Paris The Luminous Years 2x52, 1x120

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 experimentation, the Mecca for creative talents from Michigan to Moscow, from Brooklyn to Barcelona, who would change the course of art throughout the Western world. Dramatic and historic moments are recalled by participants in these legendary events: Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Jean Cocteau, Aaron Copland, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvia Beach, Janet Flanner, and more. This film tells the epic tale of Paris from an unprecedented point of view, not as the familiar, glamorous backdrop for the revolutions that exploded there but as an active protagonist, catalyst, and midwife to modernity.

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