Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

42 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER No. 4 1944 DOCUMENTARY— A NATIONAL ASSET From the start the documentary film has been concerned with education in the widest sense of the word ; that is, with education aimed at producing a thinking, active, result-getting democraticcommunity. Documentary chose film as its medium because film is par excellence the popular form of expression of this century (and when television comes it will be basically and inevitably a moviemedium). The workers in the documentary film movement have therefore been primarily and deeply concerned in public service, since of all public services education is the most essential, if only too often the most neglected. The development of documentary during the present war only took place because of ten years of hard thought and hard work before September 1939, which formed the solid foundations for what has been achieved during the past few years. That achievement represents the establishment, on a permanent basis, of a national service of film education. We use the phrase "permanent basis" because the organisation of the non-theatrical field is now so large and so well established that there can be no doubt of its permanence. What may be questioned, however, is how far the use of this powerful and essential educational weapon will continue to be controlled on democratic lines and fully in the interest of the people of this country. Today there are three main groups concerned, for one reason or another, with the continuation and development of the educational film field, in which documentary has been, and still is, the key influence. These groups are (1) the State; (2) non-governmental sponsors (e.g. Industry, Commerce, the Co-operatives, etc.), and (3) the film trade. I. The State It is well-known that from its first inception documentary has been close-knit with Government, and indeed was nurtured in Government departments. Its basis of public service made this inevitable. But we shall very soon be faced with the long heralded demise of the Ministry of Information, including its Films Division, which among other things controls the nation's own film producing organisation, the Crown Film Unit ; controls also the Colonial Film Unit, and has created the Central Film Library, which now supplies programmes of non-theatrical films on the most diverse subjects to an annual audience of over twenty million people. Through the Crown Film Unit, and to a much larger degree by contract to independent producers, the Films Division of the M.O.I, also meets the multifarious film needs of the various Departments of State. Violent speculation is now taking place as to what is to happen to all these services when the M.O.I, is disbanded ; but the general guess is that the nation is too deeply committed to this use of film as a national asset for them to be thrown away. Many people stress the fact that if we found it necessary in the emergency of war so to develop the widespread use of films for purposes of education, information and instruction, then we shall find it even more necessary to continue their development in the period of equal, if not greater, emergency on which, with the imminent defeat of the Axis, we are about to enter. II. Non-Governmental Sponsors The sponsorship of documentary films by industrial and commercial interests arose because the more enlightened of them realised that if their own prosperity rises and falls with the rise and fall of the prosperity of the community at large, then their relations to the community must to an increasing extent depend on conceptions of service rather than of suckerdom. Hence the appearance of "public relations" as well as "advertising", and the entry into the educational field by a number of industrial and commercial organisations. The spectacular development of the non-theatrical field in wartime is arousing increasing interest in this form of sponsorship ; it is also arousing interest in the potentialities of the film medium as a travelling salesman to be charged with the job of re-establishing our overseas trade. It seems clear that industrial sponsors will appear in great numbers as soon as the various priorities limiting film production are removed or relaxed. It seems equally clear that the new sponsors will have to learn fast the proper use of the medium ; otherwise they will waste a great deal of money on films which attempt direct advertising — a fundamental and costly mistake. HI. The Film Trade No longer does the Trade as a whole regard non-theatrical films as an irritating if minor menace to box-office receipts. Rather is there a lively interest in the commercial possibilities in this large and still developing field. Producers of short films see themselves partially relieved of the perennial problem of a non-profitable market in the public cinemas; for under the sponsorship system they are independent of distribution risks. Manufacturers of sub-standard apparatus and equipment see in the post-war world of visual education a happy market, with perhaps a sound projector needed in every school, for a start. Others see a fertile field in non-theatrical roadshows in the post-war world. And with great unanimity the Trade commands the Government to get out of the field, except in certain respects, as for instance in regard to the finance which will enable the rapid equipment of schools with movie apparatus. In fact, there is a strong tendency for the film trade, which for so long alternately opposed and neglected the educational use of film, now to be very anxious to move in on the ground floor laboriously built by others — notably indeed by State and industrial enterprise. Heaven knows one can only be glad that the Trade now sees the point. In a job so valuable to the nation the more the merrier. But no monopolies please. The film trade as a whole will always (and very properly) be mainly concerned with the entertainment film, and it has no right in the world to demand the sole interest — whether in the name of free enterprise or private profit — in the use of the educational film. It can make — if it will think clearly and with goodwill— an enormous contribution to the educational film field. But let it be remembered that education is something which belongs to the British people as a whole. What must be sought — what particularly the documentary movement must seek — is the means of identifying the three interests we have just described in the task of post-war visual, education. Close collaboration between the State, Industry and the Film Trade is essential. This journal has frequently stressed the necessity of State enterprise in the field of the educational film; and as a result it has been violently accused of demanding a Government monopoly while opposing a trade (or Rank) monopoly. Once again, with our wellknown patience, let us point out thai what is needed is not a monopoly, but a system by which the use of film as an educational medium is not separated from the will and wish of the people. The Ministry of Education is the nation's agent for carrying out a hard won policy of compulsory education on democratic lines. Local Education Authorities, equally importantly, are local community agents for the same purpose. Both the Ministry and L.E.A.'s must have active as well as passive powers in all educational matters, films among others. Therefore you cannot deny them the right to engage themselves in films. This does not mean that you deny to Industry and to the Film Trade an equal right to engage in educational films. The more the merrier. One thing only is an absolute prerequisite, and that is the means of ensuring (a) the highest quality in production and projection, and (/') a constant, planned output, without idiotic redundancies, of educational films covering all educational needs.