Chapter 20

Ten Great First World War Films

In This Chapter

Viewing feature films from the time of the war

Watching films made since the war

Appreciating the changing perspective of directors

Although the range of films about the First World War can’t compare with the vast cinema of the Second World War, the films it inspired tend to be very good. Film itself was developing as a medium during the war, and some remarkable footage was shot by cameramen at the front. However, the great majority of the films about the war were made long after the event, and they reflect the changing outlooks of the times when they were made.

This chapter gives you a quick whistlestop tour of what I think are some of the very best films made about the war.

The Battle of the Somme (Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, 1916)

This silent film of the battle (see Chapter 6) still has the power to grip audiences. It was filmed during the battle itself (these aren’t actors – they’re the real soldiers) and it was shown in cinemas in Britain and at the front when the battle was still in its final stages. Film historians have pointed out that some passages showing men going over the top were staged for the camera, though the men who actually fought in the battle found the film entirely realistic. One soldier wrote to the press saying that the only thing missing from the film was the sound of the guns. But as he was watching it in a tent just behind the front line, that was provided for real, free of charge.

To get beyond the still images and get a better sense of how a major Western Front offensive really felt to the men who took part in it, you really can’t do better than looking out The Battle of the Somme.

Shoulder Arms (Charlie Chaplin, 1918)

Shoulder Arms is a bit of typical Chaplin slapstick, but instead of his trademark bowler hat and cane he’s in doughboy uniform and carries a rifle. American doughboys (that was the popular nickname for American soldiers in the First World War, a bit like GIs in the Second World War) enjoyed the scenes sending up all the marching and drill sergeants they had to endure, and some of the comedy still works very well – see how Charlie deals with three German soldiers while disguised not very convincingly as a tree!

The First World War might not seem an obvious subject for comedy, but laughter is essential just as much in wartime as at other times. This film delivers just that.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930)

All Quiet on the Western Front, based on Erich Maria Remarque’s novel of the same name, is perhaps the most important film made about the First World War. It tells of an idealistic young German going straight from school into the army and on to the trenches, where the reality of war shatters his illusions one by one until the tragic final scene.

The film was remade very successfully in 1979, but the original has more of a feel of the period. It’s a classic anti-war film, and you won’t be surprised to hear it was banned by the Nazis. All the more reason to see it.

La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

On the face of it, La Grande Illusion (‘The Great Illusion’) is an escape adventure film. It’s about a French officer pilot shot down and captured by the Germans and his attempts to escape, and you may at first be hard pressed to see why it’s always described as an anti-war film. The film’s anti-war message is subtle, but it is clear. The Frenchman comes from the same aristocratic background as the German commandant, who stands for the old ways and believes men of the same class should stand together, whatever their nationalities. That belief is the Grande Illusion of the title: the war is killing off the old ways and bringing in a harsher, less honour-bound reality.

Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)

Stanley Kubrick’s great indictment of criminal folly starts with French generals exchanging merry banter in a comfortable chateau – a world away from the trenches they command. There they dream up an impracticable attack that duly proves disastrous, so they cover up their own incompetence by blaming the failure on three innocent French soldiers and having them shot for cowardice.

Paths of Glory is a shocking indictment of the cynicism and folly that undoubtedly operated in various headquarters, and also on what happens when the men in charge lose direct contact with the men they command.

Oh! What a Lovely War (Richard Attenborough, 1969)

Oh! What a Lovely War (the title comes from a popular music hall song) was a ground-breaking stage show put on in 1964 by London’s radical Theatre Workshop and its famous director, Joan Littlewood. The show mixed songs, jokes, photographs and extracts from the diaries of the British commander, Sir Douglas Haig, in a devastatingly satirical attack on the folly of the First World War. Turning it into a film wasn’t going to be easy, but Richard Attenborough rose to the challenge, presenting the war as a sort of seaside holiday gone disastrously wrong, with the high command playing leapfrog and riding roundabouts and helter-skelters while the men fight in the mud of the trenches.

Oh! What a Lovely War is a brilliant piece of satire – very unfair on Haig, of course, but then, it is satire.

Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)

Laurence of Arabia is often regarded as David Lean’s best film and it’s easy to see why. You really need to see this famous epic on the wide screen to get an idea of the majestic scale of the desert, with Omar Sharif making his famous appearance out of a mirage and Anthony Quinn doing his ‘Zorba the Bedouin’ act.

Allowing for some simplification, Lawrence of Arabia shows how the British cynically exploited the Arab Revolt (see Chapter 9) for their own purposes and then took the region over for themselves. Above all, though, this film is a portrait of Lawrence, the complex, irresistible and frankly rather unnerving character behind the hero image conveniently created for him by the press.

Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981)

Bring a box of tissues for this story of how Australia lost its innocence. Gallipoli tells of two Australians, both keen amateur athletes, who become good mates and join up together to fight. They’re young, they’re Australian, they don’t take anything too seriously – and then they land at Gallipoli and find themselves in another world (see Chapter 9). The climax of the film comes when one has to run with a message that will stop the suicidal attack his friend is going to take part in. Even though you know just what’s going to happen, it’s a heart-stopper of a film.

The history is simplistic, but that hardly matters. Gallipoli is where Australia comes of age.

Regeneration (Gillies McKinnon, 1997)

This film is based on the Regeneration book trilogy by Pat Barker, which tells of a number of officers, including the poets Wilfred Owen (see Chapter 21) and Siegfried Sassoon, who were treated for shellshock at the famous Craiglockhart hospital in Scotland. The central character is the doctor in charge of the hospital, Dr Rivers, who has to address the question of where the real madness lies: in his patients or in his job, of getting them fit and well enough to send them back into the trenches?

Regeneration is a thought-provoking film that raises much deeper questions about the war than just telling the story of the poets. And when you’ve seen the film, make sure you read the books.

Flyboys (Tony Bill, 2006)

The fighting in the air is about the only aspect of the First World War that has kept something of its glamour, and various film and television directors have made films about it. Flyboys tells the story of the American Lafayette squadron that flew with the French air force before the USA came into the war. The film has all the action sequences you’d expect but it’s also a moving and intelligent reflection on the nature of the war and on what these American volunteers were going through. This isn’t a romantic adventure: these boys are engaged in a vicious and deadly combat, and the strain tells.

Flyboys is an honest and very necessary piece of myth busting.