It was necessary to preserve indestructible, indisputable proof of all these visions, of all these aspects: it was necessary to photograph ," he said.
The image as a political issue
The force of truth – presumed – of the image could not be better affirmed. And at the same time, the political stakes of its publication. Based on the maxim that one is never better served than by oneself, the armies created their own photo service in 1915, with around sixty reporters.
Two years later, it was the cinema that came to complete the still image. And in the dark rooms a fictional war was staged with reconstructed battles and exclusively German deaths. But the desire to see a little more truth was the strongest.
Major illustrated magazines launched competitions, offering to " pay any price for photographic material relating to the war of particular interest . "
Some soldiers themselves had "Kodak vest pockets". They documented life in the trenches. Precious testimonies, essential for understanding what this great massacre of men was.
In just under 50 years, the image has been placed at the bank data center of tensions between government, journalist and public. Its value, now known, could be limitless. Economically, politically very costly.
Moving images for the masses
Every Wednesday, the French went to the cinema to watch the screening of Actualités françaises, Fox Movietone, and Actualités Gaumont. Sententious voices, spectacles of a world that was, after all, happy, the major dailies critiqued these agency films every Wednesday, as one critiques the work of a famous director. Great moments of history thus paraded before the eyes of all generations. Intrepid operators had been there at the right time. Serge Viallet's series "History Catchers" on ARTE is fascinating from this point of view.
And then there was that day in 1950 in Nogentel in the Aisne. A teacher was teaching the inhabitants of the small village a new show called: television news. His name was Roger Louis and he also used his teaching of the image to his advantage for himself as a senior reporter for the magazine "5 colonnes à la Une".