<i>The Great Escaper</i> (2022): Dark myth and trauma on the British coastline

The recent film The Great Escaper (2022) raised important questions as to how ongoing public memory of World War Two is both embedded within conceptions of coastlines (Dunkirk, Normandy) and how personal memories of the war clash with public commemorations of the conflict; what may be termed ‘coastal trauma’ of individual memory provides a parallel narrative to national, triumphant myth. As this article explores, interrogation of these problematic disparities also raises further questions as to more pervasive instances of coastal trauma. Hierarchies of militarism within British society, inter-generational discord, coastal poverty, displacement and inequality all contribute to the British coast as being a personal, cultural, societal, economic and political battleground. In addressing these issues, this article will demonstrate how The Great Escaper and The Last Rifleman (2023), both based upon the story of Bernie Jordan, a World War Two veteran who absconded from his care home in Hove to attend the Normandy celebrations, situate the coastal realm of the British Isles at the centre of traumatic instances of recent British history, from the ongoing trauma of World War Two, to the effects of Brexit, Covid19 and the recent lurch to the far-right of British politics as it constellates around the British coastline as a multifarious site of physical, mental and ideological battleground.