The Film

Production Notes

Getting Started: A Landmark of Popular History
Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World, by Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, was published in 2002, having come out in the U.K. the previous year under the title Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War. It was immediately recognized as a powerful work of popular history, and among the first producers to express interest in acquiring the film rights were the National Film Board of Canada and the Montreal-based company Galafilm.

"We immediately saw the potential for a great doc", says NFB producer Gerry Flahive. "MacMillan gets beyond the public ceremony of the Paris Peace Conference to give a vivid account of a key episode in modern history – one that casts a long shadow over contemporary geopolitics." The NFB and Galafilm initially submitted independent bids for the rights, but later joined forces.

Flahive‘s recent credits include another work of popular history: the innovative series The Dark Years, which blends animation with documentary techniques to recount Canada‘s experience of the Great Depression. "As a public producer, the NFB has a clear mandate to make films that connect with current realities. With Paris 1919 we had a fascinating story that still resonates in present-day politics – from the Balkans to Iraq – so there was strong support from Tom Perlmutter, who is the Film Commissioner and Chairperson of the NFB, and was then head of the NFB‘s English Program."

In February 2005, the NFB and Galafilm made a joint pitch at Sunnyside of the Doc in Toronto, generating interest among numerous broadcasters and producers. Discussions began with French producer Paul Saadoun, and his company 13 Production joined the project as European co-producer. Final financing partners came on board after Cowan, Flahive, Saadoun and ARTE‘s Thierry Garrel pitched the film at Amsterdam‘s IDFA Forum in late 2006.

After an extensive search for the right director, the co-producers confirmed Paul Cowan in the spring of 2005. In a distinguished career at the NFB, Cowan has demonstrated remarkable range, working as director and DOP in both documentary and drama, and directing such notable titles as The Kid Who Couldn’t Miss, about WWI fighter pilot Billy Bishop; Westray, an account of the 1992 Nova Scotia mining disaster; and The Peacekeepers, profiling UN peacekeeping missions.

"We were lucky to get him," says Flahive. "Paul Cowan is not just a gifted director – he‘s also a fine writer and one of the best cinematographers in Canada." Cowan began the lengthy and complex task of adapting MacMillan‘s book to the screen.

Finding the Story
"1919 was a unique moment in history," said Cowan. "It‘s hard to imagine such an event happening today when leader summits are limited to days, if not hours. With the Paris Peace Conference, you had the most powerful men in the world, working together for months on end, with the daunting task of remaking the world and creating 'a peace for all time.' While they were doing that, they decided they might as well fix the rest of the world‘s problems too – everything from war criminals and weapons control to heroin production. Having defeated the Germans, they felt, I guess, they could do anything. The horrible irony is that they ended up laying the groundwork for World War II."

Cowan‘s challenge was to bring MacMillan‘s complex and multi-faceted historic narrative to the screen. "She‘s not just a great historian – she‘s a great writer," says Cowan. "She‘s able to weave all these disparate elements into a fluid and engrossing narrative, but the task of telling the story on film posed its own set of challenges. I had to figure out how to write the story as a drama, with its own narrative arc, its own characters and themes." In the course of his research, Cowan read the writings of British diplomat Harold Nicolson, economist John Maynard Keynes and other conference participants. Keynes would later be harshly critical of the final deal, blaming it for creating the conditions for the Second World War, and Nicolson would be equally caustic in his assessment of the conference leaders.

"I began to see the events through their eyes, a handful of men trying to remake the world, with their unabashed ambitions matched by their personal shortcomings," says Cowan. "I set out to tell the story in a more personal way – viewing events through the experience of specific historic characters. I started looking for ways in which the trajectories of various characters intersected and played off each other. I began to develop those aspects – elements that we associate with interesting fiction – and this became the way to go."

The Shoot: 10 Days in Paris
By late 2007, financing had been secured and the co-producers were ready to go into production. A ten-day shoot was planned on various Paris locations for January and February 2008. "Paul Saadoun, our French co-producer, was expert on this front," says Flahive. "He secured access to some great Paris locations and took the lead in co-ordinating a complex shoot that involved actors, extras, costumes, an art department – everything you normally associate with feature drama."

"At the beginning it was something of a challenge," says Cowan. "The French crew were tremendous, but they arrived on what looked like a feature drama set, and of course in some ways it was – the scenes were carefully scripted. But in other ways, I was taking a documentary approach. I didn‘t want to always know how actors were going to move – I wanted them to deviate from the text without telling me. Some could do that, and some couldn‘t. It took little time to communicate this to the crew, but once they got it, they enjoyed the dynamism of it."

The huge Château Voisins, southwest of Paris, was the main location, and Cité Universitaire provided a hall that stood in for the 1919 map room, where mapmakers were tasked with redrawing the world map. A street adjacent to the historic Panthéon – in the midst of one of Paris‘s busiest neighbourhoods – provided the setting for the sequence depicting the assassination attempt on Georges Clemenceau.

An Archival Gold Mine
Flahive credits senior researcher Elizabeth Klinck with finding a remarkably rich array of film footage from the period. "Paul was able to draw upon this material with his usual skill and imagination, blending it with his own original footage of the actors to create a seamless narrative flow," says Flahive.

"Good archival material is gold," says Cowan. "It has a unique power to evoke the mood of a specific period. I was surprised to discover that Wilson‘s arrival in Paris had been extensively documented. It was a huge public event, with two million people lining the streets to welcome him. About 20 cameramen were filming the proceedings from different perspectives along the parade route, which gives you an idea of the importance attributed to the Peace Conference at the time. There were even cameras mounted on moving carriages – we wouldn‘t shoot it all that differently today. I was also struck by the quality of the images. Wilson‘s arrival in Paris was shot on 35 mm, by cameramen hand cranking their cameras – and whenever possible we went back to the original negatives in order to get the best visual effect."

Post-production: Pulling it together
Two seasoned editors, Denis Papillon and Annie Ilkow, would work on cutting the final film. "This became necessary because of schedules and logistics," says Cowan, "but it turned out to be a real advantage. It‘s rare that you get the chance to have a fresh set of eyes come into the editing suite towards the end of a production, and we benefited enormously from their combined creative expertise."

Robert M. Lepage, the Montreal-based musician and recording artist, composed original music for the soundtrack. Lepage has created original music for drama and documentary, as well as theatre, TV and dance. Actor and playwright R. H. Thomson came onto the project as narrator. Thomson has a special interest in the First World War. Family members had fought in the war, and his grandfather attended the Paris Peace Conference – history that he drew upon when writing the play The Lost Boys. "He brought the right blend of emotion and gravitas to the narration and brings the viewing experience to another level," says Flahive.

"Film is by nature a collective enterprise," says Cowan. "Many gifted people have had a hand in making Paris 1919 – so many indispensable contributors. The real work is done by many minds, and the director just pulls it together."

Paris 1919 is among the official selections at the 2008 edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, where it makes its world premiere. International broadcasters include ARTE in Europe, and TVOntario in Canada.