Does the film ‘The Battle of the Somme’ provide us with a realistic picture of what it was like to be a British Soldier in the trenches?
...s – when a casualty was brought in they were quickly attended to. The key messages of the film are all linked and are all explaining how well the British Troops were doing in their efforts against the Germans. Whenever a bad point was made it was backed up by a good, comforting point. Is The Film Totally Reliable? (section 1) As I watch the film and see those key messages being constantly repeated in the intertitles [a caption explaining which image was going to be shown next] and in the moving footage, the more I feel the film isn’t totally reliable: “…equipment and supplies are plentiful…” or “…soldiers are happy and well treated…” This is brain washing at its simplest; suspicious, eh? Is The Film Totally Reliable? (section 2) When we looked into the film’s authenticity we explored several sources including; newspaper articles, photographs, cartoons and diary extracts. One photographic source I looked at showed dead British Soldiers lying in awkward positions on the battlefield, their guns pointing up to the clouds. This disagrees with the film’s message of low casualties and effective medical care. Another source I looked into was a letter sent home by a soldier on the frontline. It explained how, to get a truthful letter home, he would have to use a friend who was going home on ‘leave’ to deliver it for him; otherwise it would not get past the censors. The letter states that; “…some terrible blunder has been made…” it then goes on to mention that “…someone is responsible for those machine gun emplacements being left practically intact…” this source disagrees with the film’s message of efficient and successful tactics. A cartoon I viewed showed a man sitting on a rock with a poor attempt at a shelter covering him. Standing round him are three men; one of them is banging a large drum, another is squirting water over the man on the rock, and the third is blowing air with a bellow. The hidden messages were that it was noisy in the trenches, it was wet in the trenches and it w...