Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 3 1944 33 6R7FH1N '•. . . is variously described and represented, but the shape in which it most frequently appears is that of an animal yencrated between a lion and an eayle, haviny the botly and leys of the former, with the beak and winys of the latter. " CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPAEDIA I UU'2 <J,!I,Q PRODUCER Donald Taylor DIRECTORS : John Eldridge Charles de Lanlour LIGHTING EDITOR •Jo Jayo Charles ftiarlborongh Oswald CONTINUITY : Fanya Fisher WRITERS RESEARCH ASSISTANTS : Dylan Thomas Legh Clowes Colin Brisland Connie 3iason Jean Anderson Teddy Fader Dennis Shand Telephone : Temple Bar 3383 In association with Verity Films Lttl, 2-6 West Street, London, W.C.2 Documentaries do not seem to have had a very good showing (this situation may have changed by now) and when they are shown are run with sub-titles or sometimes iedubbed. The newsreels of course have had a success. Malta Convoy being particularly timely and useful. The Russian audience, like any other audience, want spectacle from abroad, but they also want to know about foreign domestic life. They have, as a country, been forced to a certain extent to lift the veil with which they have hitherto covered anything foreign, and there is obviously a lively and growing curiosity. Salute John Citizen interested its specialised audience because it was a picture of English domestic life. The book about Mr. Bunting had an enormous sale and caused widespread interest because it also satisfied this demand for information about the outside world. The Russian film-makers themselves are increasingly aware of the necessity of pleasing their audiences as opposed to teaching them. In 1942, the Moscow conference called "Cinema and Democracies" suggested many new trends in Russian film production. Ilya Ehrenberg spoke on Chaplin, taking as his theme the line that Chaplin was an expression of the people's voice. For many years the Russian cinema has had to teach and it is reasonable to suppose that the new generation accept most of those teachings as part of their lives and now demand films which will entertain in a more direct way. Of course it is possible to make a film which will both teach and entertain, but for many years the Russian film has often taught first and entertained afterwards. Pudovkin, who came from Alma Ata to attend the conference, and to study English and American films, also spoke in support of the popular film. He took as his subject the "Hero in the Film" and dwelt at length on the part played by the hero in American Westerns. He suggested that this type of film structure would be very suitable for Russia, and asked his listeners to consider carefully this idea. In a country in whose films the Idea or the Group plays the role usually taken by the hero, this idea must have been entirely new, although perhaps Suvurov and Alexander Nevski had suggested possible developments in this direction. But the ideal of the film as a medium of international friendship is still far off. Although both England and Russia are making films there does not seem to be any good way of getting them shown to each other. That there are two very different reasons for this we know, but the results seem to be the same. One would imagine that the Russian audiences are quite capable of making up their minds for themselves without the intervention of a committee and that we are not quite so averse to Russian films or so besotted by the star system, as Wardour Street seems to think. A few cinemas in London, Edinburgh, Moscow and Leningrad and one or two other towns, showing a small number of films to a special sort of audience, is not enough. However useful the job they are doing may be, it is at the moment only providing material for a handful of writers to use in the weekly press. Far more people read about Russian films than ever see them. Probably the non-theatrical field could give a lead over here and certainly it would not be difficult for Russians to organise wider showing in their country.