La Grande Illusion: The cultural impact of World War I in France

Much of the Western Front fighting in World War I took place in France, yet the cultural legacy of the war in France remains under-explored in the UK. This week, Juliet talks to Eric Robertson (Royal Holloway) and Peter Read (University of Kent) about how the experience of the war affected the Cubist and Surrealist movements and the development of French film, pushing some artists towards traditionalism, and others towards the avant-garde. SELECTED REFERENCES L’Affaire Dreyfus (dir. Georges Méliès, 1899) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_fbOIgvYsY NORMAN ANGELL, The Great Illusion (1909) GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE, Calligrammes (1918) - https://ubutext.memoryoftheworld.org/Apollinaire_Calligrams.pdf GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE, ‘Ocean of Earth’ - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58343/ocean-of-earth Louis Aragon - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/louis-aragon Jean (Hans) Arp Antonin Artaud - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud Hugo Ball HENRI BARBUSSE, Le Feu (1917) - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/barbusse-feu-under-fire Maurice Barrès - http://www.dreyfus.culture.fr/en/bio/bio-html-maurice-barres.htm Charles Baudelaire The Birth of a Nation (dir. D. W. Griffith, 1915) Georges Braque André Breton - http://www.surrealists.co.uk/breton.php Cabiria (dir. Giovanni Pastrone, 1914) BLAISE CENDRARS, J’ai tué (I Have Killed, 1918) - https://literaryabsolute.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/3-0e28093bc-i_killed.pdf Salvador Dalí Sonia Delaunay André Derain Robert Desnos - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Desnos Sergei Diaghilev Roland Dorgelès - https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/dorgeles_roland Georges Duhamel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Duhamel Paul Éluard - https://www.shmoop.com/surrealism/paul-eluard-author.html David Gascoyne (Surrealist poet) La Grande Illusion (dir. Jean Renoir, 1937) - https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/greatest-films-all-time/great-escape-la-grande-illusion Joris-Karl Huysmans Auguste & Louis Lumière J’Accuse (dir. Abel Gance, 1919) - http://sensesofcinema.com/2009/dvd/abel-gance-jaccuse-la-roue/ Max Jacob Jean Jaurès Fernand Léger - http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/2014/06/war-artist-fernand-leger.html René Magritte Stéphane Mallarmé Napoléon (dir. Abel Gance, 1927) - https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/napoleon-highlights-abel-gance-silent-film Ron Padgett Parade (ballet, 1917) - http://www.openculture.com/2017/05/the-1917-ballet-parade-created-by-erik-satie-pablo-picasso-jean-cocteau.html BENJAMIN PÉRET, ‘Little Song of the Maimed’ - https://movehimintothesun.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/little-song-of-the-maimed-benjamin-peret/ Pablo Picasso Arthur Rimbaud René Schickele - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/René_Schickele Gino Severini - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gino_Severini GEORGES SOREL, The Illusion of Progress (1908) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Sorel Philippe Soupault - https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-beautiful-space-that-slips-away-philippe-soupault-and-the-french-avant-garde/ Tristan Tzara - http://www.dramainthehood.net/2013/08/the-gas-heart/ PAUL VALÉRY, La Jeune Parque (1917) - https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/251734/paul-valery-and-the-last-centennial-of-1917 Verdun: Visions d’histoire (dir. Léon Poirier, 1928) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDC1Z8Pj0e8 Die Weißen Blätter (German journal) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Weißen_Blätter JAY WINTER, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning (1995) - https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/25 Wooden Crosses (dir. Raymond Bernard, 1932) - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/26/philip-french-classic-dvd-wooden-crosses-raymond-bernard ÉMILE ZOLA, Germinal (1885) and J’Accuse (1898) - https://www.marxists.org/archive/zola/1898/jaccuse.htm