Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 91 EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN Their work did not justify the first rate facilities and opportunities they disposed of. In the case of the Americans, the directorial ability seemed drawn largely from Hollywood sources, and was not adapted to the type of shooting [ involved. Reed and Roffman did some fine work for the Canadian National Film Board, but not for long . Where was Documentary ? And where were the British documentary directors? The sad fact must be recorded that, with all its wealth of talent, a trained and fully equipped personnel which no other country can boast, the British documentary movement failed — as an independently operating organisation— to show much sign that it existed at all. Ralph Elton, Jack Lee and a few others, paid short visits to the continent, seemed to find things too much for them, and came back. The responsibility cannot be laid at their door. Roy Boulting, of the Army Film Unit, operating und:r precisely the same conditions, shared their ill-success. An inquest into the reasons for this failure cannot find space in this article. Those who did participate have been discreetly silent. Till further evidence is available, an open verdict is hereby recorded. Brilliant Work The most impressive work done by the newsreel cameramen was achieved when the liberation of Paris also liberated the talents of the brothers Mejato and Gaston Madru. This astonishing jtrio were snapped up by the U.S. newsreel companies, and proceeded to do the most consistently brilliant work of any individual cameramen in the campaign. Madru, who filmed in the last days of occupied Paris from a camera concealed in a carrier basket on a bicycle, and was killed by a sniper's bullet in the street fighting in Leipzig, deserves a memorial plaque on the wall of every newsreel association in the world. The other newsreel cameramen were not snterprising, and in comparison with the sustained brilliance of the three Frenchmen, paltry. They shot for the newsreels, instead of for the record. They are not used to giving a Documentary News Letter Editorial Board Edgar Anstey Donald Taylor Geoffrey Bell John Taylor Arthur Elton Alex Shaw Owned and Published by FILM CENTRE LTD. 34 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.l GERRARD 4253 rounded story, but just a few, frequently wellchosen, shots. The Americans were better than the English — Lieb's work with Patton's army and in Paris was excellent. In the final analysis, planning and numbers were lesser factors than individual ability. The most detailed planning was given to the coverage of the D-day phase, and this certainly resulted in a splendid and historic achievement, the highlight of which was the automatic coverage taken by the cameras attached to some of the landing craft — the 300 ft. which survived. But when the operation went out of the planned stage and became as it were hand-to-mouth, the coverage dropped at once in quality. From then on, the watchers of the Davies Street screen came to recognise a few names as being associated with good work, some few dozen service cameramen who had profited by their training in Astoria or Pinewood, and who, left on their own with a minimum of briefing, would turn in footage of value. The moral is surely, that, assuming as it can be assumed, that the training of these service recruits was of a high standard, more care should have been taken in selection of eligible trainees. In general, it can be said that British service cameramen showed a strongly developed directorial and pictorial sense most often lacking in their U.S. counterparts, but this was very much off-set by far weaker technical ability. SHAEF tried hard SHAEF made an honest attempt to envision the total picture of coverage, but had not the power to put its vision into practice. As before, after the undoubted achievements of D-day, SHAEF fell back into its legal role of adviser and provider of facilities. The story of previous campaigns was retold. Many authorities meant lack of central control. Individual services had facilities and authorisation from SHAEF, and had to submit to SHAEF censorship. In between, they were under the control, the rigid and jealously guarded control, of the War Department, War Office, Army Groups, Government Departments, and such institutions as the Signal Corps, etc. SHAEF which might have played on the whole instrument as a conductor with an orchestra, was too high up, remote, and tactful to display its full powers. Inasmuch as SHAEF was the first authority to see all the footage, it was in a position to send out to the field a picture of the overall coverage, to comment and advise on gaps, over-shooting, quality, and so forth. Such directives were sometimes used, in most cases disregarded. SHAEF could not know the local difficulties, often all-important. Units were too close to their own problems, and anxious to satisfy their immediate masters, who could hand out penalties as well as worthwhile rewards. Inadequate ? The use of this wealth of material, which cost so much pains and so many lives, can only be described as miserably inadequate. The newsreels, with two 700-ft. issues a week, only part of which could be devoted to the fighting on the Western Front, accounted at a generous estimate for about 50,000 ft. or less than 1 per cent. Other films made can be counted on the lingers of one hand. Left of the Line and A Harbour goes to France were timely and good. By the time of writing The True Glory has not yet been seen. And of course there was wide use of the material for specialist purposes, overseas reels, training and industrial morale films, etc. But the public was deprived by commercial, and, be it said, diplomatic considerations, from the running pictorial record of the war to which it has a right, and which by all the tokens, it had an intense desire to see. A great mistake in the opinion of the writer was made when the decision was reached to make one film of the whole campaign. What might have been Circumstances merited a series of great films depicting succeeding phases of the campaign. Anyone can sketch these out for himself: prelude to D-day and the initial landings; the Normandy Campaign up to the taking of Cherbourg; the clearing of Brittany and the swoop on Paris; Caen, the Boscages, and the Falaise gap; the Seine crossings and the liberation of Brussels; Arnhem; the liberation of Alsace-Lorraine; the Channel Ports; the Ardennes counter-offensive; the battle of the Roer; the battle of the Rhine and the final collapse. It's all there, in detail, in 5£ million feet of film. And now it's all dead as mutton. One reason, apart from the usual political difficulties of making joint films, is a perfection complex on the part of those using the film, which seemed to hamstring any attempt to finish films before their topicality lapsed. Crudities should have been unimportant. The great thing was to get the stuff on the world's screens — a technique would have developed as we went along. Treasure-trove for Editors Well, there it all is, in a myriad of cans in Washington, New York, London, Paris, a fine record and a treasure-trove for future users. What will happen to all the film-millions of feet which the public will never see, but millions also which will be called on in the years to come, to remind us of our madness and greatness? The hearts of future editors, who will have the task of securing the one shot they need out of the ocean of celluloid, need not drop, for there is a word of cheer. For the first time, a comprehensive documentation was undertaken, as the film came in, using the opportunities provided by central screening. As a result, the work of researching into the film records of the European fighting will be immeasurably lightened. Anyone who wants film taken of a particular town, type of action, subject, person, can find it in the catalogues and indices which SHAEF prepared. Private records of the quality of the material exist, and remain private. This at least SHAEF has done for the eventual users of the film. What could it not have done for the makers!