Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER Editorial Board: Slcphcn Ackroyd, Donald Alexander, Max Anderson, Edgar Anstcy, Gooflrey Bell, Ken Cameron, I'aul Fletcher, Sinclair Road, Grahamc Tharp, Basil Wright 'AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1947 VOL 6 NO 58 PUBLISHED BY FILM CENTRE 34 SOHO SQUARE LONDON Wl 113 BALANCE SHEET 114 WELCOME TO SCOTLAND 115 THE FILMS ACT 116-117 IMPROVING BRITAIN'S FILM BUSINESS 118-119 FILM REVIEWS 120 SCIENTIFIC FILM NEWS 121-124 CATALOGUE OF MOI AND COI FILMS FOR 1946 Annual subscription 6s. (published six times a year) 125 CHILDREN'S FILM APPRAISAL 126 MANCHESTER'S FILM FACILITIES 127 THE FLITTING OF CROWN 128 FLIGHTS OF FANCY 129 ARMY K1NEMA CORPORATION 130 AMERICAN LOCATION 131 CORRESPONDENCE 132 BOOK REVIEWS Bulk orders up to SO copies for schools and Film Societies I BALANCE SHEET wt ith a crucial year more than half spent, it is desirable to look 1 *'* around us and to examine the present characteristics of the documentary scene. Undoubtedly the brightest part of the picture is provided by documentary's international efforts. Both in UNESCO and UNO there is a consciousness of what the documentary film can do and an anxiety to give it its chance. Documentary relations with these two bodies are close and cordial. The plans being made lack nothing in ambition : only a sense of urgency and of the need for speed sometimes seems to be missing. Then there has been the informal meeting at which was born the World Union of Documentary. Perhaps there has been no more stirring moment in the whole history of documentary than this assembling around a table in a Brussels hotel of documentary representatives and observers from ten countries, ranging from Poland to Australia, workers from all over the world sharing the common language of documentary purpose. In Britain the picture is less encouraging. The Central Office of Information move slowly and with confusion of purpose towards an inadequate goal. It is allowing the vision of democracy's promised land to disappear in a sunset of red tape. In the educational film field, inter-departmental jealousies and political reaction appear to obstruct the development of official plans. Also it is sadly clear in Britain that the marked influence which documentary films were having in the last years of the war upon the feature films is now most definitely on the wane. Indeed, to some not unfriendly observers, it appears that the artistic and ti uly creative hey-day of the Rank empire is already passing and that The Way Ahead has led only to The Blue Lagoon. All is not yet lost, but it appears probable that, if producers wish to counter the present signs of defeatism, of escape into sadistic crime or puerile romance, then they can do it best by a concentration upon the kind of documentary techniques that Louis de Rochemont is so brilliantly developing in the United States and Rossellini in Italy in their films Boomerang and Open City. But perhaps the most alarming sign of the times is the widespread adverse comment heard during the recent Brussels Film • Festival upon the quality of the British documentary entries. All planning, all long-term blue-printing is a waste of time unless it can be assumed that films of adequate quality will be obtained to fulfil the plan. And this assumption we feel is one which in the past has been too easily made. In Britain today documentary films are made too slowly and when they come they are often mediocre. Here is a challenge which must be met and met quickly. In our efforts to secure documentary's true place in the world today, let us make quite sure that documentary remains fit to occupy it. At its inaugural meeting the World Union of Documentary adopted an impressive resolution calculated to make clear the determination of documentary workers everywhere to ally themselves with progressive social forces. Such a resolution must be implemented not with words and with speeches but with films. And in planning films to assist the forward march of the world's peoples, it is essential that the functions of documentary should be interpreted in the broadest possible terms. It is easy at this critical time to become impatient with all work which does not appear directl) to promote social change. It is easy to look back to an awe-inspiring but quite imaginary documentary past when all energy was concentrated upon films attacking the problems of malnutrition, slum housing, and unemployment. The plain fact is that memory has telescoped documentary history and that between 1930 and 1939 the films of direct sociological purpose were fewer and further between than they are today. The time may well come when it will be held that document most important contribution to social progress has been in reinterpreting and integrating academic knowledge in the light ol the methods and purposes of social organization. The documentary medium is a political instrument only m so far as all ti no education is political. The documentary worker who can feel passionate!) only about films which make direct political part] propaganda is most likely a poor or a jaded film-maker. If the honest political opportunities (that is the cdiicition.il opportunities) are to he grasped, then the) will he grasped by film-makers who feel as passionately about the pure exposition in the civic interest ol BOme technological problem as the) do about an election result. For documental \ is a mattei of dramatic niter pi etation and exposition operating on a plane above the level ol part) politics <>i to sum up the position another way: the most effective propagandist is in the long run the educationalist who is cons ioi S ■ >! social needs