The Great War on Film: Examining the Cinematic Variations
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THE GREAT WAR ON FILM: EXAMINING THE CINEMATIC VARIATIONS OF THREE FILMS ON THE 1916 BATTLE OF THE SOMME by NICOLE DENAE YARBROUGH Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2014 Copyright © by Nicole DeNae Yarbrough 2014 All Rights Reserved ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many people who have helped me with this project. Foremost, I thank Dr. Steven Reinhardt for his guidance and support throughout the process. I thank the members of my committee, Dr. Imre Demhardt and Dr. Kenyon Zimmer for their engaging comments and input throughout the process. Lastly, I thank my friends and family for being patient with me during the past year. April 15, 2014 iii Abstract THE GREAT WAR ON FILM: EXAMINING THE CINEMATIC VARIATIONS OF THREE FILMS ON THE 1916 BATTLE OF THE SOMME Nicole DeNae Yarbrough, MA The University of Texas at Arlington, 2014 Supervising Professor: Steven Reinhardt Propaganda has been an integral part of human history, and while the documentation of conflict through film began in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was not until the First World War that the production and distribution of war films as propaganda became a mass phenomenon. Moving images of the war proliferated in all Western countries at an unprecedented rate. This thesis explores the role of wartime propaganda films in Britain, France, and Germany during the First World War by assessing the achievements and missteps of cinematic variations on the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Although these films achieved varying degrees of success as both propaganda films and war documentaries, they failed to alter the fundamental opinion of the masses. Rather, they strengthened and reinforced existing attitudes about the war. More importantly, the films shaped the way people would remember both the battle and the war in future generations. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements............................................................................................................iii Abstract..............................................................................................................................iv List of Illustrations .............................................................................................................vii Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 The Battle of the Somme............................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 The British Battle of the Somme ..................................................................... 16 The Status of Pre-WWI Film in Britain......................................................................... 16 Official Film.................................................................................................................. 21 Early Filming................................................................................................................ 22 Changing Tide ............................................................................................................. 26 Production of Battle of the Somme (1916) .................................................................. 28 Objectives of the Film .................................................................................................. 32 Domestic Audiences.................................................................................................... 34 Foreign Audiences....................................................................................................... 39 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter 3 The German Bei unseren Helden an der Somme (With Our Heroes on the Somme).................................................................................................... 44 Pre-War Germany ....................................................................................................... 45 The German Film Industry Prior to the War................................................................. 50 Early Film Censorship ................................................................................................. 52 Pre-War Attempts at Film Propaganda........................................................................ 54 Wartime Film Industry.................................................................................................. 56 Wartime Censorship and Militarism............................................................................. 58 Official War Films......................................................................................................... 61 v With Our Heroes on the Somme (1917) ...................................................................... 64 Press Coverage........................................................................................................... 65 Audience Reception .................................................................................................... 68 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 68 Same Footage, Different Outcome.............................................................................. 70 Chapter 4 The French L'offensive française sur la Somme, Juillet 1916 (The French Offensive on the Somme, July 1916)................................................................... 71 France Before the War ................................................................................................ 72 France Declares War................................................................................................... 75 The French Film Industry Leading up to the War ........................................................ 79 Mobilization of the French Film Industry...................................................................... 80 Filming on the Battlefield ............................................................................................. 83 The French Offensive on the Somme, July 1916 ........................................................ 84 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 88 Chapter 5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 90 Bibliography................................................................................................................. 97 Primary Sources...................................................................................................... 97 Secondary Sources ................................................................................................. 98 Biographical Information ................................................................................................ 102 vi List of Illustrations Figure 1-2 Anglo-French Objective for the Somme Offensive. ........................................ 10 Figure 1-3 Outcome of the Battle of the Somme ............................................................. 13 Figure 2-1 Positions of British Kinemaphotographers...................................................... 30 vii Chapter 1 Introduction When war broke out in August of 1914, war photography was well established, having been used to record the Crimean War (1854-1855) and the American Civil War (1861-1865). The first cinematic records of conflict began with the Boer War (1899-1902) and the Russo- Japanese War (1904-1905). However, it was not until the First World War that moving images of the war proliferated to an unprecedented extent in all Western countries. Their production and distribution became a mass phenomenon, as people were eager to see what was happening at the front. The intent of this thesis is to explore the role of wartime propaganda films in Britain, France, and Germany during the First World War by assessing the achievements and missteps of cinematic variations on the1916 Battle of the Somme. Each of the following chapters will analyze one of the films on the battle beginning with the British Battle of the Somme. The chapters provide a brief outline of pre-war conditions that affected how each country viewed the war and film in general before discussing the status of the film industry prior to the war and its development during the conflict. Finally, the chapters conclude with an overview of each film’s content, production, distribution, and reception. The final chapter compares the three films, discussing their merits as both propaganda and nonfiction films, the relationship between the war and the film industry, and the implications of that relationship for the use of film propaganda in subsequent conflicts. There are several terms that must be explicitly defined in order to minimize confusion while discussing First World War film propaganda. Most importantly, propaganda must be defined because the meaning of the world is very broad. At its core, propaganda is a neutral word, meaning to propagate or to sow. The term’s first official use was by the Vatican in1622, when establishing the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, a congregation tasked with 1 propagating the faith of the Roman Catholic Church.1 The history of the word’s neutrality is