58And one of his finest works from the period is this one.
0:47:05 > 0:47:09This little picture is quintessential Mondrian,
0:47:09 > 0:47:13a square painting by an equally square man.
0:47:13 > 0:47:14Now, it looks pretty simple,
0:47:14 > 0:47:16but actually Mondrian spent months on it,
0:47:16 > 0:47:20varying the thickness of the lines by fractions of millimetres,
0:47:20 > 0:47:24and experimenting with the different colours in different positions,
0:47:24 > 0:47:27until, eventually, he arrived at this.
0:47:27 > 0:47:31And what he arrived at is, to my mind, perfect.
0:47:31 > 0:47:33And it was MEANT to be perfect.
0:47:33 > 0:47:38Because, for Mondrian, this painting was a portrait of a pure, timeless,
0:47:38 > 0:47:42universal reality - a reality that underpinned everything we see.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47And in order to reach that reality, to capture that reality,
0:47:47 > 0:47:52what Mondrian has done is distilled everything in the world -
0:47:52 > 0:47:55all its messiness, all its variety,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58to the most basic forms.
0:47:58 > 0:48:03And the most basic forms are for Mondrian are the vertical line,
0:48:03 > 0:48:08the horizontal line, black, white and the three primary colours.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10Now, why did he choose those?
0:48:10 > 0:48:12Well, for him, those forms
0:48:12 > 0:48:15were the ingredients of absolutely everything.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19With the colours on that canvas, you can make every colour.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22And with the forms on that canvas, you can make every form,
0:48:22 > 0:48:25the horizons, the trees, the buildings, the streets,
0:48:25 > 0:48:27masses, voids, even people.
0:48:27 > 0:48:33So for Mondrian, this painting was, I suppose, the cosmos in shorthand,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36the visual DNA of the entire universe.
0:48:54 > 0:48:58But as Mondrian was painting an ideal world,
0:48:58 > 0:48:59others were out building it.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03In the 1920s, around all of Europe,
0:49:03 > 0:49:06a new kind of architecture was emerging -
0:49:06 > 0:49:11an architecture that shared the same utopian modernist spirit.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16And if this powerful movement had any one ring-leader,
0:49:16 > 0:49:22it was a young Swiss architect who called himself Le Corbusier.
0:49:39 > 0:49:41In 1924, Le Corbusier founded
0:49:41 > 0:49:46a small architectural practice in Paris with his cousin.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50And it was here that he began to devise a new kind of home -
0:49:50 > 0:49:54one that he was very happy to live in himself.
0:49:59 > 0:50:03This is Le Corbusier's own apartment.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06He lived and worked here for most of his life in Paris
0:50:06 > 0:50:11and it really showcases his idea of the modern home.
0:50:11 > 0:50:16For it couldn't be more different to the traditional high-ceilinged,
0:50:16 > 0:50:19parquet-floored Parisian apartments.
0:50:33 > 0:50:38Le Corbusier thought homes should be "machines for living in",
0:50:38 > 0:50:43and this one is a showcase for his new design principles.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45It's full of natural light -
0:50:45 > 0:50:50one whole wall is almost entirely made of glass.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55It's open plan. In fact, some of its most private rooms
0:50:55 > 0:50:57don't have doors at all.
0:50:59 > 0:51:03And every single feature is eminently functional.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11He even built this bed just high enough so he could look out
0:51:11 > 0:51:13at Paris when he was lying down.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22For Le Corbusier, this apartment was peaceful, practical,
0:51:22 > 0:51:25healthy, hygienic and beautiful.
0:51:25 > 0:51:30And he wanted to make sure that others could live this life, too.
0:51:38 > 0:51:40But Le Corbusier was not content
0:51:40 > 0:51:43with changing one building at a time.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46He wanted to transform whole cities
0:51:46 > 0:51:48and Paris was first on his list.
0:51:56 > 0:51:59He examined the city from every angle.
0:51:59 > 0:52:03He watched its inhabitants eating, drinking and cavorting.
0:52:03 > 0:52:08But where others had fallen in love with its beautiful buildings,
0:52:08 > 0:52:11elegant boulevards and quaint little squares,
0:52:11 > 0:52:15Le Corbusier saw a city on the verge of extinction.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20"The city is crumbling
0:52:20 > 0:52:23"and it cannot last much longer.
0:52:23 > 0:52:27"It is unhealthy, antiquated, overcrowded.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31"Surgery must be applied at the city's centre.
0:52:31 > 0:52:33"And we must use the knife."
0:52:44 > 0:52:47So, Le Corbusier set to work
0:52:47 > 0:52:51planning a radical overhaul of Paris itself.
0:52:51 > 0:52:56A plan so radical that it would transform the city completely.
0:52:58 > 0:53:04So, this is the plan for Le Corbusier's new Paris.
0:53:04 > 0:53:06And it WAS a new Paris,
0:53:06 > 0:53:08because he basically hoped
0:53:08 > 0:53:11to tear down much of the city centre.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13A whole swathe of the right bank
0:53:13 > 0:53:15which included parts of the Champs Elysees
0:53:15 > 0:53:17were all going to be torn down
0:53:17 > 0:53:21and he was going to replace it with this,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25a network of 200-metre high skyscrapers,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28with a huge superhighway connecting them all.
0:53:28 > 0:53:32Le Corbusier's plan is startlingly modern.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36Perhaps more modern than anything that came out of Paris in the 1920s.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39Its sleek lines and hi-tech forms seem to belong
0:53:39 > 0:53:42to the 21st century and beyond.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45Only the cars betray its real age.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48But his plan had a purpose.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52Now this was partly an attempt to save Paris
0:53:52 > 0:53:56but it was also an attempt to make the city cleaner,
0:53:56 > 0:54:00healthier, more efficient - a city that was much more in tune
0:54:00 > 0:54:03with the 20th century itself.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05But all I can say is,
0:54:05 > 0:54:07thank God no-one let him do it!
0:54:10 > 0:54:13Le Corbusier may not have managed to change Paris,
0:54:13 > 0:54:17but his dreams for modern architecture and modern life
0:54:17 > 0:54:21have been a defining influence on the world we inhabit today.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24And those dreams were fuelled
0:54:24 > 0:54:28by Paris's audacious and optimistic spirit.
0:54:47 > 0:54:52Paris in 1928 had been a truly exceptional place
0:54:52 > 0:54:57where people forgot the past, dreamed of the future
0:54:57 > 0:54:59and lived in the moment.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04This was a place where the Surrealists
0:55:04 > 0:55:07let their imaginations conquer reality.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10Where painters, composers and dancers
0:55:10 > 0:55:15found freedom to express themselves in dazzling ways.
0:55:17 > 0:55:20And where Europe's most ambitious dreamers
0:55:20 > 0:55:23fantasised about better worlds.
0:55:26 > 0:55:28After a devastating war,
0:55:28 > 0:55:31Paris had conjured up what was surely
0:55:31 > 0:55:34the most exhilarating party of the century.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41But 1928 would turn out to be the last hurrah.
0:55:44 > 0:55:45In the following year,
0:55:45 > 0:55:49the Roaring Twenties would be ended by one momentous event.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57The Wall Street Crash was reported in Le Figaro
0:55:57 > 0:56:02on Tuesday 29th October, 1929.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04Now, it didn't make the front page.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07It's actually this tiny little story on page three,
0:56:07 > 0:56:10and that's because, to the French,
0:56:10 > 0:56:12it must have seemed like a largely irrelevant
0:56:12 > 0:56:14piece of international news.
0:56:14 > 0:56:19But for the thousands of Americans who lived here in Paris,
0:56:19 > 0:56:20it was catastrophic.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29American expatriates read the news with dismay.
0:56:30 > 0:56:32Their seemingly endless funds
0:56:32 > 0:56:36had all but vanished and they queued up to leave the city.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41Almost overnight, Paris changed.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48The bars and cafes, once filled with carefree cosmopolitan customers,
0:56:48 > 0:56:49were now empty.
0:56:53 > 0:56:54But worse was to come.
0:56:57 > 0:56:59In the 1930s, the Depression spread to Europe
0:56:59 > 0:57:03and France endured a bitter and protracted recession.
0:57:11 > 0:57:16In 1939, another world war started, and one year later,
0:57:16 > 0:57:21Paris, the city of joy and liberty, fell to the Nazis.
0:57:30 > 0:57:36Paris's reign as the world capital of the arts was arguably over,
0:57:36 > 0:57:40but as it and the rest of Europe recovered from the Second World War,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44another city, a very different city, would take its place.
0:57:44 > 0:57:49MUSIC: "Rhapsody In Blue" by George Gershwin
0:57:49 > 0:57:53In the next episode, we explore that city -
0:57:53 > 0:57:54New York in 1951.