Battle of the Somme Centenary Concert. Information Pack

Transcription

1 Battle of the Somme Centenary Concert Information Pack

2 THE SOMME AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BATTLE OF An introduc:on to The Ba'le of the Somme, courtesy of Dr. Toby Haggith Shot and screened in 1916, The Ba'le of the Somme was the first feature length documentary about war. In the first three months of its release the film was seen by around 20 million people in Britain and Ireland, informing and challenging the public with its images of warfare, and changing the way both cinema and film was perceived. The film was shot by just two cameramen; Geoffrey Malins and J B McDowell. Filming took place between 25 June and 9 July 1916, covering the build-up and opening stages of the BaXle of the Somme. The film is definitely a propaganda film, though it is filmed and presented in the style of a documentary, and was made in response to a real desire from the Bri:sh public for news of and images from the baxlefront. It was created to rally civilian support, par:cularly for the produc:on of muni:ons, and Bri:sh soldiers are portrayed as well-fed, respecyul to prisoners and well-looked azer. The structure of the film is simple; the first two reels cover the prepara:ons for the infantry axack, the third reel covers the axack on the 1 July 1916 and the next two, the azermath of the baxle. An:cipa:ng the desire of the audience to spot their loved ones, the cameramen captured as many faces as possible, ozen encouraging the men to turn and acknowledge the camera. The inter-:tles, wrixen by the War Office, are a crucial element of the film. They provide commentary, point out important details, guide the audience to an appropriate response, reinforce propaganda messages, and reassure the viewer. Some scenes such as the over the top sequence are now understood to have been staged. However, historians es:mate that overall only 90 seconds of the film was staged. An es:mated 13% of the film depicts images of wounded or dead soldiers including some distressing images of communal graves. The depic:on of Bri:sh dead is unique to this film in the history of Bri:sh non-fic:on cinema. Despite the depic:on of death and injury throughout the film, the overall feeling remains that the BaXle of the Somme was a military success. The film was first privately shown to David Lloyd George on the 2 August 1916 and the first major screening took place on 10 August at the Scala Theatre, Soho, London. The Ba'le of the Somme con:nued to be distributed for at least five months azerwards. By October 1916, the film had received around 20 million admissions the UK popula:on at the :me was 43 million. The Ba'le of the Somme was filmed on the front line at great personal danger to the cameramen, and offered audiences a unique, almost tangible link to their family members on the baxlefront. Contemporary reac:ons to the film varied greatly; some members of the public thought the scenes of the dead were disrespecyul or voyeuris:c. There was debate in the newspapers and at least one cinema manager refused to show it. But most people believed it was their duty to see the film and experience the reality of warfare. The popularity of the film helped raise the status of film from a

3 trashy form of mass-entertainment to a more serious and poignant form of communica:on. The Imperial War Museum took ownership of the film in 1920, and in 2002 undertook digital restora:on of the surviving elements. A new orchestral score was commissioned from Laura Rossi in 2005 and the film was listed on UNESCO s Memory of the World register one of the first films, and the first Bri:sh document of any kind, to be listed. The Ba'le of the Somme film remains the source of many of the conflict s most iconic images, from the over the top sequence to the piggyback rescue in the trenches, and con:nues to have great importance not only as a record of war but as a piece of cinema. Notes on the Battle of the Somme Film This Useful Guide explores The Battle of the Somme film, the most popular film of the First World War seen by over 20 million people in Britain at the time. These momentous audience numbers make The Battle of the Somme one of the most popular films in British Cinema history. The film marked a turning point in film making, being the first feature length documentary about a war, and changed the way cinema and film were perceived by society. In 2016, IWM will be making the restored version of the film available to members of the Centenary Partnership to screen in their venues to audiences all over the world. This Guide will help inform your screenings and projects by providing you with the key information you need to know as well as suggestions for further reading. The Somme Campaign The Battle of the Somme was first major offensive on the Western Front in which the British Army took the leading role. It was Britain s contribution to a coordinated offensive (with France, Italy and Russia) across Europe to defeat the Germans after the setbacks of Due to a preemptive strike (on 21st February) by the Germans on the French Army at Verdun, the most pressing aim of the Somme offensive was to force the Germans to divert troops away from this front, thus relieving the French Army which was locked in a struggle for survival. But the British commanders also wanted to inflict heavy losses on the enemy and were hopeful that the weight of their initial onslaught on the Somme could breach a substantial sector of the German lines leading to a rout Planning for the Battle was very detailed with the overall strategy aiming to carry out a sustained artillery bombardment over German positions for five days, followed by the infantry attack and further artillery barrage directed at secondary line trenches. Since initial recruitment campaigns in 1914, including the widespread recruitment of the so called Pals Battalion, the British Army had increased its size and strength hugely. By the time the Somme campaign began 60% of the British Amy had no battle experience. Given the scale of the preliminary bombardment, British soldiers were told they would find the barbed wire blown away and the German soldiers dead in their trenches. However, the bombardment did not destroy the deep German dugouts and as the British lines of troops advanced, the German machine guns began to fire. The first day of the battle of the 1 July was the bloodiest in the history of the British Army with 57,740 casualties including 19,240 killed.

4 The campaign lasted from 1 July November 1916, during which time the British and French suffered half a million casualties with a further half a million casualties for the Germans. Included in the British casualties were heavy losses among the Dominion forces including the Canadians, Australians, Newfoundlanders, South Africans and New Zealanders all of whom participated in the campaign. Purpose of the film The producers of the film had expected that the offensive on the Somme would be a great success, so the film was to record the victory and demonstrate the effectiveness of the British Army. It was hoped that the example of the brave soldiers would rally civilian support for the war effort, and in particular the people working in munitions, reflected in the film by a focus on the importance of good quality and plentiful shells of all sizes and guns. Kitchener had banned all photography and film from taking place until late The War Office agreed to the presence of cameramen at the front before the Battle of the Somme following the lobbying of the British Topical Committee for War Films and pressure from the film industry who were keen to respond to the public appetite for real footage from the front. British soldiers are portrayed as well-fed, well-motivated, well-clothed and well-equipped. There is an emphasis on the care and medical assistance that the soldiers received, and indeed the chivalry shown to enemy prisoners. It would also have been hoped that the film would help with recruiting in Dominion and Empire countries where men volunteered to fight. This was particularly the case in Ireland, where conscription had not been introduced because of the Easter Uprising. A further purpose would have been to encourage British men to respond to their call-up papers, as many did not come forward after conscription was introduced; 93,000 men failed to appear at the recruiting office when called-up. Although understood to be a propaganda film in its nature, much of the style of the filming is documentary. Making of the film The film was shot by just two cameramen; Geoffrey Malins and J B McDowell. Malins was attached to the 29th division and McDowell to the 7 th division. Filming took place between 25 June and 9 July 1916 therefore covering the buildup and opening stages of the Battle of the Somme. The cameramen were given an official pass to the battle zone although they were only permitted access to particular areas and were always accompanied by an officer. As well as the censorship imposed by the military, the cameramen themselves would have exercised some self-censorship.

5 Identifying with the troops among whom they were embedded, they would have wanted to portray the campaign in an overall positive light. The equipment used to film the Battle of the Somme consisted of large, hand-cranked cameras requiring a tripod for stability. The equipment was heavy and the cameras could only be loaded with a few hundred feet of film at a time. It was very difficult to film in poor light or at great distance. Content of the film The structure is simple, the first two reels cover the preparations for the infantry attack, the third reel covers the attack on the 1 July 1916 and the next two, the aftermath of the battle. The film stands out for its close-up footage. The cameramen would at many points during filming have been as much at risk as the soldiers. In some ways the cameramen act as guides to the audience, panning the scene from a stationary point following the action as it unfolds in front of them. Anticipating the desire of the audience to spot their loved ones, the cameramen captured as many faces as possible, often encouraging the men to turn and acknowledge the camera; British soldiers in turn can sometimes be seen urging German prisoners of war to make sure they are in picture. The editors also named the regiments that were featured to help with identification. The inter-titles, which were written by the War Office, are a crucial element of the film and perform several functions They provide commentary [ A Division waiting to move forward ] Point out important details on the screen [ A Battalion of the Worcesters fixing wire cutters to their rifles ] Guide the audience to an appropriate response [ Royal Field Artillery moving up during battle over ground where the Gordon s and Devon s dead are lying after a glorious and successful charge on the ridge near Mametz ] Reinforce a propaganda message [ Whilst others less fortunate depart under escort for England ]. Reassure the viewer following a particularly worrying moment. [ Wounded awaiting attention at Minden Post showing how quickly the wounded are attended to ]. Some scenes such as the over the top sequence or the one described as clearing the battle field of snipers are understood to have been staged. The overall proportion of these scenes within the film however is small and historians have estimated that all but 70 seconds of the film footage was genuine. An estimated 13% of the film depicts images of wounded or dead soldiers including some very distressing images of communal graves filled with corpses. Such depiction of British dead soldiers is unique to this film in the history of British non-fiction cinema.

6 Despite the depiction of dead bodies and injury throughout the film, the overall feeling remains that the Battle of the Somme was a military success. Significance The film is listed on UNESCO s Memory of the World register and was the first feature-length documentary to record war in action. The Battle of the Somme was the first battle to be extensively recorded in moving images and the first to feature vast numbers of ordinary citizen-soldiers. Images such as over the top and the mine explosion at Beaumont Hamel have come to represent the Western Front in popular memory. The shoulder-carried trench rescue is one of the most well-known sequences in the film, which suggests that viewers like to identify with a moment of comradeship and humanity rather than purely military action. Seeing real men looking directly at the camera in the midst of a military campaign helps audiences throughout the years make a connection with the men on screen and ask questions about who they were, how they felt and what happened to them. Impact The film was first privately shown to David Lloyd George on the 2 August 1916 and the first major screening took place on 10 August at the Scala Theatre before its release to the public on 21 August. It continued to be distributed for at least five months afterwards. British and Irish audiences flocked to the cinemas in the hope of seeing someone they might know and to see what the fighting on the front was really like. The film was immensely popular and aroused great interest By October 1916 the film had received around 20 million admissions (the UK population at the time was 43 million). The public understood that the realism within the Battle of the Somme film made it different to the dramatic portrayals of war they had seen before. Audiences were offered an almost tangible link to their family members on the Battlefront. Indeed, the film was often advertised on the premise that people may be able to spot their loved ones on screen. The soldiers filmed were also fully aware of the possibility that they might be seen by people they knew. Before the Battle of the Somme film, cinema-going was not perceived as respectable by the upper classes and indeed by many of the officers serving in the British Army. The film helped to raise the status of film from a trashy form of mass-entertainment to a more serious and poignant form of communication.

7 Although popular, the film was also highly controversial and many thought the scenes of the dead were disrespectful and voyeuristic. There was debate in the newspapers and at least one cinema manager refused to show it. Some commentators pointed out that the film was as effective as anti-war propaganda as at meeting its intended purpose. Reactions did vary depending on the context of where it was seen and the perspective of each individual, but many felt it was their duty to see the film and support the war, particularly as news of the huge level of losses and casualties reached home. The impact of the film, particularly in neutral countries, prompted the German s to make a competing film Bei Unseren Helden an der Somme, although due to timing, this film did not include authentic footage from the Somme front. Restoration IWM took ownership of the film in 1920, by which time the original negative was already very worn owing to the great popularity of the film. The original negative was subsequently lost to irretrievable cellulose nitrate decomposition, and preservation and restoration work is based on master copies made by IWM in In November 2005, IWM embarked upon a project to restore the film to its original quality in order to engage contemporary audiences with its content. Digital restoration is a technique where the original film is scanned frame by frame to so that each of the images can be amended and improved using powerful software. There are 80,000 frames in the Battle of the Somme film. Due to the poor quality of many of the original images, the restored film does not create a perfected version. A number of breaks, blemishes and poorer quality shots are still evident. Musical Accompaniment The Battle of the Somme was made before the era of recorded sound on film, however, in common with all cinema showings, it was always screened with accompanying music. Music played a number of important functions in the cinema, It covered the sound of the projector, noises from the audience and filled the gaps during reel changes. It also enhanced the meaning of the film and guided reactions from the audience. Musicians offered a range of responses to the films they accompanied, and the quality and appropriateness of the musical performances were reviewed alongside films and had a big effect on the audience response. Orchestral music was seen as a way of attracting middle and upper class audiences. Some musicians learnt composed scores to accompany the film but most improvised. The cinema musician J. Morton Hutcheson devised a medley of 41 existing pieces of classical and popular musical pieces to accompany the Battle of the Somme which a number of cinemas chose to use. Most of the pieces selected are up-tempo marches and loud overtures, but there are also more lyrical and slow-paced pieces to echo the scenes of the wounded and the dead.

8 In 2006 IWM commissioned composer Laura Rossi to compose a special orchestral score for the film, with the aim of creating music that would properly match the action on the screen and to help contemporary audiences engage on an emotional level with the film. List of regiments featured in the film Headings in italic type are more tentative identifications than those in normal type. REGIMENTS Bedfordshire Regiment, 7th Bn (18th Div) Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 7th Bn (18th Div) Devon Regiment, 8th or 9th Bn (7th Div) S6, S36 S6 S37, S48 Duke of Cornwall s Light Infantry Regiment, 12th (Pioneer) Bn (7th Div) 52 East Lancashire Regiment, 1st Bn (29th Div) East Yorkshire Regiment, 10th Bn (Hull Commercials) (31st Div) Essex Regiment, 10th Bn (18th Div) Gordon Highlanders, 2nd Bn (7th Div) Hampshire Regiment, 4th Bn (29th Div) Lancashire Fusiliers, 1st Bn (29th Div) Lancashire Fusiliers, 2nd Bn (4th Div) S28 S14 S58 S37, S40 S10 S10, S28, S29, S31, S32, S35 S56 London Regiment, 1/14th Bn (London Scottish) (56th Div) S14 Manchester Regiment Manchester Regiment, 22nd Bn (7th Div) S36, S50 S39, S40

9 Manchester Regiment, 24th (Pioneer) Bn (7th Div) S14, S44 Middlesex Regiment, 12th Bn (18th Div) S50 Middlesex Regiment, 16th Bn (Public Schools Battalion) (29th Div) S28 Royal Fusiliers, 2nd Bn (29th Div) Royal Fusiliers, 13th Bn (37th Div) Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 2nd Bn (7th Div) Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1st Bn (7th Div) Seaforth Highlanders, 2nd Bn (4th Div) Suffolk Regiment, 8th Bn (18th Div) Worcestershire Regiment, 4th Bn (29th Div) S5, S10, S31 S57 S18, S21, S33, S56 S6 S28, S34, S56, S58 S6 S22, S61 BRITISH UNITS - CORPS ETC XV Corps Cyclist Battalion 10th Machine Gun Corps S40 S59 11th Machine Gun Corps S30 Royal Army Medical Corps (including stretcher bearers etc) S34, S35, S38, S40, S41, S42, S43, S44 Royal Artillery (Field, Garrison and Horse) S5, S7, S8, S9, S11, S12, S13, S15, S16, S17, S19, S23, S24, S30, S32, S37, S40, S55, S59, S60 Royal Engineers West Riding Field Company S10 S29 Royal Marine Artillery S25, S26

10 The Restora:on of The Ba'le of the Somme, courtesy of David Walsh (Head of Preserva:on, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum) As is common with important films from the past, in technical terms The Ba'le of the Somme was a vic:m of its own popularity. In this film s case, the scale of the demand for prints when it was first released is evident in the fact that the original nega:ve was already in a badly damaged state by the :me Imperial War Museums took charge of it in This nega:ve, alas, is no longer in existence having succumbed to cellulose nitrate decomposi:on many years ago, and the current restora:on has been based on the next best, a master copy made by IWM in Although this copy is complete, it faithfully captures all the scratches, breaks and blemishes which were present in the original; furthermore, due to the rela:vely primi:ve technology of the :me, a conspicuous amount of detail had been lost in the prin:ng process. Also very apparent are a number of shots of markedly poorer quality and sozer focus where the original nega:ve had been damaged and replaced by inferior duplicate sequences. Perhaps the most obvious problems to viewers of the unrestored Ba'le of the Somme were the severe flickering (or exposure varia:on) of the image, and a complete lack of detail in backgrounds and long shots, to the point where, for the viewer, the ac:on of the film seemed to take place almost en:rely in the foreground. Making out anything in the distant shots required an uncomfortable degree of concentra:on which detracted from the experience of watching the film. Digital restora:on, a technique in which the original film is scanned frame by frame so that the images can be manipulated by powerful computer sozware, offers the ability to extract from each frame informa:on hitherto lost in the shadows and highlights, and to repair blemishes caused by scratches, dirt and damage. Dynamic defects, such as flickering, can also be minimised. However, the quality of the images in The Ba'le of the Somme presented Dragon Digital Intermediate, the facility commissioned to carry out the work, with major challenges, par:cularly in panoramic shots across the baxlefield where details in different parts of the image would appear and disappear from frame to frame as the exposure varied. So severe were many of these problems that the restorers found that standard de-flickering and scratch removal sozware tools were unable to cope, and for much of the film they were obliged to work manually frame by frame, painstakingly adjus:ng the light levels in different parts of the frame and pain:ng out major blemishes by hand. There are some 80,000 frames in The Ba'le of the Somme! The result, while inevitably s:ll very much looking its age, is a startling improvement on anything seen since the film s original release. At last it is possible to see that a line of marching men are not merely passing in front of the camera, but winding in a huge column into the distance, that shells dimly exploding in a fog are in fact landing across clearly defined enemy lines, and that in the two brief shots of the actual axack, men are actually cut down by enemy fire.

11 About the Music Laura Rossi s new score was commissioned to mark the 90th anniversary of The Battle of the Somme as a soundtrack for the digitally restored film. When embarking on her research on the film and the battle in preparation for her composition, Laura discovered her great uncle, Fred Ainge, (whom she knew as he survived the war) was a stretcher-bearer attached to the 29th Division on 1 July In preparation for composing the new score she visited the Somme Battlefields, using Fred s diaries to locate the areas in which he served. The re- mastered film was screened for the 90th anniversary of the Battle to a full house at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the premiere of Laura s orchestral score, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra and received a glowing 5 star review in The Times. And these troops in the mud grinned or stared at us to a new music score by Laura Rossi, brilliantly effective. Geoff Brown, The Times. ***** About The Composer Laura Rossi - Biography Laura Rossi has written music extensively for film and television, including the critically acclaimed London to Brighton, The Eichmann Show, starring Martin Freeman and Anthony LaPaglia and Song for Marion, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp. She has also scored many silent films including the British Film Institute s Silent Shakespeare and the famous IWM 1916 films The Battle of the Somme and The Battle of the Ancre. Her latest work Voices of Remembrance is a choral/ orchestral work featuring war poems read by Ralph Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave. The music was commissioned by Boosey and Hawkes to mark the Centenary of the First World War. Laura s music has been recorded and performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Musici Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Her works have been performed at the Barbican, the Royal Festival Hall and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Laura is also lecturer for film music at the London Film Academy. For more information please visit Laura's website: Here Laura describes her experience of working on this film: It was very challenging writing music for The Battle of the Somme because the film has some really abrupt changes of mood for example the scene showing happy soldiers receiving their mail suddenly cuts to a pile of dead bodies in a crater so it was hard to achieve the right tone and to make the music flow between such contrasting scenes. I wanted to deal with some of the more shocking or distressing scenes in a sensitive way, not loading them with over-romantic or tragic music but providing something simple to give the viewer the space to think about what they are seeing on the screen. For example, for the famous trench rescue scene I decided just to use a couple of instruments, a solo oboe and harp, as I did not want the music to be too emotional or tell the audience what to feel. The images are powerful enough themselves.

12 I felt it was important to provide a score that would help give the film some structure and make the images easier to follow and it helps the viewer to concentrate on what is happening on the screen. I also tried to deal with some of the more lengthy or repetitive passages in this film. For example, when the scenes of shell-battered landscape at the start of Part 5 are viewed silent they seem very long, but the addition of music makes the scenes more watchable. I wanted the music to draw the viewer into these sections, as they are actually very important moments in the film. These are some of the few occasions when there is time to reflect on the images before quickly cutting to the next shot. In other films I have scored, there has been dialogue to tell the story and the main function of the music is to underline the narrative or to enhance the mood in shorter cues that flow in and out of the scene. Here the music has to carry more of the work and it needs to be continuous. It was only after I had started working on this project and decided to visit the battlefields that my aunt told me my great uncle Fred had served on the Somme, and showed me his diaries. He was the only one of his pals in France who did not get killed. He was a stretcher-bearer, attached to the 29th Division on 1 July 1916, so it is possible he may even appear in the film. Discovering this close family connection, visiting the battlefields and witnessing some of the commemorative ceremonies this year made the whole project come to life for me; the battle feels much closer and I have a better appreciation of what it must have been like to be a solider on the Somme. I have watched the film so many times that when I sleep at night I sometimes see the soldiers faces! Watching this film brings you closer to the reality of the First World War, and I have come to feel very passionately that I want others to know more about it. Further Reading and Useful Links Ghosts on the Somme: Filming the Battle, June July 2016 Alastair H Fraser, Andrew Robertshaw & Steve Roberts 2009 How I filmed the war Geoffrey Malins Originally published 1920, reprinted 1990s The Big Show: British Cinema Culture in the Great War Michael Hammond (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2005) Official British Film Propaganda during the First World War Nicholas Reeves (published by Croom Helm, London, 1986) The Power of Film Propaganda: Myth or Reality? Nicholas Reeves (published by Cassell, London, 1999) 'Watch the Picture Carefully, and See If You Can Identify Anyone: Recognition in Factual Film of the First World War Period Roger Smither Film History Vol. 14, No. 3/4, War and Militarism (2002), pp The Battles of the Somme and Ancre (1993) Chapter - Teaching suggestions edited by Roger Smither Reconstructing the Musical Arrangement for "The Battle of the Somme" (1916). Toby Haggith. Film History Vol. 14, No. 1, Film/Music (2002), pp A wonderful idea of the fighting : the question of fakes in the battle of the somme Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television /abstract content. Volume 13, Issue 2, 1993) Useful Guide Partnership Resource Learning from Film /11/Ideas_for_learning_from_Film.pdf

13 TYO Conductor Simon Ferris First Violins Jessie Jiang* Lizzie Robbings Chris McDonald Rebecca Nichols Anastasia Solovieva Sasha Manning Imogen Davies Rebekah de Menezes- Wood James Hur Tong Wu Emily Chong Seo Won Park Second Violins Jim Yu Tse* Ojas Kayastha Ricky Rim Isabella de Menezes- Wood Helena Atkin Chavi Kapoor George Valentine Timothy Kim Callum Baker Viola Robert Jones* Isobel Mason Sophie Rice Mary Offer Cello Humphrey Allen* Julius Bax Jennifer Gilchrist David Mason Sebastian Tyrrall Harry Vaughan Tate Tsang Henry Miller Natasha Dunne Double Bass Gracie Millett* Phoebe Clarke Zohra Nabi Antonio Yao Flute Lucy Knollys* Olivia Monaghan Maya Abbas Zoe Mason Oboe Eve Harrington± Carys Evans Clarinet Isabella Bartlett* Thomas Knollys Joseph Weymouth Bassoon Alice Mosey* Rheiya Dustoor Kes Haywood Horn Aoife Parr* Maddie Studholme Arabella Ashe-Belton Annabelle Gouttebroze Daniel Blaze Trumpet Adam Meyer William Bazelgette Tim Jones William Everitt Christian Skinner Stephen Frank Lily Davies Trombone Edward Driver Venice McGauley Ruben Thiel Tuba Lucy Clarke Nick Ingram Piano Amaryllis Hill Harp Alex Rider± Percussion Poppy Durrett Johan Smith William Millett Sam Thyr Management Executive Director Carys Evans Concert Manager and Administrator Alana Grady *prinicipal ±guest

14 Thames Youth Orchestra Forthcoming Dates 2017 Saturday 7th January Kingston Parish Church, 7.30pm Saturday 1st April St. Matthias Church, Richmond, 7.30pm Saturday 8th July LSO St. Lukes, 7.30pm