British Silent Cinema and The Great War

The book is a collection of 13 essays by leading researchers, edited by Michael Hammond and Michael Williams. Two questions lie at the heart of the book: (1) what role did the Great War play in the development of cinema in Britain, as a social force as well as aesthetically and (2) how did British cinema shape the memory of the war, both during and after the conflict? In exploring these questions, the contributors to the book touch upon a kaleidoscopic variety of issues related to the history and memory of the war in British cinema between 1914 and the coming of sound: cinema going, film aesthetics, fiction and non-fiction, musical accompaniment, cinema culture, propaganda, moral panic, censorship, film archives. [Leen Engelen, Review]