The Great War in Popular British Cinema of the 1920s ― Before Journey's End

This book discusses British cinema's representation of the Great War during the 1920s in both battle reconstruction films and in popular romances. It argues that popular cinematic representations of the war offered surviving audiences a language through which to interpret their recent experience, and traces the ways in which those interpretations changed during the decade. A focus on the distinctive language evolved for battle reconstruction films forms a central chapter – such films use a distinctive kind of 'staged reality' to address their veteran audiences, and were often viewed within a specific Remembrance context. Other chapters cover the representation of the returning soldier as a 'war touched man' in a range of fictional narratives, and the centrality of rituals of remembrance to many post-war narratives. 1920s British cinematic representations of the war are distinctively of their period, and are appraised as part of a wider culture of war representation in the decade.

Lawrence Napper is Lecturer in the Film Studies department of Kings College London, UK. His previous work includes British Cinema and Middlebrow Culture in the Interwar Years.