Words for Battle

Words for Battle is a British propaganda film produced by the Ministry of Information's Crown Film Unit in 1941.^[1] It was written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, and originally had the title In England Now.^[2] It features seven sequences, each containing images of rural and urban Britain at war overlaid with audio of Laurence Olivier reciting passages from different English literary works and speeches.

Overview

The film opens with an extract from Philemon Holland's translation of William Camden's Britannia. This is followed by a recitation of part of John Milton's tract Areopagitica, accompanied by shots of Westminster Abbey, RAF recruits in training and Adolf Hitler speaking with Nazi officers. The third sequence, depicting children being evacuated from London, is joined with words from William Blake's poem 'Jerusalem'. This is followed by images of Naval destroyers at sea, backed by Robert Browning's 'Home-thoughts, from the Sea'. The next sequence shows firemen and police officers searching through the remains of damaged houses during the Blitz, accompanied by Rudyard Kipling's 'The Beginnings'. After this, Winston Churchill is shown inspecting a parade of soldiers, while Olivier recites a section from his 1940 speech, 'We shall fight on the beaches'. As the speech continues, the film shows post-Blitz rebuilding work. The film's climax features an extract from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, accompanying footage of tanks passing the statue of Lincoln in Parliament Square, the chimes of Big Ben, and civilians travelling to work.

Analysis

The director Humphrey Jennings described the film as being about "the Lincoln statue in Parliament Square".^[2] On this basis, film historian Michael Bartlett has emphasised the final sequence, stating that it "underlines Jennings' belief in the ordinary man and woman as both the nation's driving force and the rightful beneficiaries of victory in war", as underlined by the words of the Address about "the government of the people, by the people, and for the people".^[2] Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards have pointed to the importance of the image of St Paul's Cathedral during the Blitz, juxtaposed with Churchill's words 'we shall never surrender', as one of many examples of the use of the undamaged landmark as an artistic symbol for British defiance.^[3]

Critical reception

The film was heavily criticised by the Documentary News Letter, a publication produced by documentary film-makers who favoured realism over poetry.^[3] It was described as:

...an illustrated lantern-slide lecture...the effect of which on morale is quite incalculable. The man who must feel most out of place is poor old Handel. As he stood on his gaily coloured barge conducting the Water Music that was to bring him back into royal favour he can hardly have guessed that it would come to this.^[3]

DVD release

The film is available in the BFI DVD boxset, Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950.^[2] The Imperial War Museum has also released it on DVD as part of a collection of nine propaganda films, under the title Words for Battle.

References

External links

• Words for Battle at the Internet Movie Database
• Words for Battle at Screenonline