Book Review: Rethinking the Trauma of War

Abstract

In this article I will adopt the viewpoint that current social issues, concerns and preoccupations are mirrored to some extent in films, and indeed culture in general - a view which has been expressed by many people in one form or another (see, for example, Caldwell 1996] or Sekoff 1989: 148] who says that ‘film must be understood as potentially embodying, disguising, challenging, containing, exploring, producing and so on the conditions of our cultural and personal lives, as well as the meanings we weave around them’). For example, the depression, unemployment and political polarization of the 1920s and 1930s produced two types of film. There were those which directly mirrored the political developments and social hardship of the times - such as the Charlie Chaplin films - and those which created a fantasy world of make-believe in order to escape the harsh realities of the day - for instance, the Hollywood Busby Berkeley musicals. So what are films telling us about society today?