Repicturing the Second World War

Films and television dramas about the Second World War have always been popular. Written by acknowledged experts in the field, this collection offers challenging, sometimes controversial, insights into how the popular memory of the Second World War has been “re-pictured” since 1989, which marked the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the war.

MICHAEL PARIS is Professor of Modern History, University of Central Lancashire, UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and his books include The First World War and Popular Cinema, Warrior Nation: Images of War in British Popular Culture and Over The Top: The First World War and Juvenile Literature in Britain.

Acknowledgements * Notes on Contributors * Introduction: Film and the Second World War: The First Fifty Years–M.Paris * Land Girls—W.Webster * Dark Blue World—M.Smith * Policing the People’s War: Foyle’s War and British Television Drama–J.Chapman * An Autobiographical Allegory: Franco Zefferelli’s Tea with Mussolini—R.W.Matson * Soccer with the Dead: Mediterraneo and the Myth of the Italian Brava Gente–S.Giovacchini * Safe Conduct—D.Afoumado * Aimee, Jaguar, and Sophie Scholl: Women on the German Home Front–H.Jones * ‘This film is based on a true story’: the Tuskegee Airmen (1995)–S.P.Mackenzie * ‘What Happened Was Wrong’: Come See the Paradise (1991) and the Japanese-American Experience in the Second World War–M.Paris * Commissioning Mass Murder: Conspiracy and History at the Wannsee Conference–S.Gigliotti * Laughing against horror: Life is Beautiful (1997) and Train of Life (1998)–P.Sorlin * Enemy at the Gates as a ‘Soviet’ War Film–D.J.Youngblood * Bomber Harris (1989): Raking through the ashes of the Strategic Air Campaign–M.Connelly * Realism, Historical Truth and the War Film: Saving Private Ryan (1998)–T.Haggith * Downfall and other endings: German Film and Hitler’s War in a New Century–T.Barta * Index