Paris- The Luminous Years
- Producing Organization
- Thirteen WNET
- Contributing Organization
- Thirteen WNET (New York, New York)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/62-c24qj7869d
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- Description
- Description
- A storm of modernism swept through the art worlds of the West in the early decades of the Twentieth century uprooting centuries of tradition in the visual arts, music, literature, dance, theater, and beyond. The epicenter of this storm was Paris, France. For an incandescent moment from 1905 to 1930, Paris was the magnetic center for radical innovation and experiment, the Mecca for creative talents from Michigan to Moscow, from Brooklyn to Barcelona, who would change the course of the modern arts throughout the Western world. On-camera, dramatic and historic moments are recalled by active participants in these legendary events including Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, Aaron Copland, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miro, Sylvia Beach and Janet Flanner. Why Paris? Paris the Luminous Years tells the story from an unprecedented point of viewParis, not as the familiar, glamorous backdrop for the revolutions that exploded there, but as active protagonist, catalyst, and midwife to modernity. The film spotlights now-famous figures in the art worlds first international avant-garde, tracing who came to Paris and why, whom they met, what they made there, and how being in Paris transformed them and their work. Through intriguing back stories of crucial relationships and of major turning points in the trajectory of the modern arts, Paris The Luminous Years examines why breakthroughs like Picassos radical Les Desmoiselles DAvignon and Stravinskys violent The Rite of Spring could only have happened in the international, fervent atmosphere of early Twentieth century Paris. The vibrant artistic milieu of Paris before WW1 and during the 1920s is skillfully resurrected in archival footage and rare stills of Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Serge Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijiinsky, Daniel Kahnweiler, Guillaume Apollinaire, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. These and other key participants are brought to life through their quotes delivered voice-over by actors. Letters, memoirs, recollections of witnesses are documented by rich visual imagery, including live contemporary footage of Paris filmed on locations relevant to the story. Interviews with biographers and distinguished scholars provide deeper analysis on how modern artists were challenged and transformed by the city of light. These include: Serge Fauchereau, curator and author; Lynn Garafola, dance historian and critic; Kenneth Silver, art historian and curator; Romy Golan, art historian; Tyler Stovall, historian; Gerald Kennedy, literary historian; Donald Faulkner, literary historian; Noel Riley Fitch, biographer and cultural historian and Albert Sonnenfeld historian of French Literature. Paris was where the 20 Century was stated Gertrude Stein. We all came to Paris. It was where we had to be.
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Director:
Perry Miller Adato
Producer: Perry Miller Adato
Producing Organization: Thirteen WNET
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Thirteen - New York Public Media (WNET)
Identifier: PMAAP_16.2010 _Paris Lumin (WNET Production File Name)
Format: video/quicktime
Generation: Copy: Access
Duration: 01:53:50
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Paris- The Luminous Years,” Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed June 6, 2026, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-62-c24qj7869d.
- MLA: “Paris- The Luminous Years.” Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. June 6, 2026. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-62-c24qj7869d>.
- APA: Paris- The Luminous Years. Boston, MA: Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-62-c24qj7869d