Verdun: Visions of History

Léon Poirier, 1928: a 151-minute docudrama of Verdun, shot on the actual field with veterans as extras, newsreel of the Kaiser mixed with staged assault, and Marshal Pétain playing himself. Albert Préjean is a French soldier; Hans Brausewetter a German one; Antonin Artaud appears. Premiered at the Palais Garnier. The Germans are not brutes. War is the enemy. A double-exposure of ghost-mothers retrieving sons from both sides is the image that outlived the diplomacy.