ABSTRACT
Les Camisards, produced in 1970, is a film-maker's reading of history. This chapter examines Les Camisards as a source of history which helps us to understand how apocalyptic imagery and symbols influenced people's perceptions of time. The film is a vivid tableau of the beginning of the war. War as waged by the Camisards was seen to be a divine mission having eschatological and apocalyptic dimensions. The most characteristic feature of Camisard warfare, the loud chanting of battle psalms as they charged the enemy, was represented with documentary precision in the film narrative. Jean Jourdheuil, the film's scriptwriter, described the function of the narrator in Les Camisards during an interview conducted by Albert Cervoni in February 1972. The technique for conveying the narrator's reflections involves movement in time. In this historical film Les Camisards, Allio drew upon an array of cinematic devices and expression to reconstruct events concerning the beginning of the Camisard revolt.
