Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

86 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 1937. Except for G.B.I., the only operators of any importance outside the Government have followed the Government's example, and have used the film as an instrument of public education; witness the valuable contributions of Gas, Shell, Cadbury and I.C.I. If to the achievement of the British Public Services be added the film achievements of the Canadian Government since 1939, with its elaborate home theatrical and non-theatrical organisation, combined with the international circulation of 77/6 World in Action, the overwhelming strength of public enterprise in the documentary and educational field is proved beyond controversy. The assertions of some sections of the Film Industry that they could show up the Government's film efforts as drab and dreary claptrap, if only the Government would give them the money instead of spending it itself, merely raise a yawn. Before analysing what must yet be done before Films Division can properly become what by rights it can and should become — that is, the foremost and most imaginative film producing and distributing agency in the world, let us briefly record some of its achievements since the outbreak of war, always remembering that the roots of many of these go deeply into the G.P.O. and E.M.B. Film Units. Films Division took the non-theatrical distribution of the G.P.O. and developed it until it is today an essential part of the social life of the country. Its 150 projectors, distributed over twelve regions with twelve regional film officers and their related staff, have created a new taste, a new expression of citizenship which has become an essential part of our democratic life. Related to the non-theatrical scheme is the Central Film Library, the repository, not only of Government films, but of most important films, no matter what their origin, provided they carry no direct advertising. In this way, the library has become representative of all that is best in documentary whether from home or overseas sources, and it has the reputation, particularly, of being the most efficient film library in the country. In the public cinemas, there can be no doubt that the Division's notable series of feature documentaries including Target for Tonight, Western Approaches and World of Plenty, combined with the long series of shorter weekly and monthly films for regular theatrical distribution, have created a taste for documentary which the most stick-in-the-mud exhibitor can ignore no longer. At the beginning of the war Films Division was most sensibly made responsible for the financing and planning of productions by the Service Units, who could distribute no films to the public except under its auspices. In this way, such films as Desert Victory and The True Glory, are functions of Film Division. Films Division has by no means concerned itself wholly with the spectacular. There has been a steady stream of less ambitious films which have been, in their way, no less finely made and no less important than the others. Such films as the series on gardening, the Civil Defence training series, which included the noteworthy Rescue Reconnaissance, and the innumerable descriptive films of all kinds provide a basis for future government film activity perhaps even more strongly founded than that provided by the more sensational films. In passing, the Division's newsreel trailers and "campaign" films such as The Nose Has It and Go to Blazes have put the advertising film maker in the shade — permanently, we hope — for no film advertising agency has approached the standard set by these films either in wit, aptness, or even in volume of output. (One trailer a week has been issued for about two years without a break.) Though the public Service is often supposed to be fearful of experiment, this is anything but true of the Government film set-up which, beginning with the biggest experiment of all — Drifters, has experimented continuously, boldly and successfully. When one looks back at Coalface, We Live in Two Worlds, Colourbox, When the Pie Was Opened, Listen to Britain, Kill or be Killed, These are the Men, World of Plenty, Our Country, or even that seldom projected jeu d'esprit, Pett and Pott, one realises that here is a laboratory and workshop beyond the range and imagination of any commercial enterprise. We cannot bring this catalogue of achievement to an end without mentioning the Films Division invention of the technical film memorandum of the type of Neuropsychiatry and Personnel Selection, the experiments in combining the studio approach with documentary — Welcome to Britain and Fires Were Started for example, the huge influence of the Division on the makers of features — Launder and Gilliat directed their first film for the Division, which also financed the script of Millions Like Us and profoundly influenced the production of such films as In Which We Serve and The Way Ahead, the setting up of Pinewood as a combined headquarters for Crown and the Army and R.A.F. Film Units, and finally the little minute-and-a-half skit on Hitler and all that he stood for called The Lambeth Walk. Such a list of splendid undertakings must not blind us to shortcomings. Though few can complain that their films have been spoiled through lack of funds, the financial administration of the Division is not its strongest point. Though the finance officers are unswervingly honest, they are also unswervingly obstinate. They know something about cash, little about economics and nothing about values. They have devised a strange, inefficient, wasteful and inflexible financial system which works neither to the advantage of the film maker nor the Government. It is valid from one point of view only; it protects the finance officers from reprimand, if their department comes under fire. Then there is the fiasco of Bernstein's films for liberated territories, which he seems to have approached under the illusion that the new Europe will resemble a bigger and better Wardour Street. Indeed, Bernstein has revived an attitude which one had thought abandoned for good with Sir Joseph Ball. Perhaps these things are of small importance compared with four deficiencies which Films Division suffers — lack of planning, lack of contact with the public it serves : timidity ; and parochialism ; deficiencies which must be overcome if the division is to reap the benefits of its wartime experience. Of these the first is to-day the least important, though earlier notes in D.N.L. suggest it to have been a major problem at one time. Indeed, one can say that the planning of the division's work today is greatly superior to what it was only two years ago, when the subjects to be made seemed to be chosen at random out of Harrod's catalogue. Lack of contact, timidity and parochialism persist. Films Division is full of men and women of brilliance, integrity and common sense, but they are not clairvoyant. They cannot tell what people are feeling by second sight, yet there is little or no first-hand contact. For some unexplained reason the services of the Home Intelligence Division — now partly scuppered by Bracken — have practically never been called upon, either to assess the effect of films made, or to help to determine in advance what films were necessary and desirable. Perhaps the Director of Films Division thought he knew the answers by instinct. Whatever the reason, the Director and his staff have tried to gauge public opinion and feeling vicariously through the medium of the telephone, the press, the Store Street pubs and the Savoy, just as Henry James's Daisy Miller, sitting in a village post office, tried to participate in the life of the grand people in the neighbourhood byreading the telegrams they sent. We suggest that from now on e\ erjj officer of Films Division should spend one week in four out of his office and in the regions, and one month in twelve overseas. stud\ing the life and outlook of the people to w horn he wishes to speak through the medium of the film. Films Division has been timid from the beginning of the war. It seems sometimes to have been frightened of its own public, and it has never made any films of note on trade unionism, the Cooperatives, Joint Production Committees, or any of the social organisations which are at the root of our democratic society. This defect is a great weakness of the Division, and a dozen films like World c/ Plenty or Proud City, neither of which deal with the mass basis o\~ British life, will not make it good. Of course. Films Division cannot be blamed exclusively. The fear of that popular will, which organisations like the Co-ops. reflect, is deep in the minds of many Government Departments, and was therefore apparent in the policy of Films Division. We are not sure, however,