In the period between the World Wars, Paris' Left Bank was known as a haven for many of the major artists and authors of the century, including Picasso, Hemingway, Joyce and Miller. The downside to all that canonical heft is that it tends to obscure the rich contributions of women and the importance of the city as the site of their sexual and creative liberation. In throwing some light on these important figures—including writers Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes and Janet Flanner; book impresarios Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier; and painters such as Romaine Brooks—Greta Schiller's documentary Paris Was A Woman takes a corrective stance, but sorely lacks the combative spirit of its subjects. Given the limits of compressing a broad history into a 75-minute assemblage of archival footage and talking heads, the film does an admirable job of mapping out a community of women whose personal relationships clearly informed their work. But in its strict adherence to the "a rose is a rose is a rose" school of documentary moviemaking, Paris Was A Woman rests too comfortably on the bland commentary of academics, as well as a number of listless anecdotes from those who lived in the Left Bank at the time. Schiller, who also made Before Stonewall, makes the mistake of focusing intently on lesbian or bisexual artists, understating the phenomenal impact of Josephine Baker and feminist/surrealist auteur Germaine Dulac. Those interested in the subject are better off sticking with material closer to the source, like Stein's The Autobiography Of Alice B. Toklas, Barnes' Nightwood, or Flanner's old New Yorker column, "Letters From Paris."