A Century on Film

Perfecting Mechanized Killing (2x3)

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In 1914, Paris is only 50 kilometers from the fighting on the Marne River. The French army commandeers 600 Renault taxis to ferry reinforcements to the front. Moving images capture the birth of weapons of mass destruction such as poison gas, aerial bombing, and the first armored tanks inspired by tractors, as well as the carnage they caused. Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin also appear, as we trace the arc of war. After the armistice, we see an American Red Cross prosthesis workshop in Paris where the many disfigured by war come seeking masks to conceal their scars.