Film, propaganda, and politics: La France est un empire , 1939–1943

Abstract

This article tells the story of a colonial documentary film that spanned the years of the late Third Republic and Vichy. The film is La France est un empire, written and directed by the adventure novelist Jean d’Agraives. The article is based on an unusually complete dossier of archival information, pieced together from both film and manuscript archives, that allows us to trace the life of the film from the initial idea to the production and ultimate reception of the film. This film and the archival record surrounding it contain clues to some of the broader questions that continue to motivate Vichy historiography: explaining the apparent internal paradoxes inherent in choices that individuals made during the Second World War in France. The article seeks to uncover the values that would explain a story that does not map neatly onto traditional conceptions of Right and Left, or of collaboration and resistance. This particular story involves a colonial film that found favor with both republican and authorita...