Pacifist Benjamin Britten’s monumental twentieth-century masterpiece, War Requiem, written for the dedication of the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962, the ancient one having been almost totally destroyed by Nazi bombs, juxtaposes the Latin mass for the dead and the poetry of Wilfred Owen in a spirit of reconciliation. Owen wrote, ‘Above all, I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War.’ Derek Jarman’s movie is a cinematic accompaniment widely regarded as the first classical music video. Jarman uses Britten’s own recording of his work for the soundtrack and provides a series of unforgettable tableaux and montage that perfectly capture the horror and pity of war and make a powerfully poetic antiwar statement to end the series on a reflective note
The British Institute
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