̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Hollywood

Disaster at 37,000 feet

sjr81 — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 10:24:16 +0000

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library archive reveals the facts behind the Hollywood myths of ' ̽��ֱ��Aeronauts'

Cold War PR - spinning the ideological battlefront

sjr81 — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:56:45 +0000

Public Relations of the Cold War, organised by CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) sought to examine the ‘selling’ of ideologically motivated policies to domestic audiences during the Cold War – outside of the more commonly studied area of public diplomacy, which concerns a government reaching out to foreign audiences.

̽��ֱ��conference, which drew experts from the UK, Europe, and North America and featured keynote addresses from Professor Christopher Andrew, Official Historian of the Security Service, and Professor Odd Arne Westad, a leading expert in Cold War history, aimed to demonstrate how pervasive the battle to influence domestic public opinion became – on both sides of the Cold War divide.

̽��ֱ��scope of influence was massive, whether it was Executive Branch infighting about how to best present casualty reports to the public during the Vietnam War to models of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) on sale in children’s toyshops. ̽��ֱ��conference also examined the under-recognized and -examined nuance in various means of disseminating PR.

American historian Hannah Higgin, one of the conference organisers, said: “In today’s PR-laden world, there are very important lessons to be learned by looking at how public relations influenced opinion, occupied governments and seeped into daily life and popular culture.

“And this wasn’t just practised by the USSR and USA. ̽��ֱ��conference has speakers discussing just how neutral Switzerland actually was, how Maoist thought and even the singing of ‘ ̽��ֱ��East is Red’ were among surgeon’s tools in China after the Sino-Soviet split, West Germany’s ‘reptile fund’ and how the work of George Orwell, via the medium of radio, was possibly as potent, if not a more potent, a weapon in the battle against Soviet totalitarianism as any CIA-funded or covertly-backed Cold War cultural enterprise abroad.

“This conference spurred a vital conversation about the channels and means by which governments ‘sold’ the Cold War to their own people - and how journalists, movie-makers, academics, researchers and the general public took up the ideological battle of their own volition.”

̽��ֱ��conference considered a range of controversial issues, including the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the USA’s reporting of combat casualties in both the Vietnam and Korean Wars, and dissected how official policy was transmitted through the mass media.

In the latter case, the media often challenged official casualty statistics, charging that they underreported the actual total. In response, the Pentagon increasingly provided more detailed figures, to the consternation of Truman and particularly Johnson.

In the Soviet Union, the Brezhnev-era of tightly controlled reporting of the 'events' in Afghanistan gave way to the gradual liberalisation of media policy. Under glasnost, the dynamics of public debate could not be controlled by official institutions anymore and contributed to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

Also up for discussion was the selling of the Cold War via the media by America’s ‘Crusade for Freedom’. Developed by the CIA, the Crusade was one of the longest-running and most intensive campaigns which saturated the American media with anti-communist sentiment for two decades.

̽��ֱ��paper, presented by Dr Ken Osgood from the Colorado School of Mines, looked at how such sentiment seeped effortlessly into art, literature, movies, music and politics. ̽��ֱ��Crusade had a particularly wide reach because of the extensive support it received from public relations professionals and the Advertising Council, as well celebrities—including, in one advert, a young Ronald Reagan, corporations and the mass media.

Added Higgin: “America’s battle against Communism touched everyday life through overt and covert means. Whether it was through ‘duck and cover’ (the famous public safety campaign) or Edward R Murrow, one of America’s most respected journalists, becoming the Director of the United States Information Agency in 1961, American culture was filled with subtle and not so subtle messages about how high the ideological stakes were.

“ ̽��ֱ��PR aspect of the Cold War has not been discussed in great depth before. Often domestic and foreign realms of history are studied in relative isolation. Further, people were living with Cold War PR until relatively recently. Now there is some historical distance. We need to understand more about what constitutes domestic PR, how it was—and is—disseminated, and how it was used as means of uniting—or trying to unite—the masses to a common purpose, and when and whether it is good, bad, or something else, for society.”

̽��ֱ��conference was funded by CRASSH as well as by the International History Dept at LSE and the History Faculty at Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��conveners of the conference were PhD students Hannah Higgin (History, Cambridge), Martin Albers (History, Cambridge), Mark Miller (History, Cambridge), and Zhong Zhong Chen (LSE).

̽��ֱ��persuasive powers of Cold War PR, until now little recognised or discussed, was the subject of a three-day conference at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��.

This conference spurred a vital conversation about the channels and means by which governments ‘sold’ the Cold War to their own people - and how journalists, movie-makers, academics, researchers and the general public took up the ideological battle of their own volition.

Hannah Higgin

Image courtesy of X-Ray Delta One via Flickr

American toys for American boys and girls

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Recreating ‘ ̽��ֱ��Great Escape’

ns480 — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:50:34 +0000

Immortalised by the largely fictionalised 1963 Hollywood film starring Steve McQueen and Richard Attenborough, ‘the great escape’ of RAF airmen from the German PoW camp has become the stuff of legend.

But how did 76 men escape via a 100m-long tunnel from a camp built on a site chosen especially to thwart an escape by such means?

Hugh was among a team of experts, archaeologists, veterans and modern-day RAF personnel taken back to the site near Zagan in Poland to excavate for the first time the remains of ‘George’, a tunnel that was in progress when the war ended, and the famous ‘Harry’ tunnel from which the Allied airmen escaped on the moonless night of March 24, 1944.

̽��ֱ��results can be seen in ‘Digging the Great Escape’, shown on Channel 4 on Monday evening (November 28) at 9pm. ̽��ֱ��programme follows last year’s successful attempt by Dr Hunt to recreate 617 Squadron’s Dambusters raid.

Hugh, from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Engineering Department, said: “Although only a handful of men worked on the tunnel directly, the escape plan involved hundreds of prisoners who never really knew what the plan actually was. It was some people’s job to move bin lids or wear their hat a certain way if a German guard was coming – but they never knew why.

“It took a year to dig the tunnel but for more than 70 years since then, ‘Harry’ and ‘George’ have remained undisturbed – and with them the final secrets of a remarkable story and history.

“We all came away with an appreciation of just how difficult – and dangerous – digging the tunnel must have been. Working with the particular type of sand you find there is very tricky. It’s like making sandcastles on the beach; it’s fine if it’s a bit damp, but it dries out very quickly and then the walls cave in. They also had to dispose of a ton of sand for every metre they tunnelled.”

To make their great escape, the prisoners led by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, made use of (or stole) 4,000 bed boards, 90 double bunk beds, 635 mattresses, 3,424 towels, thousands of knives, forks and spoons and around 1,400 Klim powdered milk cans – used to engineer an ingenious ventilation system. Some of the original Klim cans used were uncovered in the excavation of the site.

They also forged documents and befriended, bribed or coerced German guards to provide them with the civilian uniforms and train timetables so essential once they reached the other side of the fence.

However, all but three of the escapees were recaptured. Fifty of the 73 recaptured were executed by the Gestapo, including Roger Bushell.

For the return to Stalag Luft III, Dr Hunt was among a team of experts including engineer Lt Col Philip Westwood RE; war historian Dr Howard Tuck, archaeologist Dr Tony Pollard and Hilary Costello, one of his own engineering PhD students from Cambridge..

Among a host of responsibilities, Hugh and Hilary designed the 10m tunnel dug by modern-day RAF pilots, evaluated shoring methods, built the railway track and crafted digging tools and saws fashioned from bits of gramophone players, bunk beds and kit bags.

Interweaving the historical narrative with first-hand testimonies and the unfolding story of the excavations and experiments, the film offers a new insight into the Great Escape, and is a celebration of the courage and ingenuity of a remarkable group of men. ̽��ֱ��recreation also assembles a remarkable cast of surviving veterans of the escape, including Stanley ‘Gordie’ King, the man who operated the tunnel ventilation system on the night of March 24.

Added Dr Hunt: “What I think we learned from attempting to do something similar ourselves is the magnitude of the task; it’s simply amazing what they achieved given how difficult it was. But talking to some of the people who were involved, we also got a sense of the bravery, camaraderie and fun of it all - despite the fact that the Germans knew they were tunnelling and were looking everywhere for them. In comparison, we had it easy.

“What is astounding is the range of skills that the prisoners had to build the tunnels, ventilate and light them, as well as making compasses, radios, forging documents, heat treating metals, you name it. A lot of these skills have direct links back to engineering and that can hopefully get young people thinking about university studies in engineering – rather than getting an economics degree and going to work in the city.”

First it was the Dambusters raid, now Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Dr Hugh Hunt has helped to recreate ‘ ̽��ֱ��Great Escape’ from Germany’s infamous Stalag Luft III.

What I think we learned from attempting to do something similar ourselves is the magnitude of the task; it’s simply amazing what they achieved given how difficult it was.

Hugh Hunt

Hugh Hunt, Department of Engineering

Hugh in the recreated tunnel at Zagan

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Greek tragedy: setting the stage today

tdk25 — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Every three years since 1882, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge students have brought ancient Greek tragedies to life again through their performances in the Cambridge Greek Play, a showcase of theatrical and academic expertise that is spoken entirely in the original language.

̽��ֱ��first play – Sophocles’ Ajax – was, as the publicity of 1882 boasted, the first full performance of a Greek tragedy in ancient Greek in the modern world, and the show roused extraordinary interest. It was reviewed in all the national newspapers, and special trains had to be put on from London to bring the fashionistas up to Cambridge to see the event of the season. England was still in the grip of an intense ‘philhellenic’ love of all things Greek; classics took up 80% of the curriculum at the best schools and universities; the neo-classical paintings of Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton drew crowds of thousands; Greek love was the ‘dirty secret’ of the fin-de-siècle decadents. For Victorian England, the Cambridge Greek Play represented a rare chance to see an art form that featured vividly in the cultural imagination.

Archaeological accuracy really mattered to the Victorian audience – the play had to embody the best scholarship, the most recent research. In 1882, this was ensured by the involvement of the world-famous Greek scholar Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, Regius Professor of Greek. This connection with research continues today, with a thriving academic interest that both feeds into and benefits from the performances. What can the surviving plays tell us of ancient Athenian society? How can we know how to pronounce a long-dead language? How can the ancient world inform our understanding of the modern world? What is at stake when Greek tragedy is staged in the theatre today, and how are its most difficult problems to be faced? It is this final question that has been of particular interest to me – how audiences might see ancient Greek theatre accurately realised on stage again, 2500 years after it was born in Athens.

Resurging interest

That first astounding show in 1882 heralded one of the most surprising developments in modern western theatre. Since the turn of the 20th century, ancient Greek plays have become part of the repertoire of all modern theatres and, since the 1970s, there has been the most remarkable explosion of performances of Greek tragedy across the world – not just in Europe and the USA, but also in Japan and Africa and Russia. In London, Paris and New York, almost no year goes by without a revival of one of these classics. In 2001 alone, there were 17 productions of Aeschylus’ great trilogy the Oresteia in the USA, which is more than there were in the whole world in the first 65 years of the 19th century. In London, three separate productions of Sophocles’ Electra were staged over a few months. When theatre director Peter Sellars wanted to stage his anguish at the Gulf War in the early 1990s, he turned to Aeschylus’ Persians – in California, Edinburgh and Austria. There is no sign of this growth slowing, on campus or in the professional theatre. Greek tragedy seems once again to speak urgently and authoritatively to a modern audience.

A voice in modern times

Why does Greek tragedy speak to us today? As with the 5th century BC, our age is an era of great confidence in the progress of science and knowledge: Greek tragedy ruthlessly exposes the pretensions in human claims to control and certainty. As with the 5th century BC, our age is obsessed with the tension between the brutal realities of war and the rhetoric of politicians: Greek tragedy anatomises this tension with painful insight. Moreover, Greek tragedy is obsessed with conflict between the genders, between public and private duty, between self-control and a sense of helplessness in the face of the world’s violence: all this too finds a powerful echo with modern audiences.

Staging Greek tragedies

It is far from clear how these great masterpieces of theatre should be translated from the page into the theatre. When the genre first flourished between 500 and 300 BC, the convention was for actors to wear specially crafted masks. All the actors were male, with a limit on how many could appear on stage at one time, and the chorus had to be composed of Athenian citizens.

How can the old conventions of the chorus work without looking like a Hollywood musical? Can masks evoke anything but bad clowns for today’s theatre? Is Greek tragedy destined to be crushed by its own formality, and end up as no more than men in black yelling portentous clichés at each other?

̽��ֱ��book How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today stems first from my research into ancient theatre and the history of theatre performance: I have been engaged for many years with exploring the political and social impact of theatre in ancient Athens, as well as with how these old plays became so important in the cultural life of Europe, especially around the turn of the

20th century. But my concerns in this book also come from a more direct set of experiences. I have been deeply moved by some great performances in the theatre; I have also been annoyed, bored, outraged by others. I wanted to explore why so many productions failed, and why the truly great productions were great.

I also had the hands-on experience of producing the Cambridge Greek Play over 12 years, with two outstanding directors – Dr Jane Montgomery, who was the Leventis Visiting Fellow in Greek Drama, and Annie Castledine, from the Complicite Theatre Company and who has also directed at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Seeing how professional theatre is made at the ‘down-and-dirty’ level is not something most academics are privileged to do, and anyone who writes about theatre can learn a lot from such an experience. But the immediate stimulus to write my book was when I was asked to provide some suggestions for Vanessa Redgrave to read about tragedy – she was rehearsing a production of Hecuba at the time. I found to my chagrin (and to the detriment of my dignity as a Cambridge professor) that there was nothing I could really recommend to an intelligent modern actor or director to help them when daunted by the task of performing Greek tragedy. So I sat down and wrote what I hope will answer that need.

I examine the six most pressing questions any company faces with the task of staging a Greek tragedy: the theatre space, the chorus, the actor’s role, the relationship between tragedy and politics, the translation, and the representation of the gods and heroes.

I look at what we can learn from the ancient world about these issues, how the most successful modern productions have dealt with them, and how a company can negotiate a way through some of the most difficult problems these texts provide.

My hope is that actors and directors embarking on the journey of staging a Greek play might have some guidance. I hope too that, for the reader wishing to know more about these truly remarkable plays and their extraordinary re-emergence on modern stages, this might inspire them to consider what makes Greek tragedy so exciting and so relevant a genre today.

‘Simon Goldhill’s new book is enthralling. A ‘can’t put down’ and a ‘forever re-read’. His detailed analyses of so many past productions are rare and exciting. His unfolding of the Greek texts and the many different translations is both instructive and exhilarating.’

Vanessa Redgrave CBE, actress

For more information, please contact the author Professor Simon Goldhill (sdg1001@cam.ac.uk) at the Faculty of Classics. How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today is published by ̽��ֱ�� of Chicago Press.

With the curtains just closed on the 40th Cambridge Greek Play since the 1880s, Greek classicist Simon Goldhill reflects on how this creative genre still speaks to a modern audience.

His detailed analyses of so many past productions are rare and exciting. His unfolding of the Greek texts and the many different translations is both instructive and exhilarating.

Vanessa Redgrave CBE,actress

Cambridge Greek Play Committee

Olga Tribulato as Tiresias and Marta Zlatic as Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus the King, 2004

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