Film and the representations of WWI

Historiography of WWI Problems & Questions Methods Interpretations

Historiographical configurations Military and Diplomatic Social and Economic Cultural and Anthropological Jay Winter and Antoine Prost, The Great War in history : debates and controversies, 1914 to the present (Cambridge - New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

Historiographical configurations Cultural Comparative Public Centrality of memory and representations

The cinema in 1914 Entertainment, news, and romance! Popular medium Newsreel Movies Mixed venues Popular medium 5,000 cinemas in the UK Working-class audiences Suspicion among the elites

Showing the war Film and propaganda Ambiguous response: Britain Prepared, 1915 The Battle of the Somme, 1916 “The public should see these pictures that they may have some ideas of what the army is doing and what it means.” George V German response: Bei unseren Helden an der Somme (With our heroes on the Somme), 1917 Ambiguous response: “We are not showing ‘The Battle of the Somme’. This is a place of amusement, not a chamber of horrors."

Filming the war How to depict the modern battlefield? Rear sections “As experience has shown, filming under fire does not create as powerful an impact as good staging”, P. K. Novitskii Rear sections Preparations for and impact of battle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhRgVoPP0qQ Staged scenes Official army section: Section cinématographique des armées, 1917

Filming the war The front The home front La revanche des Français devant Verdun (1916) Battaglia da Plava al Mare (1917) Pershing’s Crusaders (1918) The home front La Femme française pendant la guerre (1917) Mrs John Bull Prepared (1918)

Film and patriotic mobilization Art and business Cecil B. DeMille: The Kaiser, the beast of Berlin (1918); Joan the Woman (1917) Charlie Chaplin: The Bond (1918)

Escaping the war Fantômas (1914) Ultus: The Man from the Dead (1916) Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray (1917)

Film and the memory of the war Telling the story of the war La Belgique Martyre (1919) With Lawrence in Arabia (1919) Critique of the war J’accuse, (1919) Abel Gance Journey’s End (UK) /All Quiet on the Western Front (USA), 1930 / Wooden Crosses (1931) La Grande Illusion (1937), Jean Renoir

Film and the memory of the war A critique of contemporary wars Paths of Glory (1957) S. Kubrick King and Country (1964) Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) Impact on soldiers and civilians Johnny Got His Gun (1971), based on novel by Donald Trumbo (1939) La Vie et rien d’autre (1989) Film and literature Capitaine Conan (1996) - Vercel; Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004) – Japrisot; Regeneration (1997) - Pat Barker; La chambre des officiers (2000) - Dugain

Film and the memory of the war The First World War and national identity Australia: Gallipoli (1981), The Light Horsemen (1987) Canada: Passchendaele (2008) The First World War and European reconciliation Joyeux Noël (2005) France, Belgium, UK, Germany, Romania