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For No Reason at All : The Changing Narrative of the First World War in American Film
Title
For No Reason at All : The Changing Narrative of the First World War in American Film / Jeffrey A. Hinkelman.
ISBN
9781496836984
9781496836939
9781496836946
Publication
Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2022]
Manufacture
Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2022
Copyright Notice Date
©[2022]
Physical Description
1 online resource (264 pages) : illustrations (black and white)
Local Notes
Access is available to the Yale community.
Notes
Description based on print version record.
Access and use
Access restricted by licensing agreement.
Summary
"The years following the signing of the Armistice saw a transformation of traditional attitudes regarding military conflict as America attempted to digest the enormity and futility of the First World War. During these years popular film culture in the United States created new ways of addressing the impact of the war on both individuals and society. Filmmakers with direct experience of combat created works that promoted their own ideas about the depiction of wartime service-ideas that frequently conflicted with established, heroic tropes for the portrayal of warfare on film. Those filmmakers spent years modifying existing standards and working through a variety of storytelling options before achieving a consensus regarding the fitting method for rendering war on screen. That consensus incorporated facets of the experience of Great War veterans, and these countered and undermined previously accepted narrative strategies. This process reached its peak during the Pre-Code Era of the early 1930s when the initially prevailing narrative would be briefly supplanted by an entirely new approach that questioned the very premises of wartime service. Even more significantly, the rhetoric of these films argued strongly for an antiwar stance that questioned every aspect of the wartime experience. For No Reason at All: The Changing Narrative of the First World War in American Film discusses a variety of Great War-themed films made from 1915 to the present, tracing the changing approaches to the conflict over time. Individual chapters focus on movie antecedents, animated films and comedies, the influence of literary precursors, the African American film industry, women-centered films, and the effect of the Second World War on depictions of the First. Films discussed include Hearts of the World, The Cradle of Courage, Birthright, The Big Parade, She Goes to War, Doughboys, Young Eagles, The Last Flight, Broken Lullaby, Lafayette Escadrille, and Wonder Woman, among many others"-- Provided by publisher.
Variant and related titles
Project MUSE complete collection 2022.
Format
Books / Online
Language
English
Added to Catalog
July 19, 2023
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: The cradle of courage: warfare in American film in the 1910s and 1920s
Chapter 2: Combat, literature, and film: combat veterans and the production of narratives of wartime service, 1925-1930
Chapter 3: Comedies, cartoons, and carnage: World War I in American comic short films
Chapter 4: Race film and the depiction of African American military service, 1918-1939
Chapter 5: Girls in Hell: the changing depiction of women in the First World War
Chapter 6: For no reason at all: homecoming, disillusionment, and the failure of tradition
Chapter 7: Morals and muck: from suicide to superheroes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index.
Subjects
Genre/Form
History.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Also listed under
Project Muse. distributor
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