Guest Editorial: Peacemaking in the World of Film

Why is peacemaking such an apparent rarity in the world of film? From the first days of cinema, filmmakers have delighted in offering viewers moving images of conflict and violence. The torrential cascade of cinematic violence is hard to avoid: from boxing fights to violent train robberies, from fencing duels to dramatic executions, from shoot-outs to exploding helicopters. Whether filmmakers document human rights abuses, analyse the consequences of war, create cinematic comedies or tragedies, fantasies or histories, they have found violence an irresistible topic for their craft. It is found in almost every film genre and is put to use in many different ways. Its ubiquity partly explains why there is so much research in the area of violence and film, investigating particularly whether watching violent movies makes viewers more aggressive. Questions about the effects of violent film often dominate research agendas, debates and discussions. Far rarer is consideration of how films represent, challenge and celebrate peacemaking.¹ Given the number of recent and ongoing actual conflicts, as well as blatant, hidden and structural violence, the topic of cinematic peacemaking merits careful consideration.

In this editorial, my aim is to briefly investigate different aspects of peacemaking in the world of film, through a series of case-studies. I have already highlighted one important question: Why is peacemaking so rarely explicitly explored in film? A range of other related questions are also pertinent to this subject. When peacemaking is represented, how is it portrayed? How is the move from conflict to reconciliation depicted in different cultural contexts? To what extent can violence or conflict in films help to promote peace? In other words, can showing violence be used to promote peace, or is the use of violence always counter-productive, celebrating the very phenomenon that filmmakers intend to critique? How and why do some filmmakers express the cry for peace? How do audiences interact with films which portray a move from conflict to reconciliation? How far do cinematic portrayals of peacemaking differ from traditional theological or religious understandings of how reconciliation can be achieved? This cluster of questions represents the tip of a research iceberg, still largely unfathomed. In order to explore some of these questions I analyze three feature films and three documentaries. We turn first to one of the most famous anti-war films of all time.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Based on the best-selling 1929 story by Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front tells the story of a young German schoolboy, called Paul Bäumer, and his friends who are inspired by their schoolmaster to save the Fatherland by joining the Kaiser's army. The muddy reality of the trenches soon dispels his romantic illusions. In one particularly memorable encounter in no-man's land, Paul (played by Lewis Ayres) stabs a French soldier to death. Trapped in the same small shell-hole, as Paul watches him die he tries to alleviate his enemy's suffering by moistening his parched lips with water. Discovering a pocket photograph of the wife and child of the man he has just slain further traumatises Paul.

Directed by Lewis Milestone, the 'talkie' version was a far from 'quiet' account of life at the front. Produced only three years after The Jazz Singer (1927), the first movie with synchronous music, dialogue and sound effects, All Quiet on the Western Front's portrayal of life in the trenches impressed many reviewers:

'When shells demolish these underground quarters, the shrieks of fear, coupled with the rat-tat-tat of machine guns, the bang-ziz of the trench mortars and the whining of shells, it tells the story of the terrors of fighting better than anything so far has done in animated photography coupled with the microphone.'²

As the only survivor from his group, Paul returns home to find the same schoolmaster exhorting a new set of pupils to join up. Unable to convince them of the madness of enlisting, he returns to the Front to train new soldiers. The last moments of the film show Paul putting his head over the trench...