War movies

This paper was written for the GSA annual conference in 2011. It offers a detailled analysis of the German-Italian war movie HIMMELFAHRTSKOMMANDO EL ALAMEIN (1968), which tells the same events from three different, conflicting perspectives: the Germans, the Americans, and the Italians. Doing so, the movie deconstructs generic conventions of war movies, highlighting their ideological aporias.

En el mundo de la creación cinematográfica la Segunda Guerra Mundial ha sido uno de los temas históricos más representados por el cine. El interés por recordar este episodio de la Historia sigue motivando que el mundo de la creación audiovisual incursione de vez en cuando en recrear episodios concretos de la guerra, personajes, situaciones existenciales, etc. En las siguientes páginas se analizan en un primer bloque, películas que han mostrado las derrotas más importantes de las fuerzas alemanas. El trabajo se complementa con otras aportaciones cinematográficas sobre el periodo de la guerra. Se ofrece un panorama analítico sobre algunas películas checas que han tratado el tema de la participación tanto de la sociedad checa como de los soldados que lograron escapar del territorio anexionado. El capítulo final se dedica a analizar la participación en la segunda guerra mundial de las tropas finlandesas, nación que se vio arrastrada a una alianza insólita con Alemania para enfrentarse a la Unión Soviética que la había arrebatado parte de sus territorios.

Feature films are a powerful medium for disseminating history, but the medium also imposes limitations on the message that can be conveyed.  At the same time, the visual medium demands a level of detail that written narrative does not. Historians generally fail to take the special character of the film medium into account and often criticize historical films for being 'incorrect' - yet they have no problems with the historical inaccuracies of Shakespeare's plays.  This paper argues for a more nuanced approach to historical films and analyses three popular genres: war epic, war comedy and epic set in the ancient world  ('sword and sandals').

ABSTRACT
Korean War is a breaking point for Turkish political life and foreign affairs, because it was the first war participated by the new Republic since the İndependence War and due to its role in this war Turkey could be accepted as a NATO member. In contrast to this importance, the Turkish Cinema did not pay adequate attention to the Korean War. There are only eight movies related to the Korean War most of which were directed after the deployment of Turkish soldiers to Korea in 1950. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the reflections of Korean War in Turkish Cinema and how it was aesthetized through the movies. In this context, themes presenting the concept of war were analysed through the semiotic and discourse analyses of the movies Kore’de Türk Süngüsü (1951), Kore'den Geliyorum (1951), Yurda Dönüş (1952), Şimal Yıldızı (1954), Ezo Gelin (1968), Ezo Gelin (1973), Esir (1983). As a result of the analysis, it was found that there is a nationalist discourse having a grift relationship with militarism; the reason for the participation of Turkey was illustrated as a support for the World Peace; the Independence War and quotes from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were used widely; and gender roles were used as a call for recruitment.

A quasi vent’anni dall’attentato terroristico dell’11 settembre 2001 la tendenziale mediatizzazione degli eventi di guerra ha imposto una urgente riflessione sul valore testimoniale delle immagini. Questo numero di «Cinema e Storia», pertanto, intende riflettere sui rinnovati regimi di rappresentazione della guerra (cinematografica, seriale, videoludica) facendo il punto su una serie di dibattiti teorici nati intorno ai nuovi mediascapes digitalizzati e convergenti. I saggi qui raccolti si interrogano innanzitutto sulla contemporanea riconfigurazione delle guerre del passato, soffermandosi poi sul post-11 settembre e sui nuovi scenari della guerra globale al terrore tra cinema e nuovi media, per riflettere infine sui regimi di visione in era postmediale che sfruttano le potenzialità dei portable device e dei droni a pilotaggio remoto. Come di consueto, il numero monografico vuole adottare un approccio apertamente interdisciplinare (spaziando dalla storiografia contemporanea all’estetica, dai film studies ai media studies, dall’iconologia critica ai cultural studies) per fornire un contributo utile all’urgente riflessione sui profondi mutamenti esperienziali avvenuti nell’odierna cultura visuale.

The article was triggered by an interview with an interlocutor who in her early youth was a member of the resistance movement in Belgrade and her incidental mention of the action of burning newspapers during the summer of 1941. This action was first filmed by the interlocutor’s brother, director Vojislav Nanović in his movie “Immortal Youth” (Besmrtna mladost) in 1948, himself being an active member of the Belgrade resistance movement. Based on historiographical sources from the period of socialism and published oral testimonies, the article reconstructs
the gradual historiographical transformation and glorification of these events with depersonalization, erasing the image of the real victims. On the other hand, the process of folklorization of members of the resistance movement in Belgrade has been going on since the mid-1970s through the popular television series “The Written Offs” (“Otpisani”), and The return of the Written Offs (“Povratak otpisanih”), as well as the film of the same name (1974) turned into mimes, a generally accepted matrix for humorous allusions to contemporary political events in Serbia. Also analyzed are the narrative and visual spaces of the city in which the action is located.

France, to cope with the revolt which set on fire the "banlieues" in 2005, established the state of emergency according to an act dating back to the Algerian war (1955). Siri’s movie "L’Ennemi intime", which came out in cinemas shortly afterwards, brought to the big screen exactly the French Algerian conflict. Contextualizing the film in the plentiful French production about this issue, the A. wonders whether we are faced with a new stage of "the Algerian syndrome" 50 years after the event or whether the Algerian war, caught up in a complex device of censorship and self censorship (official as well as by authors, producers, public), still remains the major repressed experience of French society (and its cinema).

Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen coined the term ‘supernormal stimulus’ after discovering that birds who lay small, pale blue eggs speckled with grey prefer to sit on larger, bright blue eggs with black polka-dots. He found that he could exaggerate the key qualities of any natural stimulus to produce a stronger reaction yet--be it nurturance, courtship, fear or aggression.
    Animals encounter supernormal stimuli mostly when experimenters build them.  Humans can generate their own and media are awash with them: friendly smiling faces more consistently welcoming than ones own friends, animated cartoon characters with wider eyes than any real child’s, seductive bodies exceeding any proportions found in nature, and a huge array of supernatural menaces.
    This chapter examines film, television, spectator sports, video games, and social websites as well as more traditional media such as print and musical performance in terms of the concept of supernormal stimuli.

The New Children of War. Considerations about the iconography of the zombie archetype in the context of the Vietnam War: The modern zombie emerged in 1967/68 under the influence of popular culture and the visual presence of the Vietnam War. As a complement to the recent state of research the text elaborates on zombie iconography as an anti-war allegory. Based on George A. Romero's archetypal NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (USA 1968), it is pointed out in which way the everyday images of war shaped the history and imagery of the film and influenced both the depiction and characteristics of the zombie. Using scene investigations of burning people, crisis reporting in the media, the Search and Destroy missions and the memorable image of the headshot, the impact of war is demonstrated and proven with a large number of parallels found in press photographs and war reports. On the one hand, this allows to classify the subtext of the film within the tradition of the anti-war film. On the other hand, the allegory of wars and crises can be seen as an inherent and iconographic part of that movie monster, which, in the genre, has been proven more often since Danny Boyle's 28 DAYS LATER (UK 2002).

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0260210516000255

How do members of the general public come to regard some uses of violence as legitimate and others as illegitimate? And how do they learn to use widely recognized normative principles in doing so such as those encapsulated in the laws of war and debated by just war theorists? This paper argues that popular cinema is likely to be a major source of influence especially through a subgenre that I call ‘Just War Cinema.’ Since the 1950s, many films have addressed the moral drama at the centre of contemporary Just War Theory through the figure of the enemy in World War II, offering often explicit and sophisticated treatments of the relationship between the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello that anticipate or echo the arguments of philosophers. But whereas Cold War era films may have supported Just War Theory’s ambitions to shape public understanding, a strongly revisionary tendency in Just War Cinema since the late 1990s is just as likely to thwart them. The potential of Just War Cinema to vitiate efforts to shape wider attitudes is a matter that both moral philosophers and those concerned with disseminating the law of war ought to pay close attention to.

Già durante il conflitto, la guerra viene rappresentata attraverso il comico. Soprattutto nei primi mesi di guerra questa scelta fu la più frequente nel cinema italiano. Durante la serata vedremo come il cinema italiano (ma non solo) abbia riso (e fatto ridere) osservando il conflitto, ma, contemporaneamente, cercheremo di mostrare quali informazioni emergono da quei particolari documenti che sono le immagini in movimento.
Il contraltare, ed il parallelo, dei fotogrammi in bianco e nero del cinema sono le illustrazioni a colori dei periodici italiani e stranieri. Durante gli anni del conflitto i migliori artisti di inizio Novecento sono chiamati ad illustrare le vicende nazionali ed internazionali attraverso il filtro della satira e dell’umorismo. Bersagli preferiti diventano i potenti, i nemici in divisa, ma anche, inaspettatamente, i compagni. Vedremo quindi come sia stato possibile ridere della guerra, e contemporaneamente trarre insegnamento da quei sorrisi di riflessione.

Questo elaborato si interroga sullo statuto morale degli eroi del cinema di guerra, per comprendere il ruolo che occupa la moralità e l’eroe morale nei war movie, qui considerati come specchio della contemporanea moralità. L’interesse per questo esempio morale nasce dall’esigenza di avere dei riferimenti etici concreti a cui ispirarsi nel condurre la propria vita morale e dalla curiosità di verificarne il valore in relazione alla società. A questo fine i war movie rappresentano un campo di prova ottimale, poiché le situazioni che presentano richiedono una visione morale ben definita e, allo stesso tempo, essendo lo specchio della società, garantiscono che i modelli scelti siano al passo con i tempi e i problemi che essi pongono.

War movies and commemoration – How movies can function as tools for remembrance.

This paper asks the question how war movies can function as tools for remembrance, and to what
extent they can be viewed as valuable commemorative pieces for war veterans.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the co-existence between pop culture and history, and how
war movies can be viewed in a historical and cultural context.
The paper has focused on movies from the Second Indochina war, given the long history of movie
making about the subject, and the amount of movies made about the war.
From the Green Berets (1968) to Da 5 Bloods (2020) the Vietnam War has been able to amaze,
terrify and shock moviegoers for the last fifty years, and continues to be a somewhat relevant pop
cultural phenomenon.
The paper has through analyses of movie reviews, first-hand accounts and literature about the war
sought to gain an understanding on how veterans view the depiction of soldiers in combat on film,
and how they feel represented by them.
The paper has shown how war veterans feel a connection to these movies, and, albeit not every
movie has the same historically correct depictions of the battlefield how they still manage to bring
out emotions in the viewer, either good or bad. As depictions of war the movies can give the veteran
a feeling of representation by triggering a sense of familiarity with the actors, set and locations on
the screen. This in turn can bring out old memories and long forgotten feelings in the viewer, thus
providing a valuable, sometimes catharising experience for the veteran.
Considering this it can be concluded that war movies inherit both historical value and pop cultural
significance, and as such can be used commemoratively by veterans.

2014'ten beri hobi olarak izlediğim savaş filmlerinden 1. dünya savaşı ile ilgili olanların geçen yıl bir listesini tutmaya başladım. Belgesel, Dizi ve Film kategorilerine ayırdığım yapımların toplamı 495'tir. Gözden kaçırmış olduğum yapımlar olması muhtemeldir. Listeyi genişletebilirsiniz. Keyifli seyirler.

Last year, I started to keep a list of the war movies I have watched as a hobby since 2014, about the Great War. The total number of productions are 495. I divided them into three cateogires: Documentary, TV Series and Movies. It is possible that there are productions that I have overlooked. You can expand the list. Enjoy it.

Depot – Raum für Kunst und Diskussion (Wien 7, Breite Gasse 3)
Samstag, 21. April 2018, 15.30
Eintitt frei – – – –

Veranstaltungskonzept von Drehli Robnik für
für "PolitikProjektionen–>Viel*im*Film"
und das Wiener Wiesenthal Institut für Holocaust-Studien (VWI)
– – – –
Die internationale Tagung gilt Spielfilmen, die heute in Massen- und Mainstreamkontexten auf den Zweiten Weltkrieg zurückblicken – in Soziotopen, die politisch wie medial verschieden sind (ohne gleich national cinemas auszuformen). Mehr als um Kriegsfilm im engen Sinn geht es um Wahrnehmungen/Bildprägungen zu totalitärer Macht und demokratischer Artikulation, historischer Agency und Genderbeziehungen, Holocaust und Rassismus, Kolonialgewalt und Flucht. In ihren ideologischen und formalen Setzungen "meinen", inszenieren, die Filme ihre Gegenwart mit: ein Heute, geprägt von nationalautoritärem Regieren (kurz vor 100. Jahrestagen erster "Ereignisse" der historischen Faschismen).
– – – –
15.30 Beginn
– – – –
16.00 Andrey Arnold, Filmkritiker für "Die Presse", Wien / Martin Thomson, Filmkritiker/Filmkurator/Filmwissenschaftler, Wien: Männerbünde mit Mission und heilige Frauen im totalen Krieg. Symptom-Lektüren rezenter Zweiter Weltkriegs-Filme aus den USA und Russland
– – – –
17.30 Amália Kerekes, Germanistin, ELTE Budapest: Ohne uns. Ein Monochrom der Entfernungen in den Kriegsfilmen aus dem neuesten Ungarn
– – – –
18.30 Drehli Robnik, Theoretiker zu Film & Politik, Wien-Erdberg: National/Democratic: Zeit-Rechnungen, Volks(ver)zählungen und "NGO-Wahnsinn" im britischen Kriegsfilm (zwischen Dunkirk und Churchill)
– – – –
19.30 Ivo Ritzer, Film- und Medienwissenschaftler, Universität Bayreuth: Vom obszönen Zeit-Bild zur digitalen Medien-Heterotopie: Transnationales Kino und Zweiter Weltkrieg in Afrika
– – – –
Moderationen:
Béla Rasky, Wiener Wiesenthal Institut für Holocaust-Studien
Joachim Schätz, Filmwissenschaftler, Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Geschichte und Gesellschaft, Wien
Sara Vorwalder, Medien- und Kulturwissenschaftlerin, Wien

L’ispettore dai modi rudi ma efficaci.
Il pistolero senza nome.
Il duro dagli occhi di ghiaccio pronto a fare vendetta.

Gran parte del pubblico ricorda così Clint Eastwood, associandolo di volta in volta al personaggio che più si ama tra i tanti magistralmente interpretati dall’attore. Già a partire dagli anni 70’ Eastwood ha saputo andare oltre il mestiere d’attore, oltre storie e personaggi che lo hanno reso una leggenda vivente. Da un certo momento in poi ha scelto di diventare egli stesso un narratore, un creatore di storie e di mondi. Ed è passato dietro la macchina da presa.

Zapis wideo wystąpienia poświęconego zmieniającemu się obrazowi wojny wietnamskiej w amerykańskiej kinematografii, wygłoszonego na festiwalu "Militaria w POPkulturze", zorganizowanym przez Wojewódzką Bibliotekę Publiczną w Krakowie 7 października 2017 roku.

Feature films are a powerful medium for disseminating history, but the medium also imposes limitations on the message that can be conveyed. At the same time, the visual medium demands a level of detail that written narrative does not. Historians generally fail to take the special character of the film medium into account and often criticize historical films for being 'incorrect' - yet they have no problems with the historical inaccuracies of Shakespeare's plays. This paper argues for a more nuanced approach to historical films and analyses three popular genres: war epic, war comedy and epic set in the ancient world ('sword and sandals').

The aim of this master thesis is to highlight and give the reader an understanding of the relationship and dynamic between the Vietnam War and the movies made about the war, and to what extent the changing views on the war impacted the movies.
The thesis has through an analysis of a few chosen movies, namely The Green Berets (1968), Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and We Were Soldiers (2002) shown that this correlation has been more prevalent in the years after the war, where the hardship, horrors and trauma of the war has been the main subject of the movies. This is in stark contrast to the earlier years of the Vietnam War where the movies about the war, in the thesis represented by the movie The Green Berets had more of an easy, comedic approach to the war, and also functioned more as a propaganda piece.
The thesis has shown that paradigm changes has indeed taken place during these forty to fifty plus years where the movies about the Vietnam War has been a part of our popular culture.

Il genere, in prima battuta, è strumento di amministrazione
e programmazione commerciale, variabile della legge di domanda e offerta.  Il genere cinematografico è uno dei parametri che concorrono a orientare e a definire il consumo cinematografico. Ma il genere
ha anche una sua lunga e venerabile tradizione retorica. Più che
come mero paradigma ipostatizzato (repertorio di schemi e di regole che presiedono al fare artistico), o come mera tipologia o tassonomia esplicativa, il genere va considerato come rapporto vitale tra il prodotto
artistico e il suo pubblico - un rapporto il cui respiro, il cui battito alternato (sistole/diastole) sta nel gioco di conferma e di spiazzamento degli orizzonti d'attesa. Ma che cos'è l'orizzonte d'attesa? Potremmo
dire che si tratta di un sistema di organizzazione dell'esperienza.
Si può afferrare appieno la sua portata e incidenza se si
pensa che non esiste esperienza umana primigenia e immacolata.
La dialettica degli orizzonti d'attesa è un aspetto rilevante del fenomeno
artistico, ma non lo esaurisce. Anzi, il genere può a sua volta
essere adeguatamente collocato e compreso solo in base a un'esperienza
più originaria dell' arte. È lungo questa via che si vuole tentare qui
di pensare ciò che Malick ne "La sottile linea rossa" ha poetato.

Jag har i min text valt att behandla närvaron av skilda manlighets-och krigarideal i två amerikanska filmer om Vietnamkriget. Oscarsbelönade " Plutonen " av Oliver Stone från 1986 och " Tigerland " av Joel Schumacher från 2000. Båda filmerna behandlar på sitt eget unika sätt, den enskilda individens relation till sin nya roll (frivillig eller påtvingad) som soldat i det fjärran Vietnam med allt vad det kom att innebära.

Wojna wietnamska wywarła silne i trwałe piętno na amerykańskiej kulturze. Także
Hollywood, amerykańska Fabryka Snów, nie pozostał nieczuły na napięcia i konflikty
wywołane w amerykańskim społeczeństwie przez interwencję w Wietnamie. Wręcz
przeciwnie, amerykański przemysł filmowy, zależny od kaprysów swej widowni,
z wielką uwagą śledził stosunek opinii publicznej do wojny wietnamskiej i odpowiednio
modyfikował produkowane filmy, tak by trafiały one w gusta ówczesnych widzów.
Poniższy artykuł ma na celu przedstawienie czytelnikowi ewoluującego stosunku
Hollywood do najdłuższej amerykańskiej wojny XX wieku, wpływu tego konfliktu na
dzieła powstające w Fabryce Snów, a także przedstawienie najważniejszych amerykańskich
filmów osadzonych w tych realiach lub powiązanych z wojną wietnamską.

Gartenbaukino, Parkring 12, 1010 Wien
14. Oktober 2017, 19h bei freiem Eintritt
(Im Anschluss – um 20.15h – läuft DUNKIRK in OF auf 70mm. Eintritt kostet.)
(Tags darauf Nationalratswahl. Das wird was…)

"Dunkirk" ist ein – manchmal prätentiöser – Film über Humanität in ihrer Zeit. Auch in ihren sozialen und topografischen Räumen. In Christopher Nolans früheren Filmen, etwa der Batman-Trilogie, waren Versuche, moralisch zu handeln, von vornherein dirty, verstrickt in eine düstere, groteske Materie aus Stadt, Schmerz und Bosheit. In Dunkirk hingegen sind Häuser, Strände, Himmel hell und sauber: keine Spur von Gotham, auch nicht vom Trümmerchaos, wie es zum Fixbestand älterer Dokus und Spielfilme über die Kämpfe in Dunkerque/Dünkirchen zählt. Die geglückte britische Evakuierung unter dem Feuer der deutschen Luftwaffe im Sommer 1940 war ein erstes "end of the beginning", ein zarter Anfang des Endes nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft, ihrer Blitzkampagne des Bewegungskriegs.
In einer Zeit, in der Politik national rast und Datenfluss sich zum berechneten Hass verdünnt, versucht das Nolan´sche Film-Bild zu verdichten: Zeit soll ganz Materie werden – etwa ein analoger Filmstreifen, zumal ein breiter. Und die Gegenwart umfasst verschiedene intensive Zeitlichkeiten, Erfahrungen, Räume: Branagh an Land, Rylance zu Wasser, Hardy (immer noch mit Bane-Maske) in der Luft. Steife Brise und upper lip. Für starke Sager reicht´s. Es geht um Hoffnung, Flucht, Exodus, aber nicht um Brexit: Nolan hat schon 2014 in "Interstellar" S-T-A-Y gemorst. Fast alle Brit-Boys, die auf der Flucht aus dem Krieg am Strand warten, haben auffallend schwarze Haare. Als Beach Movie ist "Dunkirk" mit ein Bild jener Humanität, die heute "NGO-Wahnsinn" genannt wird. Time is tight, time is tide. The tide is high: Die Leichen kommen wieder.
Mein Vortrag fragt nach der Zeit der Demokratie in "Dunkirk" im Vergleich mit anderen Dünkirchen-Filmen und aktuellem Kino über den Zweiten Weltkrieg.

Clint Eastwood’s movie about the battle in February-March 1945 on the barren but then strategically important tiny Japanese island Iwo Jima in World War II is a remarkable movie in several respects. What I would like to do in this essay is focus on some of them in more detail.
1. First, I would like to position the movie in the tradition of US war films and war narratives in general and those of WW II in particular in which – and, to a significant degree, against which – the movie situates itself.
2. Some comments on Eastwood’s effective ways of combining personal individual biographies/ histories and public historical events.
3. A few words about the narrative structure of the film & on how the film questions – also on a meta-level – the ‘reality’ created by the (visual) media and staged performances.
4. Concluding, some comments on the film’s contemporary socio-cultural/ political relevance in 2006/07.

La disuguaglianza di genere è chiaramente all'opera in tutti i settori dell'industria cinematografica, oltre ad essere riflessa, e talvolta messa in discussione, in tutti i film che trattano del rapporto tra i sessi (cioè praticamente nella maggior parte dei film). Questo Dossier fornisce "dati e fatti” per valutare l'entità della disuguaglianza di genere nel settore cinematografico, mentre successivi Dossier tratteranno delle rappresentazioni femminili e maschili nei film, ovvero di come i film hanno ritratto donne e uomini, e le loro relazioni, lungo la storia del cinema.

Danger UXB (1979) and Piece of Cake (1988) – limited-run series with richly detailed historical backdrops, large ensemble casts, and intertwined, character-driven plot arcs – have the form of classic British television costume dramas. Their content, however, consistently subverts the conventions of the genre. Both series have overwhelmingly male casts, both are centered on the world of work rather than on the domestic or social spheres, and both routinely feature plots that hinge on the details if professional practice. Both series are set not just during but in the midst of the Second World War, and both feature characters who – as members of the uniformed military – are constantly at risk of violent death.  Most important, both series depict the final disintegration of the social and cultural world that more traditional costume dramas celebrate.
The two series are, at their core, tales of amateurs transformed into professionals. The men of the unexploded-bomb disposal squad in Danger UXB are sent into the field with a little theoretical knowledge and even less hands-on experience. The fighter pilots in Piece of Cake are superbly trained in prewar tactics that prove lethally ineffective against the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of France. The ranks of both groups steadily diminish as war takes its remorseless toll on those unable or unwilling to learn the skills, and adopt the habits of mind, necessary to stay alive. The careless, the sloppy, the inattentive, and the incompetent die – suddenly, and often horribly – and the survivors, in turn, learn to be more careful, more precise, more focused, and more skillful. They learn, in other words, to embrace the values of the industrial age: speed, practicality, ruthless efficiency, and an intimate familiarity with complex machines. The enlisted men in both series forsake the easy rhythms that (costume dramas assure us) prevailed in the countryside, and adopt the factory hand’s all-consuming focus on The Work. The officers reject the languid casualness of the aristocracy for the practicality of the middle class, trampling time-hallowed traditions in their determination to get the job done.
The idea that industrial-age values won the war and “traditional” (that is, pre-industrial) English values were a dangerous impediment to victory is implicit in both Danger UXB and Piece of Cake. Both series thus stand in opposition to typical British television costume dramas, which celebrate pre-industrial values even when (as in Brideshead Revisited and Downton Abbey) they take place in the “long week-end” between the world wars. Both series also participate in the ongoing critique of Britain’s national mythology of the Second World War, which valorizes amateurism, resolve, and “pluck”—the values of the Edwardian past—rather than the technological sophistication, advance planning, and ruthless cost-benefit analysis that played a far greater role in protecting Britain from Nazi occupation. This essay, then, will consider the two series as revisions of, simultaneously, the costume-drama genre and popular historical memory of Britain’s darkest hour.