- Language English
- Classification: Exempt
- Studio: Dd Video
- VHS Release Date: 2 Aug 2004
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- ASIN: B00004CNZA
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 9,700 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
This video box is a fascinating new item in the acclaimed series of vintage footage struck straight from the IWM masters. Whether propaganda or authentic (read: objective) pictures, is a question of secondary importance. The informed viewer will be aware that only well on in 1916 was the early patriotism about to be replaced by the true portents of a heroism about to be unmasked; and that soon the triumphalism would only be a far cry drowned in the poignancy (on either side) of stalemate and the attrition of a war that was digging itself in. One may be interested to note that by August 1916 this Somme documentary had toured most of the British cinemas. In retrospect (and after a century of near-ceaseless warmongering) it is an interesting and sobering confrontation. Both in sound and vision the footage still exudes an atmosphere of "an interesting venture" of innocent men into an unknown land of destruction. The trenches, the letter-writing, the dixie-eating, the single-file marching, the artillery confrontation as well as the hopes for the tank to be the white rabbit from the hat, they are all there. The honky tonk concert hall piano adds an estranging light-heartedness; an equally casual touch may be found in the inbetween text titles, which, more often than not, add a vivid contrast to the harrowing nature of the experience.
These high-quality videos are an indispensable companions for the serious Western Front student; they rank with such quality products as the BBC War video compilation, Edmund Blunden's literary chronicle Undertones of War (reviewed by myself elsewhere), Martin Middlebrook's First Day on the Somme or Rose E.Coombs's Before Endeavours Fade.
These high-quality videos are an indispensable companions for the serious Western Front student; they rank with such quality products as the BBC War video compilation, Edmund Blunden's literary chronicle Undertones of War (reviewed by myself elsewhere), Martin Middlebrook's First Day on the Somme or Rose E.Coombs's Before Endeavours Fade.
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