The films made by the British Instructional Films (BIF) company in the
decade following the end of the First World War helped to shape the
way in which that war was remembered. This is both a work of cinema
history and a study of the public’s memory of WW1.
By the early twenties, the British film industry was struggling to
cope with the power of Hollywood and government help was needed to
guarantee its survival. The 1927 Cinematograph Films Act was
intended to support the domestic film industry by requiring British
cinemas to show a quota of domestically produced films each year.
The Act was not the sole saviour of British cinema, but the government
intervention did allow the domestic industry to exploit the talents of
an emerging group of younger filmmakers including Michael Balcon,
Walter Summers and Alfred Hitchcock, who directed the most influential
of these BIF war constructions.
This book shows that the films are micro-histories revealing huge
amounts about perceptions of the Great War, national and imperial
identities, the role of cinema as a shaper of attitudes and
identities, power relations between Britain and the USA and the nature
of popular culture as an international contest in its own right.
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The British Instructional Films Company and the Memory of the Great War
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780859890526
Publisert
2022
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Ingram Publisher Services UK- Academic
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter