DOCUMENTARY: The Battle of the Somme (1916)

  

              “The Battle of the Somme” is a British documentary on the famous WWI battle.  It was entitled “Kitchener’s Great Army in the Battle of the Somme” in America.  It was directed by Geoffrey Malins and he used footage taken by himself and John McDowell.  The War Office insisted that the movie boost morale so it was edited to take out any images that might lower support for the war.  Although Malins and McDowell risked their lives to go into the trenches, the scene where the Tommies go over the top was staged.  The movie was a huge hit in Great Britain and sold 20 million tickets in its first six weeks.  The movie is 77 minutes long and is divided into five parts.

                Part 1 covers the preparatory actions before the battle.  Soldiers march past a stationary camera.   Caissons are loaded and artillery fires.  “The shells tearing up the enemy’s deep dugouts”.  Nope.  Part 2 is the battle.  The men eat chow.  A mine is blown up to facilitate the attack.  This is followed by the advance.  This includes the famous staged scene where a Brit is shot just as he tries to leave the trench.  Wounded are carried back.  German prisoners are treated well.  Dead bodies.  The another part is of the clearing of the battlefield.  Victorious British, defeated Germans.  The movie concludes with the devastation of the battle.  We see a destroyed French village.

                I can see why the movie was a big hit – in 1916.  It must have seemed amazing to audiences to be able to see what their boys were doing on the Western Front.  It certainly went beyond what they were getting from the newspapers and they may have been fooled into thinking they were seeing reality.  But they were seeing rose-colored reality.  How ironic that the subject used to boost morale was one of the most infamous battles in British history.  A truthful documentary of the battle would have been shocking to audiences and certainly would not have been good for recruitment.  Lt. Gen. Henry Rawlinson remarked that it “cut out many of the dead and the horrors”.  In fact, due to the limits of the photography, there are no shots of men in battle.  No shots of the slaughtering of the men crossing no man’s land to be mowed down by machine guns and artillery.  You would not have learned that the British lost almost 60,000 men on the first day of the battle.  This was the worst day in the history of the British army, but I don’t think the moviegoers got that.  Still, the movie is a must see for serious war movie fans and cinephiles in general.  The footage is crisp and clear.  The title cards are not propagandistic.  You can learn about preparation for battle and the use of artillery.  So it has value as a tutorial, but as entertainment, it is pretty boring.  For instance, there is a lot of redundancy.  We see many shots of soldiers marching.  Christ, I think every British soldier made it into the film. 

                I can only recommend “The Battle of the Somme” if you really love war movies and want to check it off your bucket list.  It will become, like for me, the oldest movie you have ever seen.  It is also a must-see for any fans of the battle.  It’s not as good as a book, but it serves as a supplement.  However, there are plenty of better documentaries if you don’t want to read a book.

 

GRADE  =  C