Broadcast 6 June 2004

In honour of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, a look at war and film with Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, American movie critic Molly Haskell, and English film writer, Ian Christie.

Panel participants/most recent books:

Ian Christie: The Time Traveller: Robert Paul and the Early Moving Pictures Business in Britain (Forthcoming 2005; Chicago University Press)

Molly Haskell: Holding My Own in No Man's Land: Woman and Men, Film and Feminists (Oxford University Press)

Margaret MacMillan: Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (Published in paperback by Random House)

Books and films discussed (in the order mentioned, and without panelists comments):

In Which We Serve (1942); Directed by David Lean and Noel Coward; Written by Noel Coward; Starring Noel Coward, John Mills, Bernard Mils and Celia Johnson (Writers & Company played a short clip from the movie in which Celia Johnson's character proclaims her allegiance to the ship on which her husband serves)

La Grande Illusion (The Grand Illusion) (1937); Directed by Jean Renoir; Written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak; Starring Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo and Pierre Fresnay

Mrs. Miniver (1942); Directed by William Wyler; Based on the book by Jan Struther, with screenplay by George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis; Starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon and Teresa Wright (Writers & Company played a short clip from the movie with Greer Garson and Teresa Wright in which Teresa Wright's character talks about how she knows her husband may die in the war)

Black Hawk Down (2001); Directed by Ridley Scott; Written by Mark Bowden (book) and Ken Nolan (screenplay); Starring Josh Gartnett, Ewan McGregor and Jason Isaacs

The Green Berets (1968); Directed by John Wayne, Ray Kellogg and Mervyn LeRoy; Written by Robin Moore (book), Colonel Kenneth B. Facey and James Lee Barrett; Starring John Wayne and David Janssen

Saving Private Ryan (1998); Directed by Steven Spielberg; Written by Robert Rodat; Starring T om Hanks, Edward Burns and Tom Sizemore (Writers & Company played a short clip in which Edward Burns as Private Reiben questions their mission, and Tom Hanks, as Captain John Miller, justifies it)

The Thin Red Line (1998); Directed by Terrence Malick; Written by James Jones (novel), and Terrence Malick (screenplay); Starring Sean Penn and Adrien Brody

The Big Red One (1980); Directed by Samuel Fuller; Written by Samuel Fuller; Starring Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill and Robert Carradine

49th Parallel (1941); Directed by Michael Powell; Written by Rodney Ackland and Emeric Pressburger; Starring Eric Portman, Richard George, and Laurence Olivier as Johnnie, the Québécois trapper

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930); Directed by Lewis Milestone; Written by Erich Maria Remarque, Maxwell Anderson etc.; Starring Louis Wolheim and Lew Ayres

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles (2003) Book by Anthony Swofford. Published in paperback by Simon & Schuster

Regeneration (1997); Directed by Gillies MacKinnon; Written by Pat Barker (novel) and Allan Scott (screenplay); Starring Jonathan Pryce, James Wilby and Johnny Lee Miller

King and Country (1964); Directed by Joseph Losey; Written by J.L. Hodson (novel) and Evan Jones (screenplay); Starring Dirk Bogarde and T om Courtenay (Writers & Company played a clip in which Dirk Bogarde as Captain Hargreaves defends the "deserter)

J'Accuse (I Accuse) (1919; 1938); Directed by Abel Gance; Written by Abel Gance and Steve Passeur; Starring Victor Francen and Line Noro.

Mentioned the anti-war literature of the late 20s by Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969); Directed by Richard Attenborough; Written by Charles Chilton (play) and Len Deighton (screenplay); Starring Wendy Alnutt and Colin Farrell

The First World War (2004); Book by Hew Strachan. Published in hardcover by Viking Books.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003); Directed by Peter Weir; Written by Patrick O'Brian (novels), Peter Weir and John Collee (screenplay); Starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany

Shoah (1985); Documentary of the Holocaust directed by Claude Lanzmann

Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) (1955); Documentary directed by Alain Resnais; written by Jean Cayrol

Schindler's List (1993); Directed by Steven Spielberg; Written by Th om as Keneally (book) and Steven Zaillian (screenplay); Starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes

La Vita è Bella (Life is Beautiful) (1997); Directed by Roberto Benigni; Written by Vincenzo Cerami and Roberto Benigni; Starring Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi

Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (In the Garden of the Finzi-Contini) (1970); Directed by Vittorio De Sica; Written by Giorgio Bassani (novel), Vittorio Bonicelli; Starring Lino Capolicchio, Dominique Sanda

The Longest Day (1962); Directed by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki and Darryl F. Zanuck; Written by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Cornelius Ryan (also book), Jack Seddon; Starring Eddie Albert, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum

Le Chagrin et la pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity) (1969); Documentary directed by Marcel Ophuls; Written by André Harris and Marcel Ophuls

Full Metal Jacket (1987); Directed by Stanley Kubrick; Written by Gustav Hasford (Novel The Short Timers) Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford (screenplay); Starring Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio

The Guns of Navarone (1961); Directed by J. Lee Thompson; Written by Alistair MacLean (novel), Carl Foreman; Starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn