Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 69 Status of the British Documentary — (continued) 10 can articulate but smack of the theatre, or il people who are obviously authentic but are nost unintelligible — comes up in a more ute form than ever when you have an overseas dience in mind. In spite of the success of this periment in Children of the City, no one wants ■ectors to make a habit of circumventing the oblem by using a commentator to summarise the dialogue, but a more careful choice of makers (and of what they are allowed to say) the obvious and only road to success in nerica. It is not only dialect-speakers who are source of difficulty (indeed it is to be hoped cumentary will yet solve the question of how convey to audiences both at home and abroad ne of the authentic flavour of a really good ilect speaking); the clipped speech of a naval Timander or a flight-lieutenant is just as likely be unintelligible here as the burr of a Cornish ■mer. The problem does not consist merely of hnical elements of this kind, however. The expected success all over America which we ve had with Psychiatry in Action, in spite of naudibility of so many of its lay speakers, aws that much lost detail will be forgiven if t main drift is clear and the matter is of great portance and appropriateness. The resistance British films is, in fact, largely to be explained psychological rather than auditory terms. It is not, after all, surprising that America mid not be keenly interested in the more mely forms of British self-communing. Those ;ks of dwelling lovingly on our own foibles, Dse family jokes and group symbols (such as : pub — still fondly believed in Bloomsbury to I the social centre at which all community >blems are thrashed out) — how can we expect :se to cut much ice away from home? Even an glishman cannot rid himself of the uneasy (ling that self-complacency has been creeping p the films lately. It is a commodity very ficult to export (as the Americans, too, are covering if I may judge by the expressive nee with which some British audiences reved The Town and Swedes in America at shows ttended during my recent visit to England). itish Styles of Speech ^ note of self-complacency, however, breeds I more than indifference in an audience, tat is more serious is the hostility aroused in 5 country by certain British styles of speech, ents, intonations and inflections. It is not only trade union leader who will say "our fellows 'e an anti-Eton complex" ; the dislike of anyig like a "superior" tone of voice runs right ough America. In some cases, many of us uld concur with American judgment, but it 5 a surprise to me to hear the coaxing tone of tss Radiography described as "patronising" a New York doctor. This particular term of idemnation, however, has been applied to !re than one M.O.I, film in America. The iction is one which cannot be ignored. Vgain, our celebrated understatement is well;>wn to the intellectuals over here, but it is 'arded as something rather odd and eccentric. a country where self-confidence is no more n good manners, where dramatic emphasis is , tone of everyday conversation, and a buoyant jimism is, as it were, the national symbol, ilerstatement is not regarded as heroic. It is more likely to be regarded as a pose. Perhaps it is. It is a naive answer to all this to say "we are as we are, and the Americans must take us or leave us". The romantic notion that works of art take shape inevitably as expressions of the soul, and are innocent of all thought of an audience, will hardly hold water for a neurasthenic lyric, let alone a film. A film addresses people. Either American people are amongst those addressed or they are not. If they are, then this must surely be one of the factors governing the mode of address. Those of us who live for some time in America usually learn to express ourselves so as to be understood by Americans. At first, misunderstandings are the rule, and offence may be given unwittingly. But eventually, without ceasing to be an Englishman, one learns to modify 's one's idiom and inflection so as to convey what one means, and not merely to express it to one's own private British satisfaction. Better Articulation I believe that documentary must learn some of the lessons which individuals learn. No one wants directors to imitate those popular novelists who study the American market and then proceed to write whatever will best sell in it. But an adjustment to your audience is not incompatible with integrity and honesty. No doubt a delicate flair is the best guide. It is not suggested that controlled reaction-tests, and pseudo-scientific word-screenings will solve the problem or that the practice of some kind of cinematic eugenics will lead to the production of ocean-crossing films. The fundamentals are too subtle and complex for that, and must be dealt with by the the equally subtle and complex mechanism of intuition. Intelligence, however, can be a useful ally of intuition. It was no doubt a natural flair which enabled Leslie Howard to become a popular American actor, whilst never losing his essential Englishness, but he is said to have taken special pains with his articulation when he first came over here, for all that. Better articulation in a large and metaphorical sense is what we need for British documentary films which come to the U.S.A. Finally, when the producer has solved all his problems, the distributor of international-relations films will be faced with a new one in the post-war world. He will have to discover how to do his job in a way which is acceptable to the American 16 mm. trade. America is still the land in which "free enterprise" is a phrase that commands more respect than "government". John Grierson has recently written: "A government's use of educational films is not 'propaganda' in the ordinary sense. Certainly we cannot impose on a government the duty of planning the national effort without giving it the means of informing the people what it is doing and of obtaining their support. This is generally admitted today in every country except the United States, where, or so it appears to the outsider, the fear of the partisan political use of information services looms very large in the public argument." The exception is a crucial one for us, and the part played by governments in the future production and international exchange of films is one which will call for the nicest adjustments in relations with the United States. 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