Battle Of Somme Research Articles

The Great War: Cinema, Propaganda, and The Emancipation of Film Language

AbstractThe relation between war and cinema, propaganda and cinema is a most intriguing area, located at the intersection of media studies, history and film aesthetics. A truly tragic moment in human history, the First World War was also the first to be fought before film cameras. And while in the field, airborne reconnaissance became cinematic (Virilio), domestic propaganda occupied the screen of the newly emergent national cinemas, only to see its lucid message challenged and even subverted by the fast-evolving language of cinema. Part one of this paper looks at three non-fiction films, released in 1916:Battle of Somme, With Our Heroes at the Somme(Bei unseren Helden an der Somme) andBattle of Somme(La Bataille de la Somme), as paradigmatic propaganda takes on the eponymous historical battle from British, German and French points of view. Part two analyses two war-time Hollywood melodramas, David Wark Griffith’sHearts of the World(1918) and Allen Holubar’sThe Heart of Humanity(1919), and explains the longevity of the former with the powerful “text effect” of the authentic wartime footage included. Thus, while these WWI propaganda works do validate Virilio’s ideas of the integral connections between technology, war and cinema, and between cinema and propaganda, they also herald the emancipation of post-WWI film language.

Film and the Mechanization of Time in the Myth of the Great War Canon

Military historians claim with some justice that, since 1960s, Front of 1914 to 1918 been partitioned into a Western Front of history and a Western Front of and culture, latter being profoundly (Badsey 51, 39). Much of blame for this state of affairs is fairly placed on Paul Fussell's very influential book of 1975, Great and Modern Memory, which played a major part in teaching of war's literature. In Stephen Badsey claims, Fussell and his followers argue that Front can only be understood as a uniquely unhistorical event, taking place outside time (43). Brian Bond more generally blames teachers of English rather than history, who still have more influence in shaping of views on First World War, through teaching of poetry, and from a narrow selection of poems, especially those of Owen and Sassoon (Unquiet 88). I largely agree with Bond about necessity and justice of Britain's participation in Great (2-13) and see real merit in his idea that popular notions of First World in general, and Britain's role in particular, were largely shaped in 1960s, in part reflecting very different concerns and political issues of that turbulent decade, but [also] in part resurrecting 'anti-war' beliefs of 1930s (51). As a teacher of English and an interdisciplinary scholar of Great War, I admit to being shocked on occasion by historical ignorance, not only of students but of colleagues with expertise in Canadian and/or Modern literatures. At same time, I am troubled by historian's uncomplicated reliance on fact versus fiction, as when Bond takes the famous official film Battle of Somme as clear-cut evidence that the film helped to give viewers some idea of what was really like, strengthening resolve to persevere to achieve victory (13), or when he insists that authors of war literature at end of 1920s were concerned with individual experience, not with public record (26). In analyzing form of Battle of Somme, I detect a rather different in this film because of its embedment in industrial process. Poets and novelists who were quite bitter about their individual experience were no less bitter about a film that hailed mechanized temporality of industrial assembly and its denaturing of human body. cinematic thus became a synecdoche for vast changes taking place in mode of production and in conditions of modern life. Here, it seems to me, military historians will have to do far better than carp at postmodern culture (Badsey 43) for popularizing a myth of Great that has displaced truth (Bond 77)--first, by ceasing to privilege referent over form in which it appears, and, second, by asking how cultural change may be linked to changes in mode of communication. In turn, literary scholars will have to take a more dialectical approach to processes of cultural transformation in order to show how changes in mode of communication are linked to changes in mode of production, a method that I failed to consider in previous work. The Myth of War According to British cultural historian Samuel Hynes, First World altered ways in which men and women thought not only about but about world, and about culture and its expressions (xi). As he sees it, That change was so vast and so abrupt as to make years after seem discontinuous from years before, and that discontinuity became a part of English imaginations (xi). Yet, when Hynes turns to cinema, its cultural impact, like that of print in first decade after war, looks very traditional. British Instructional Films, leading producer of film, was set up in 1919 to recreate key military campaigns of Great War. …

The Great War and All That in A Hundred Doors by Michael Longley

Who can bring peace to people who are not civilised? All of these people, alive or dead, are civilised. (Michael Longley, The Weather in Japan) In an interview granted in 2011, on occasion of publication of A Hundred Doors, Michael Longley expressed wish that work would ultimately look like four really long poems, a very long love poem, a very long meditation on and death, a very long nature poem and a playful poem on art of Using plant image, he wanted the strands both to entwine with each other, and every now and again to emerge as separate (Moore). Indeed, if nature, love and life are major aspects which intertwine sometimes inextricably so, in a kind of Noah's ark (Brown 2002: 92), violence and have also pervaded poetry since he began writing. As he himself acknowledged, the two World Wars were part of [his] family's history before they became part of [his] imaginative landscape (Brown: 94). approach is underlined by fact that everything is interconnected and this, to quote Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, is what characterizes Longley's aesthetic expressed through his use of metaphor, techniques of fusion, juxtaposition and parallelism, fluid handling of time, place and identity, self-conscious intertextuality (Kennedy-Andrews 2000: 74-75). The collection published under title A Hundred in 2011, is composed of sixtysix poems ranging from two lines up to fortyfour. The title of book refers to Our Lady of a Hundred Doors on island of Paros, considered to be oldest Byzantine Church in Greece, which poet had visited during sojourns in that part of Aegean Sea, and which he calls muse (15) in an eponymous poem contained in collection. This paper aims at showing that while A Hundred contains most of characteristics of earlier poetry it evinces a somewhat lighter utterance. If tone has become simpler and maybe insouciant, there is still a deep awareness of fragility of nature and life. My analysis will follow three main themes that in fact are interlinked and echo each other: and particularly First World War, then life and its corollary death in shape of poet's human environment and finally context of nature which poet has found in west of Ireland. I. The No Man's Land of War Michael father is a recurring figure in poetry and many of son's poems celebrate courage in trenches during First World War. These poems are often associated with evocations of poets such as Edward Thomas, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Graves, so-called war poets, who fought in Northern France and some of whom died in action there. Moreover, two World Wars and reading of poets framed view of Troubles in native country, in so far as they have given him a perspective on violence which generally pervades poetry. In 2013, Longley edited a selection of poems by Robert Graves. The phrase included in title of this article (and all that) partly refers to Graves's autobiography, Good-Bye to All That, published in 1929. In this work, its author relates memories of World War I, precisely battle of Loos and Battle of Somme in which he took part as an officer in Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and during which he had mistakenly been declared as killed in action. As a matter of fact, Graves, more than was case with other poets, did not make an indictment of but, to quote Longley, professed an open-faced, almost naive regimental loyalty. Graves's poetry has been an important source of inspiration and a model, confining to veneration as Longley recalled in same introduction: Graves lays down law majestically [...]. Yet line is flexible, at times improvisatory, jazzy even. Michael Longley acknowledges importance of Graves's prose work previously mentioned on own evolution and also fact that Graves's portrayal of the psychic quagmire of trenches echoed what he remembered of father's infrequent recollections. …

It still goes on: football and the heritage of the Great War in Britain

This article examines the museum displays and modern memorials that draw on the role of football and footballers in the history of the Great War in Britain. The place of football in the popular memory of the war in Britain is certainly significant at regional and national levels; from the stories of individual footballers and local teams signing up to fight for ‘King and Country’ to the more famous examples of soldiers kicking a football over no man's land at the Battle of Somme in 1916 and the football game played between opposing combatants during the Christmas Truce of 1914. Museums and memorial sites in Britain and on the former battlefields that reference and represent the place of the sport in the conflict provide places for tourists and pilgrims to remember and mourn these events and the dead. However, the manner in which these sites of memory frame the significance of the game in relationship to the war reveals wider assumptions about the contested memory of the conflict in Britain. Whilst the popular memory of the war focuses on the slaughter of the battlefields and the piteous futility of war, attempts at revising this perception have sought to emphasise the endeavour, commitment and achievement of soldiers. In this battlefield of memory, sports heritage serves as a lens through which issues of contemporary identity in Britain can be established and contested.

No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain, by Paul Addison.

No Turning Back: The Peacetime Revolutions of Post-War Britain, by Paul Addison. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010. xiii, 449 pp. $29.95 US (cloth). Addison's first book, classic The Road to 1945 (1975), established as a vehicle to explore British politics during Second World War: idea of an unprecedented reduction in partisanship between Labour and socialism, Conservatives, and vicissitudes of laissez-faire. When Labour swept to victory in 1945, Addison said, the new consensus fell, like a bunch of ripe plums, into lap of Mr. Attlee (p. 14). The power of consensus after war manifested itself in rejection of ideas, whether from left or right, that seemed too radical, and this continued largely until 1979. From early 1980s on, idea of consensus has been central point-of-reference for contemporary historians to analyze politics in postwar Britain. Now writing at end of his career, this is Addison's road from 1945. His thesis is simple: Historians used to argue that Britain was transformed in first half of twentieth century by social upheavals of two world wars. With advantage of a longer perspective we can see that comparative peace and growing prosperity of second half of century were powerful solvents of tradition than Battle of Somme or Blitz (p. 2). The book is designed and effective as a chronological/thematic hybrid. It comprises three chronological chapters: 1945 to .1957, as aftermath of war and early days of classic state; 1957 to 1974 as an age of overall modernisation; and 1974 to 1997 as a period of transformation from consensus and relative collectivism to a country fractured both politically and socioeconomically. Each chapter contains four subchapters examining book's themes: state in economic and social affairs; standards of living and social class; gender, sex, and morality; and questions of national identity. There is no moment or period of revolution for questions of national identity. For Addison, Britain was subject of gradual change from an ethnically homogenous to a multi-racial one with black and South Asian immigration. Like all processes of change described in book, however, Addison shows that this was not inevitable and describes with some powerful examples how it was not without considerable turmoil and racist opposition. The discussion of transition from a centralized Anglo-centric state to a multi-polar one with Scottish and Welsh nationalism and devolution, however, seems to overstate threat to British unity. Few could argue that revolution in gender, sex, and morality did not occur in 1960s, but Addison points out that permissiveness of 1960s was in fact limited. It was in 1970s and 1980s when widespread shifts in popular attitudes and behaviour marked shift from a permissive minority to a permissive society (p. 341). As with this example, all of Addison's revolutions are neither rapid, replete, nor smooth. His arguments about pervasiveness of change are always well qualified: Time magazine wrote memorably in 1965 of London, but greater London was a city of ten million people. The young might be swinging in Chelsea, but what about Slough? And what of Grantham or Peterhead? (p. 197). Addison's peacetime revolution comes not in totality of tangible change, but in totality of change in perception via a common subscription to an unproven but seemingly irrefutable truth. There were dissenting voices after divorce and homosexuality were legalized in England, but revolution came in consensus of perception that these were just and permanent measures--no turning back. Before 1979, and especially before economic crises of 1970s, many felt that Britain was on a great collective train or welfare escalator to future: not a socialist future, but one that always promised more fairness or more equality. …