Momentary Rupture? Dawn (1928) and the Transgressive Potential of the Edith Cavell Case

Abstract

The chapter establishes the complex web of transgressions that underlie the enduring preoccupation with Edith Cavell, the English nurse and resistance worker who was executed in Belgium by German occupying forces during the First World War. The contribution then offers a close reading of the biographical anti-war film Dawn (dir. Herbert Wilcox, UK 1928) which constitutes a transgressive text in its own right. Politically, this late silent production brings back the Cavell story at a time of public forgetting, provoking instances of censorship and self-censorship. In narrative terms, Dawn subverts cinemagoers’ certainties by introducing a new paradigm to British screens for the depiction of the Great War more generally. Finally, Dawn’s pacifist feminism and humanisation of the enemy, as proposed by writer Reginald Berkeley, are ideological border crossings that attempt to refashion the Cavell myth. By comparing the editing and intertitles of the British and Belgian versions of the film, the chapter concludes that Dawn remains an exception within visual culture and the representation of Cavell and her executioners.