They Shall Not Grow Old

What should we take from a First World War documentary?

Following our adventure to Canada for the International Society for FIrst World War Studies conference, we welcome Prof Robert Burgoyne to discuss his keynote paper on the Peter Jackson film They Shall Not Grow Old (2018).

Along the way we explore the ways in which war films can quote from each other, differences in structure to the film 1917, and the importance of audience expectations when creating a historical piece.

References

Robert Burgoyne, The New American War Film (2023)

Santanu Das, ‘Colors of the Past: Archive, Art and Amnesia in a Digital Era’, American Historical Review 124.5 (2019)

Otto Dix, Der Krieg (1924)

Adrian Gregory, The Silence of Memory (1994)

Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined (1991)

Peter Jackson, They Shall Not Grow Old (1918)

Sam Mendes, 1917 (1919)

Bal Mieke, Quoting Caravaggio: Contemporary Art, Preposterous History (1999)

Lewis Millstone, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Stephen Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan (1930)

Allison Tanine, ‘Digital Film Restoration and the Politics of Whiteness in Pater Jackson’s, They Shall Not Grow Old’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video 39.5 (2021)

Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier (1918)

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Professor of Modern British History at Leeds University. My research interests lie at the intersection of the histories of gender, particularly masculinity, medicine and warfare.

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A historian focusing on the First World War and popular representations of warfare. I received my PhD from the University of Sussex in 2013. My thesis examined relations between British and French soldiers during the First World War.

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Is a Visiting Research Fellow at Leeds University. My current research focuses on manpower and authority in Britain, starting with the First World War and running through until the end of the Second World War.