The blitz has since become an integral part of the British national psyche, invoked in times of crisis and providing a vague but reassuringly familiar setting for episodes of Doctor Who or sitcoms like Dad’s Army (1968–1977) and Goodnight Sweetheart (1993). -1999). ). When John Boorman dramatized his childhood in the blitz of the 1987 film Hope and Glory, he wrote in the introduction to his screenplay: “How wonderful the war was… All our uncertainties of identity, our dislocations, could be submerged in good common, in opposing Evil – in full-fledged fanfare, spine tingling and knotted patriotism.

The legend surrounding this chapter of British history often obscures the enormity of what happened during those dark months from September 1940 to May 1941, when more than 40,000 people were killed and millions more have been left homeless in cities across the UK. This period is now being brought back to light by Oscar-winning artist and filmmaker Sir Steve McQueen. His new film, Blitzfollows nine-year-old George (Elliott Heffernan) on an odyssey through bombed-out London to find his mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan). His journey offers an unvarnished and surprising insight into the horror and humanity of the blitz.

The reality of the “blitz spirit”

Historian Joshua Levine, author of The Secret History of the Blitz, worked as McQueen’s historical advisor on the film. “People like to simplify the past to accept it,” he told the BBC. “The Blitz served its purpose for the British nation at the time, it was co-opted as an instrument of propaganda and to rally Americans, and a simplistic story of the ‘blitz spirit’ took over. More recently, you have had the reaction to this – “the spirit of the blitz was absolutely absurd, and people weren’t coming together and it was shocking and everyone was behaving badly” – and surely no one will be surprised that neither the other was not entirely true for both, but everything was much more nuanced, much more complicated and so much more interesting.

“Steve McQueen is an artist, but he really wanted the film to feel good and look good. It’s a challenge to make a film look this amazing, while trying to make it look good. keep it precise, and he did.”