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

Synopsis: 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, theatre and beyond. The epicentre of this storm was Paris. For an incandescent moment from 1905 to 1930, Paris was the magnetic centre for radical innovation and experiment, the Mecca for creative talents who would change the course of art throughout the Western world. On-camera, dramatic and historic moments are recalled by participants in these legendary events e.g. Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, Aaron Copland, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvia Beach and Janet Flanner.

This film looks at why Paris was the place where this movement began. It spotlights now-famous key figures in the art world’s 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.
Language: English
Country: United States
Year of release: 2011
Year of production: 2010
Subjects: Art
Keywords: history of art; modern art; Modernism; Paris; social history

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British Universities Film & Video Council