Filming the Great War: Information, propaganda and historical documents

Abstract

The First World War is the first widely represented conflict. All belligerent sides appealed notably to photography and the cinematograph, which since then are the cornerstone of that we call «a visual war culture». Indeed, both perform a double mission: daily information and historical documents. This is why nowadays exist, in France and abroad, various archive centers or private collections, which contain countless images registered between 1914 and 1918. This heterogeneous set constitutes (for researchers and filmmakers) a rich and exciting documentary material. However, even when they are interesting and shocking, these images –like all antique documents- are carriers of the real, the oblivion and lies we must be able to decrypt. This paper analyses the key subjects related to these images through different approaches: newsreels and war documentaries, censorship, cinema as a modern tool on the service of the modernity of war, the image of the women’s work, the process from reality to reconstruction, the Somme as an example of mediatised battle, the propaganda through image as a double-edged sword and the constitution of war archives.