Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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108 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER FILMS ON THE MACHINERY OF DEMOCRACY By ALEC SPOOR — PRO, National Association of Local Government Officers since 1918, practically every man and woman over 21 in Britain has had a vote in a Parliamentary election, and since 1945 the same franchise has been extended to local government elections. We are, therefore, a complete democracy enjoying government of the people, by the people, and for the people, both nationally and locally. But are we? In 1935, a National Government was elected by the votes of 39 per cent of the electors. In 1945 a Labour Government was elected by the votes of 36 per cent of the electors. On each occasion, one voter in every four neglected to vote. At the county council elections in 1937, only one in 18 of the electors in Devon and only one in 14 of the electors in Cambridgeshire cast their votes. In the six annual elections between 1933 and 1938, the percentages of electors voting for South Cambridgeshire rural district were 8-4, nil, 1-2, nil, 1-5, and nil respectively. And of a sample of 21 boroughs and county boroughs in 1938, the percentages voting ranged between 63 -7 and 6-9 — with the majority between 10 and 40 per cent. This is scarcely government by the people. Is it government for the people? It can be that only if the people as a whole know what they can get from government, and see that they get it. But today not one person in a hundred could tell you what a county, borough or district council does or might do, not one person in a hundred takes any interest in the activities of those bodies, understands the problems they are tackling, or even knows the names of his own councillors. And few councillors try to find out what their constituents think on any particular topic. In practice, then, our democracy boils down to government of the people, by a handful of the people, for a handful of the people — with the rest entirely uninterested except when the rate demand arrives or the dustman does not. If we want a real democracy, we must replace this indifference with constructive civic interest. And there, I believe, the film can do much. The man in the street and the woman in the kitchen are bored by local government because it is big, complicated, and apparently remote from their personal concerns of home, food, children, work, and play. But if you were to take them behind the scenes, show them the new houses being designed and built (and ask them what sort of houses they wanted), the inspectors, analysts and bacteriologists weighing, sampling, and safeguarding their food, the nurses, doctors, and teachers working to give their children a good start in life, the surveyors, traffic experts and police making better roads to speed them to and from work, the council committees planning INVISIBLE PLEASURES PHOTOMICROGRAPHY is happy with creatures, objects, phenomena too small to be seen by the naked eye. Plants and insects seem enormously obvious, but when photographed in colour, and sometimes by stop-motion, their true characteristics are often revealed in new, exciting ways. All this work is completely practical and scientific — but why shouldn't scientists be happy? PHOTOMICROGRAPHY LTD WHITEHALL, WRAYSBURY, BUCKS IN CHARGE OF PRODUCTION: J. V. DURDEN community centres, parks, swimming pools and places for play, they would soon be interested — and eager to say what they wanted. You cannot take them all behind the scenes; but the film can. Jill Craigie, in The Way We Li\e, translated maps into terms of human happiness and showed that even town-planning can stir the blood. Paul Rotha in Waterworks takes us along the pipe into the fascinating world of filters, pumps, wells, aqueducts, reservoirs, rivers and clouds that comes into our bathroom every time we turn on the tap, and in A City Speaks demonstrates how much the seemingly dull deliberations of the city council mean to the citizens of Manchester, at home and at school, at work and at play. Such films as Our School, Double Thread, Life Begins Again, and Twenty-four Square Miles, give their audiences, in John Grierson's phrase, 'the civic eye' through which they can see inside the walls and beneath the surface of governmental activities to the human values behind. But we need many more such films — films that, to quote Grierson again, 'can strike a living spark across the gap between the administration and the citizen', films that will elucidate the mysteries of the rate demand note, simplify and dramatize the problems of the committee room, translate the medical officers' report into terms of human sickness and health, misery and happiness. There is here an enormous field for the documentary film maker, a field bearing a rich harvest of interest for the man with the imagination and enterprise to dig it out. And the men who do that, and those who finance their work, will be doing much more than make fine films: they will be helping to turn British democracy from an abstraction into a reality. BOOK REVIEW Going to the Cinema, by Andrew Buchanan. (Phoenix House.) Is. 6d. This book is dedicated to the 'adult cinema-goer of tomorrow' and it fulfils its dedication by placing before its readers a clear exposition of every aspect of film-making. The author takes the film from its very inception through its shooting, editing, distribution and final exhibition and in concise words and simple terms he explains exactly 'what goes on'. There is not the faintest suggestion of talking down to the voting amateur — Mr Buchanan makes use of plenty of technical terms but is always careful to explain such terms in a manner which will in no way innate anj reader who may be at the age where he is slight!) allergic to any hint of the school text-book. There is a chapter on Documentary which ought to catch the interest o\ those who have never thought o\' the cinema in terms of an) thing but the Big Picture. The making of cartoons is clearlv explained and there is another chapter about the news reel. The final chapter is an invitation to the young reader to learn all about the cinema and to set himself up as a critic of all the films he sees.