The First World War and Popular Cinema: 1914 to the Present - Paperbackby Michael Paris (Editor) The Great War played an instrumental role in the development of cinema, so necessary was it to the mobilization efforts of the combatant nations. In turn, after the war, as memory began to fade, cinema continued to shape the war's legacy and eventually to determine the ways in which all warfare is imagined. The First World War and Popular Cinema provides fresh insight into the role of film as an historical and cultural tool.