Paris The Luminous Years - Toward the Making of the Modern, premiering Wednesday, December 15 from 9 - 11 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings), explores a unique moment in Paris from 1905 to 1930, decisive years for our contemporary culture: an international group including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Ernest Hemingway, Jean Cocteau, Gertrude Stein, Vaslav Nijinsky and Aaron Copland, among numerous others, revolutionized the direction of the modern arts.
Paris The Luminous Years is the first television program to look at the city from a new and fresh perspective -- the importance of place in artistic creation. The film tells the story of Paris as magnet; the catalyst and the transforming force that attracted the finest talents of the era, molding the lives and work of two remarkable generations.
The program is a presentation of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG - one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers.
Through intriguing back stories of crucial relationships and of major turning points in the trajectory of the modern arts, Paris The Luminous Years reveals why breakthroughs like Picasso's radical "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon" that initiated Cubism and Stravinsky's violent "The Rite of Spring" that pioneered modern music, could only happen in the international, fervent atmosphere of early twentieth century Paris.
Why Paris? What did these young rebels find in Paris that they didn't find elsewhere? The answers come from the participants themselves, many of these on camera in fascinating archival footage: Joan Miró, Marc Chagall,
Jean Cocteau,
Igor Stravinsky,
Janet Flanner,
Aaron Copland, Sylvia Beach, Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, D.H. Kahnweiler. The answers also come from artists in their own words drawn from primary sources: letters, memoirs, recollections of witnesses documented by rich visual imagery including live contemporary footage of Paris filmed on locations relevant to the story.
For avant-garde painters and sculptors, Paris provided crucial access to intrepid art dealers who were ready to show, buy and sell their work. For young American authors and poets, their radically innovative literature - often rejected by major American publishers - was embraced and published in Paris by equally young, American publishers with small, independent presses. For composers, choreographers and dancers, it was the visionary impresario Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballets Russes, whose famous demand "Astonish me" could lead to a commission of a score or a new ballet.
Paris The Luminous Years features unusual archival footage, photographs and artworks, including 447 images from 113 international sources. The city on the Seine was a major catalyst for artists in nearly every artistic discipline. For example, in the visual arts the film vividly contrasts works by Picasso, Soutine and Lipchitz before their arrival in Paris with their later creations. Interviews with writers and scholars provide deeper analysis on how modern artists were challenged and transformed by the "city of light."
A production of THIRTEEN for WNET.ORG, The Eloquent Image LLC, INA, and ARTE France in association with YLE Teema, Paris The Luminous Years is written, directed and produced by Perry Miller Adato. Margaret Smilow is executive producer; Junko Tsunashima and Kristin Lovejoy are producers; Kris Liem is editor. The film is being released on DVD by PBS Home Video. Preview video and more at pbs.org/paris beginning December 1. Major funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, the
Florence Gould Foundation, Brooke and Daniel Neidich, Rosalind P. Walter, The Murray L. and Belle C. Nathan Fund, the Paul W. Zuccaire Foundation, and the Leslie and Roslyn Goldstein Foundation.
About WNET.ORG
New York public media company WNET.ORG is a pioneering provider of television and web content. The parent of THIRTEEN and WLIW21 and Creative News Group, WNET.ORG brings such acclaimed broadcast series and websites as Need To Know, Nature, Great Performances, American Masters,
Charlie Rose, Secrets of the Dead, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Visions, Consuelo Mack WealthTrack, Miffy and Friends, Angelina Ballerina: The Next Steps and Cyberchase to national and international audiences. Through its wide range of channels and platforms, WNET.ORG serves the entire New York City metro area with unique local productions, broadcasts and innovative educational and cultural projects. In all that it does, WNET.ORG pursues a single, overarching goal - to create media experiences of lasting significance for New York, America, and the world. For more information, visit www.wnet.org.
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