La France est un empire: A Documentary Film Second World War

What is it about?

Documentary film provides an excellent medium through which to analyze shifting nuances in this rhetoric during France’s transition from republic to totalitarian state. This paper examines in detail one documentary film that bridged the transition. By examining the proposed film script, official responses to it, the finished film, and documents from the censorship board, against a broad backdrop of other documentary films from the Third Republic and Vichy, this paper presents La France est un empire and its reception—both popular and official—as a window on changing views of the colonies and their implications for the future of France during the Occupation.

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