Paris: The Luminous Years - Toward the Making of the Modern

''Paris was where the twentieth century was.'' - Gertrude Stein''Paris was the making of the modern. The art of the past became obsolete.''''Why did Paris become the center of those who revolutionized the arts?''One key was the combination of painters (Picasso, Van Gogh) and poets. Picasso's closest friends were all poets. They interconnected the work of new, rebellious pictures, with new, revolutionary words. They loved it!Highlights the crucial role of the writers to explain the meaning behind the painters work. Guillaume Apollinaire ''played a dual role. . .poet laureate and impresario to the avant-garde.''''We want to give you vastAnd strange domainsWhere the flowersof mystery offer themselvesThere are new fires and colors never seen beforeA thousandInconceivable fantasies''ApollinaireMarc Chagall wrote that when Apollinaire examined his paintings and then . . .''It is tremendous what you are doing'', started his career.chapters -Why Paris?Painters and PoetsCafé LifeFauvismCubism BeginsBallets RussesMobilization and World War 1Post War, Dada and SurrealismDuchamp / Art as IdeaAmerican WritersJazz and the Arts1929 and Closing MontageDance and theatre was an important influence in this place. ''Serge Diaghilev - whose ballet russes reinvented the ballet with Igor Stravinsky's scores, starting with 'The Firebird'.''Scholar explains - ''Diaghilev was the single most important person in the art world in his time. . . . This was because the ballet russes was the meeting ground for all kinds of different artists, dancers, painters, scene designers, composers and musicians.'' She continues . . .''Ballet russes enabled Diaghilev to elevate the male dancer a dominate position in a dominate position in the ballet and the creation of great roles for his protégée and lover Vaslav Nijinsky.''Fascinating clips of Nijinsky dancing, along with photographs.Another overwhelming event was World War 1. ''The impact of WW1 on the Paris avant-garde was enormous.'' What impact?Cubism was labeled as 'German art'. Therefore a new anti-cubism art was developed. Who lead this? Picasso! ''All the artists who had been cubists. . .soon the galleries were filled with the patriotic works of painters, some of whose recent cubist canvases were hardly dry.''The horror, disillusionment, anger against Authority, frustration, relief, shock, destruction of not just cities - but hope, trust, confidence.''Dada was a raucous movement that attacked with equal fervor the art of the past and that of its own time. Dada was a rebellious upsurge of vital energy and rage. It resulted from the whole absurdity, the whole immense stupidity of that imbecilic war.''One chapter is 'American writers'. John dos Passos, James Joyce, Earnest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Fitzgerald. Hemingway arrived at twenty-two, newly married. Wrote and worked there for years.The profound influence of Sylvia Beach explained. Her Paris bookstore - 'Shakespeare and Company' played a key role in supporting and advancing careers. Key role in publishing Joyce and close to Hemingway.Jazz and the significance of Josephine Baker was interesting. ''The effect of jazz on the Paris art scene between 1919 and 1929 is hard to exaggerate. Jazz symbolized modernity and the performer Josephine Baker embodied jazz.'' Shows clips of her performing.Concludes with the 1929 death of Diaghilev and the crushing impact of the depression. The Paris avant-garde dissolves.This film explains this place and time 'was the making of the modern'.Of course, the real question, the real problem, the real decision, is/was this change beneficial? Can Stravinsky, jazz, etc. really replace Bach, Vivaldi, etc.? Is Picasso an improvement on Michelangelo? Can Hemingway inspire more than Hugo?(See - ''Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age'', by Modris Eksteins. A scholar's erudite synthesis of the same period. Broader in scope. This DVD was sympathetic to arise of modernity. Eksteins is not. Exhaustive analysis.)

Where is the artist capital of the world today where artists and free-spirits like Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Beach, Janet Flanner, and others fled the oppression of American society in post-World War I America? There is perhaps no better time to be an American in Paris than between 1905 and 1930. I saw this on late last night on PBS and I can't believe that I can purchase the DVD so quickly.The two hour documentary has fused a combination of old Parisian footage and contemporary scenes today. As somebody who came late to understanding how Paris influenced artists, this documentary doesn't speak down to those who are not educated, enlightened, or unaware of the city's history. On the contrary, the people in this documentary speak to you as an audience. Maybe that's the difference.Oh yes, not everything was perfect between 1905 and 1930 in Paris, France. There was the First World War and the aftermath of the gay 1920s when Parisians and the expatriates felt good to be alive. This documentary shows life before, during, and after the war. They are unaware of what's to come in 1939. Anyway, I felt that one person was missing from this DVD and that was the amazon herself, Natalie Clifford Barney, who was an American socialite and expatriate who also offered salons on par with Gertrude Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas.I love watching Janet Flanner in anything and she was the voice of Paris for 50 years for the New Yorker. It was my interest in Janet "Genet" Flanner's writings that led me to her Paris during the renaissance period where art, culture, literature, and politics was not only discussed but argued with passion and fervor during this great time period. We may never see the likes of the great artists of the lost generation again. Paris is now too expensive for the starving artists. The situation in Paris was a perfect storm of affordability and desire to experiment life beyond the norms of convention.The artists whether writers, dancers, painters, sculptors, or performers sought to create new art or redefine convention. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams because we are still talking and writing about them. God Bless those artists whereever they are now.

This DVD is glorious to watch. It takes you back to Paris at the turn of the century and gives a vivid picture of life amongst bohemia at that period. It goes through to the 1920's when Gertrude Stein held her salon and the most famous artists, poets and writers attended her salon. It is a total joy and it will be watched over and over again.

Wonderful for fans of the modern era. Thoroughly researched and artfully produced. I'm watching it again and again to absorb it all.

Enjoyed the video!

G O R G E O U S !

Very good DVD!