How has the representation of World War II on film changed from 1939 to 2009
by Jonathan P. Roberts
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About the Book
War has long been a fascination of filmmakers and thus hundreds of
conflicts from throughout history have been re-created for film, none more so than World War II, Emsley writes, “In the context of British cinema especially approximately 90 per cent of all war films have been about the Second World War” (2003). Perhaps this is unsurprising due to the scale of the conflict and its direct impact on the world’s global economic powers of both then and now (Britain, USA, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, China) and its importance to film history is highlighted by the roll call of critically lauded directors who have made the conflict the topic or backdrop of their stories over the decades – Lean, Hitchcock, Sturges, Polanski,
Spielberg, Tarantino all have made films centered on World War II. Yet as with any historical event the interpretation of it has shifted with time and the enduring level of WWII films in production across the 70 years since the war began provides a vast canon of artistic interpretation of which to assess and evaluate the changes that have occurred in how the conflict or perhaps war in general is viewed. The purpose of this dissertation is the to take some of the biggest WWII films, dissect their representation of the conflict and compare it with socio-cultural and political mood of the times in which they were
produced to find if there is a link, and indeed how strong that link may be, between the two.
conflicts from throughout history have been re-created for film, none more so than World War II, Emsley writes, “In the context of British cinema especially approximately 90 per cent of all war films have been about the Second World War” (2003). Perhaps this is unsurprising due to the scale of the conflict and its direct impact on the world’s global economic powers of both then and now (Britain, USA, Germany, Russia, France, Japan, China) and its importance to film history is highlighted by the roll call of critically lauded directors who have made the conflict the topic or backdrop of their stories over the decades – Lean, Hitchcock, Sturges, Polanski,
Spielberg, Tarantino all have made films centered on World War II. Yet as with any historical event the interpretation of it has shifted with time and the enduring level of WWII films in production across the 70 years since the war began provides a vast canon of artistic interpretation of which to assess and evaluate the changes that have occurred in how the conflict or perhaps war in general is viewed. The purpose of this dissertation is the to take some of the biggest WWII films, dissect their representation of the conflict and compare it with socio-cultural and political mood of the times in which they were
produced to find if there is a link, and indeed how strong that link may be, between the two.
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