Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

22 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 2 1944 No. 16 VENUS AND THE CAT A Cat having fallen in love with a young man, besought Venus to change her into a girl, in the hope of gaining his affections. The Goddess, taking compassion on her weakness, metamorphosed her into a fair damsel; and the young man, enamoured of her beauty, led her home as his bride. As they were sitting in their chamber, Venus, wishing to know whether in changing her form she had also changed her nature, set down a mouse before her. The girl, forgetful of her new condition, started from her seat, and pounced upon the Mouse as if she would have eaten it on the spot; whereupon the Goddess, provoked at her frivolity, straightway turned her into a cat again. What is bred in the bone, will never out of the flesh. REALIST FILM UNIT LTD. 34, SOHO SQUARE, W.l Telephone: GER: 1958 What Future for Film Societies? by H. Forsyth Hardy "E'ilm societies which have survived through -*• the fifth winter of the war are faced with a major problem as they look forward to season 1944-45. By now the reserve of Continental feature films in this country at the outbreak of war has disappeared as the result of annual inroads and meagre replenishment. What are the societies to do: revive old films or lower programme standards to accommodate films formerly rejected? I do not think either course offers an adequate solution if film societies are to continue to justify their existence in the film scheme of things. Unless a film society is an advance guard ; unless its programmes are making a real contribution to the study of the film ; unless its activities generally are helping to further the development of the film medium, it is not doing its job. I doubt whether these requirements can be met by dusting off the films of yesteryear and complacently putting them into the programmes again. In too many cases the composition of a film society programme has become something automatic. The recipe runs something like this : take the best available French or Russian film, add a couple of documentaries, and put in a Disney cartoon if the other items tend to be heavy. When there was an ample supply of important new feature films, each of which was in itself sufficient raison d'etre for a programme, there was not much wrong with this policy, though it always was lacking in imagination. Now, when the films are old or second-rate, it is clearly not enough. I would like to see film societies accept the present admittedly difficult situation as a challenge. The easy course is dangerously easy and can lead to the discrediting of the whole movement. Already some programmes seem to offer little more than Sunday afternoon escapism. With patience and resource it is possible to compile programmes which are something more than a fortuitous assembly of a feature and a few shorts. In this first article, and at a period in the season when most film societies have completed their bookings, I do not propose to discuss suggestions in detail. I would like to give one or two examples, however, of the kind of thing I have in mind. When The Blue Angel recently became available through the National Film Library, the Edinburgh Film Guild considered how a programme in which it formed the feature could be increased in interest and significance. Could the programme become something more than a revival of a memorable German film of 1931, with one or two assorted shorts? Could it be built up to reflect the state of cinema twelve or thirteen years ago? A beginning was made with Basil Wright's O'er Hill and Dale (1932), one of the notable group of documentaries produced by John Grierson at the E.M.B., and a typical film of a formative period in British cinema. To it was added Jean Epstein's Mor Yran (1931), representative of the distinctive work of the French realist fiJm-makers. Disney, leader of the early experimentalists in the sound film, was represented by I 1