This article examines the contemporary French artist Pascal Convert’s (b. 1957) projects relating to a forgotten leader of the French Resistance, Joseph Epstein, who was Polish, Jewish and a Communist. Convert had included Epstein among the 1006 French and foreign men commemorated on his 2002 monument at Mont-Valérien, but his realisation of Epstein’s importance came later and led to a documentary, a biography and sculptures of Epstein and his son, Georges Duffau. First, the documentary and biography are discussed in terms of Epstein’s case as a forgotten Resistance hero. Second, the historiography and form of both works are seen as keys to Convert’s contribution to accounts of this contested period. Last, it is argued that the sculptures of Epstein and other related artworks complete Convert’s engagement with the question of the transmission of memory. We see how Convert’s Epstein works represent an unparalleled triple intervention in documentary film, biography and the plastic arts.
AdlerL (2011) Hors-champs: Jean-Luc Godard. Radio programme, France Culture, 15September.
2.
Amis de Franz Stock (2009) Abbé Franz Stock – biography of life. Available at: www.franz-stock.org/.
3.
AmourouxH (1988) Quarante millions de Pétainistes, juin 1940 – juin 1941: grande histoire des Français sous l’Occupation, vol. 2. Paris: Robert Laffont.
4.
AragonL (1955) Strophes pour se souvenir. In: AragonL (1956) Le Roman inachevé. Paris: Gallimard, p. 170.
5.
AtackM (1999) May 68 in French Fiction and Film: Rethinking Society, Rethinking Representation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BadinterR (1997) Proposition de loi relative à l’édification d’un monument au mont Valérien portant le nom des résistants et des otages fusillés dans les lieux de 1940 à 1944. Report, French Senate, Paris, 16October. Available at: www.senat.fr/rap/l97-040/l97-040.html.
8.
BalM (2001) Looking In: The Art of Viewing. Amsterdam: G+B Arts International.
9.
BarbusseH (1935) Staline: un monde nouveau vu à travers un homme. Paris: Ernest Flammarion.
10.
BlochM (1957) L’Étrange Défaite: témoignage écrit en 1940, suivi de Écrits clandestins 1942–1944. Paris: Librairie Armand Colin.
11.
BowlesB (2008) ‘Ça fait d’excellents montages’: documentary technique in Le Chagrin et la Pitié. French Historical Studies31(1): 117–58.
12.
BracherN (2007) Remembering the French Resistance: ethics and poetics of the epic. History & Memory19(1): 39–67.
13.
BretonA (1964) Nadja. Paris: Gallimard.
14.
BurrinP (1995) La France à l’heure allemande. Paris: Le Seuil.
15.
CameronC (ed.) (2008) Le Mont-Valérien: résistance, répression et mémoire. Montreuil: Gourcuff Gradenigo.
16.
CobbM (2009) The Resistance: The French Fight against the Nazis. London: Simon & Schuster.
ConvertP (2007d) 1. Villa Belle Rose, Biarritz. 2. Itxasgoïty, Biarritz. 3. Villa Argenson, Biarritz. Généalogie des lieux. Préfaces de G Didi-Huberman. Biarritz: Atlantica-Séguier.
ConvertP (2010) Archéologie de l’architecture, de l’histoire, de l’enfance, du corps. Available at: www.pascalconvert.fr/index.html.
26.
ConvertP (2011a) Dossier technique: Projet pour les Archives Nationales. Unpublished project outline.
27.
ConvertP (2011b) Raymond Aubrac: résister, reconstruire, transmettre. Paris: Seuil.
28.
ConvertP (2012) Raymond Aubrac. I: Les Années de guerre II: Reconstruire. Two DVDs (174 mins). Paris: Ina Editions.
29.
CooperS (2008) Selfless Cinema? Ethics and French Documentary. Oxford: MHRA/Legenda.
30.
CourtoisS (1980) Le PCF dans la guerre. Paris: Ramsay.
31.
CourtoisSLazarM (1995) Histoire du Parti communiste français. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
32.
CourtoisSPeschanskiDRayskiA (1989) Le Sang de l’étranger: les immigrants de la MOI dans la résistance. Paris: Fayard.
33.
Didi-HubermanG (2000) Devant le temps: histoire de l’art et anachronisme des images. Paris: Minuit.
34.
Didi-HubermanG (2006) L’Image brûle. In: ZimmermannL (ed.) Penser par les images: autour des travaux de Georges Didi-Huberman. Nantes: Éditions Cécile Defaut, pp. 11–52.
35.
Didi-HubermanG (2009) L’Envisagement du monde. In: BazinP, La Radicalisation du monde. Paris: L’Atelier d’Edition/Filigranes Editions, pp. 254–71.
36.
Didi-HubermanG (2013) Sur le fil. Paris: Minuit.
37.
FaliuOTourretM(2007) Héros: d’Achille à Zidane. Paris: Éditions de la BNF.
GodardJL (1998) Histoire(s) du cinéma. Paris: Gallimard-Gaumont.
40.
HalimiA (1976) Chantons sous l’Occupation. Two DVDs (170 mins). In: HalimiA (2009) Délation et chantons sous l’Occupation. Paris: Éditions Montparnasse.
41.
HirschM (2012) The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.
42.
JacksonJ (2000) France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
43.
JacksonJ (2011) Les 18 juin de Pompidou à Sarkozy. In: OulmontP (ed.) Les 18 juin: combats et commémorations. Brussels: André Versaille, pp. 208–32.
44.
LevinasE (1983) Le Temps et l’autre. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
45.
MaitronJ (1981) Avant-propos. In: MaitronJPennetierC (eds) Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français, vol. XVI, part 4: 1914–1939 – Introduction. Paris: Éditions Ouvrières, pp. 11–17.
46.
MaitronJPennetierC (1986) Joseph Epstein. In: MaitronJPennetierC (eds) Dictionnaire biographique du mouvement ouvrier français, vol. XXVII, part 4: 1914–1939. Paris: Éditions Ouvrières, p. 50.
47.
MansatP (2007) 11 avril 2005: inauguration de la place Joseph Epstein Paris 20e. In: Paris métropole fédérée: le blog de Pierre Mansat, adjoint au maire de Paris. Available at: www.pierre.mansat.over-blog.com/article-7213112.html.
48.
Mémoire et création numérique (2007) Les Plaques commémoratives: sources de mémoire. Available at: www.plaques-commemoratives.org/.
NicholsB (1991) Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
51.
NoraP (1992) De Gaulle et les Communistes. In: NoraP (ed.) Les Lieux de mémoire, vol. 1: Identité. Paris: Gallimard, pp. 209–33.
52.
NoraP (2011) L’Histoire au second degré: réponse à Paul Ricœur. In: NoraP, Présent, nation, mémoire. Paris: Gallimard, pp. 405–18.
53.
OphülsM (1969) Le Chagrin et la pitié / The Sorrow and the Pity: Chronicle of a French City under German Occupation. Two DVDs (249 mins). London: FremantleMedia.
54.
OphülsM (1988) Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie. Two DVDs (267 mins). New York: Icarus Films.
55.
OusbyI (1997) Occupation: The Ordeal of France, 1940–1944. London: Pimlico.
56.
OuzouliasA (1975) Les Fils de la nuit. Paris: Grasset.
57.
PeschanskiD (1997) Vichy 1940–1944: contrôle et exclusion. Brussels: Éditions Complexe.
58.
PikettyG (2000) De l’oubli relatif à la commémoration nationale: la parallèle Jean Moulin/Pierre Brossolette. In: AzémaJP (ed.) Jean Moulin face à l’histoire.Paris: Flammarion, pp. 325–33.
59.
PollardM (1997) Whose sorrow? Whose pity? Whose pleasure? Framing women in occupied France. In: Hawthorne andMGolsanRJ (eds) Gender and Fascism in Modern France. Hanover: University Press of New England, pp. 141–55.
60.
ReynoldsS (1990) The Sorrow and the Pity
revisited, or be careful, one train can hide another. French Cultural Studies1: 149–59.
61.
RicœurP (2000) La Mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli. Paris: Seuil.
62.
RoussoH (1984) Entretien avec Jacques Delarue. Two cassettes. ENT. 0231-0232, Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent, Paris.
63.
RoussoH (1990) Le Syndrome de Vichy: de 1944 à nos jours, 2nd edn. Paris: Seuil.
64.
SaintN (2007) Pascal Convert and the family: history, conflict and creativity. In: Barnet andMCWelchE (eds) Affaires de famille: The Family in Contemporary French Culture. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 151–68.
WinterJ (2006) Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.
67.
ZalcmanM (1984) Joseph Epstein, alias Colonel Gilles: De Zamosc en Pologne au Mont Valérien 1911–1944, trans. (from Yiddish) RusanchiB. Quimperlé: Digitale.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
