| dc.description.abstract | With reference to British feature films about the Second World War, the received wisdom among
film historians has been that in the immediate aftermath of the conflict film-makers and audiences
no longer had an appetite for the subject of war. The perceived dearth of war-related films in the
first five or so years of the peace is seen as representing a gap in the production of war films
between those made during the war itself and the boom in war film production that got under way
from the early fifties. This thesis establishes that such an assumption is mistaken, and that a
considerable body of war and aftermath films were made, screened and enjoyed by audiences.
The argument,then, is that far from ignoring the war in the late forties, as has been assumed, the
film industry was actively involved in the cultural process of re-interpreting the experience and its
consequences. The second theme of the thesis is an analysis of these films, and an exploration of
how they projected the war and its aftermath to contemporary audiences, and why particular
perspectives,subject interests,underlying values and preoccupations emerged. A multi-faceted
body of films, they are shown to engage with the shifting concerns and preoccupations of a
population emerging from war, and to be a distinctive phase in the cinematic history of the conflict. | en_US |
