Tim Newark - Fifty Great War Films

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Osprey Publishing,

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INTRODUCTION

In past centuries, great battles and the sacrifice of soldiers were often commemorated by large statues erected in capital cities. The Parthenon frieze on the Acropolis in Athens portrays the ancient Greek warriors who defeated the Persians and kept their civilisation free. In the heart of London, the statue of Nelson raised high on a column celebrates his victory at the battle of Trafalgar over Napoleon the man who wanted to conquer all of Europe. Today, alongside days of remembrance and the erection of new memorials, we most frequently and widely commemorate our battles and soldiers through war movies.

Ever since the beginning of the 20th century, filmed dramas have been the major way we understand and appreciate past conflicts. As befits a free society, these films are often critical of the conduct of past battles and question the value of so much loss, but they also present the individual courage, camaraderie and professionalism of soldiers. From the very first war documentary depicting the battle of the Somme, to perennial film favourites, such as Battle of Britain and The Longest Day, they remain the most popular art form that reminds us of the duty and sacrifice of our armed forces. These are the war memorials of today.

Tim Newark, 2016

Film number:

THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME

Date: 1916

Duration: 74 min

Director:

Geoffrey H Malins

A documentary about combat on the Western Front in World War I, The Battle of the Somme was released as a feature film and proved enormously popular, attracting some 20 million cinemagoers in its first six weeks. It is often called a propaganda film, but it does little to glamorise the fighting and shows the dead and wounded on both sides in a remarkably humane depiction of the war.

The film begins with preparations for the great Allied offensive on the Somme in June 1916; we are shown the vast number of horses needed to transport armies and striking images of massive piles of shell cases. We see the ferocious artillery onslaught on the German positions, including plum pudding bombs for smashing barbed wire. The cinematographers know that the audience made up of many parents and families of the serving soldiers are as interested in the everyday lives of their men on the front line as the fighting, and they show the soldiers having dinner in camp the night before the attack, cooking food in a big pot, and fixing wire cutters on to their rifles.

The battle itself begins with the iconic image of a massive mine ignited on Hawthorn Ridge, sending up a great plume of earth. We then see soldiers going over the top from their trench, but this scene was a later recreation shot behind the lines and is one of the few false moments in the documentary. It does, however, have a feature film sensibility as we then see these soldiers disappear into the mist of no mans land. Harsh reality is provided by scenes of a wounded soldier being carried back to his trench, who we are told then died shortly after filming. Towards the end of the film, we are shown the dead and wounded of both sides. We see streams of German prisoners of war, shell shattered trenches, and a dead dog that went in with his master during the attack. The bizarre landscape created by war is depicted by men scrambling up the sides of a 40-foot-deep shell crater.

The film ends on a positive note with cheery soldiers waving to folks at home and a map showing 12 miles of captured territory. But the undeniable reality of the film must have been shocking for some on the home-front and undoubtedly contributed to its popularity it was shown in numerous cinemas in the UK and abroad for months afterwards as it expressed so much more than newspaper reports could. The Battle of the Somme can truly be seen as the first great war film.