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he can within the limits set by the high policy of his organisation. This is almost invariably a low policy.
In documentary there is this difference. The producer does not always serve purely commercial interests; unless, that is to say, you take the Marxian point of view, on which all service of the status quo is purely commercial. He can give himself the liberal satisfaction of serving such interests as education and national propaganda: which, on any sensible definition, is itself a species of education. Or the producer may act on behalf of a business concern, large enough in its operations and its outlook, to turn publicity into education, and propaganda into a work of development.
In these special fields the producer's function is that of any other head-master. If he does not himself teach, he sees to it that the parents are satisfied. The only difference in the analogy is that the parents in this case are sometimes too scared of films, or too eminently delighted with any and every film, or too eminently cocksure that they know everything about films. The gentry of the studios, like other criminals, have a simple criterion. They look at the balance sheet and sack accordingly. The gentry of education and propaganda face a balance sheet which can be defined in no such exact terms as are to be found in red columns and black. They have to decide not only about immediate effects in a classroom, but about long-range effects on a generation. They are, as a rule (and except for the eminently expert), satisfied with some such instruction as to "bring this, that, or the other thing alive.55 This is an ideal formula for a producer, and turns him into the knee-wife he ought to be. His main problem is to see that the director does bring this subject alive and not another. For directors tend to diverge.
But perhaps his functions are, in reality, more complicated. Documentary, or the creative treatment of actuality, is a new art with no such background in the story and the stage as the studio product so glibly possesses. Theory is important, experiment is important; and every development of technique or new mastery of theme has to be brought quickly into criticism. In that respect it is well that the producer should be a theorist : teaching and creating a style; stamping it, in greater or less degree, on all the work for which he is responsible.
Again, because documentary is new, the sponsors of propaganda and education have to be led gently to a knowledge of what is involved. They will instruct you, as like as not, to get a snap of this, add it to a snap of that, and finish triumphantly with a snap of something else; then wonder why the simple sequence which results is not the world-shaking work of art they intended. In that respect it is well that the producer should know how to talk soothingly to children and idiots.
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