History documentaries seem to take one of two approaches. One is linear, providing the viewer with a relatively straight line course from the origins through the ultimate ramifications of the subject. The other is a more subtle approach, focusing on various aspects of the theme and conveying its overall meaning and impact through those topics.
World War 1 - American Legacy is undoubtedly in the second camp. In fact, it summarizes virtually the entire linear history of "The Great War" in about 21 minutes. The remaining hour and a half focuses on a variety of Americans and their participation in the war, using them as the vehicle by which to explore the impact of American involvement in the war, both then and now.
Like the participation of Americans in the war, the documentary is not limited to the time period of the U.S. government's military involvement in the conflict. Instead, the documentary looks at those who, for one reason or another, joined the Allied effort before the U.S. formally did so in April 1917. Thus, we learn of Alan Seeger, a Harvard graduate and bohemian poet who fell in love with Paris and joined the French Foreign Legion to fight for France. He would die in action, whether ironically or fittingly, on July 4, 1916. Seeger's legacy? The posthumously published poem, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," which serves not only to commemorate the swath of death in the "War to End All Wars" and subsequent wars, but also as a partial theme of the documentary.
World War 1 - American Legacy shows Seeger was not the only Ivy League graduate or artist to jump into the fray earlier than his country. Victor Chapman, a Harvard graduate who went on to study architecture in Paris, also joined the French Foreign Legion at the beginning of the war. He later became one of the first members of the Lafayette Escadrille, a group of American pilots under French command, and the first American pilot to die in the war.
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