https://www.bdcmuseum.org.uk/explore/item/30379/
Item number: 30379
What kind of item is this?
We chose a history/critisim book detailing the films during the 1930-40. ‘The Great British Films’ was written by Jerry Vermilye in 1978 and describes films such as Private Life of Henry VIII and The 39 Steps and their critical applicaitions.
Why and for who do you think it was created?
This book was written for people or students interested in British cinema during the Second World War. This book was written in the 70s therefore it was created as a reflection of the films at the time and how the war effected those films.
What can this item tell us about how the war affected cinema?
We can use the book to look at the kind of films made at the time, which revels the impact of the war on genre and plot of films. for example, the book talks about ‘The Private Life of Henry VIII’, which we can understand from the perspective of a propaganda film to encourages patriotic/nationalistic feelings in the viewers. We can also use the book to understnad why cinema-going increased during the war, by looking at the kind of films they watched and their impact i.e. for comfort, escapism or knowldge on the war.
What cant this book tell us?
The book provides a historical analysis therefore only discusses informations about the type of films, their genre and plot. The book doesnt mention how people interacted and what they thought of cinema. If the book specifilaclly talked about how WWII impacted British cinema, we could better understnad the relationship the films had to the society at the time.
This post does several things well and others not so well. On the plus side, you have chosen a highly relevant source, reflected on its strengths and weaknesses and provided a link for it. I can understand that it is difficult to gauge much more from the BDCM link alone, but perhaps putting the source into a google search can reveal more (doing so just now provided me with an image of the cover and some information on its contents for example). You have responded to each point raised and so the post is generally well-structured, but far greater care needs to be taken with proof-reading as the piece features multiple typos and grammatical errors. Proof-reading should be a group activity and given that these posts are short, should not take up too much time. Finally, you show awareness of what the source can and just as importantly cannot tell us.