Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

96 DO (I MEM ARY FILM NEWS CORRESPONDENCE Commentaries sir: Emboldened by the sensible remarks of John Maddison in your recent issue, I venture to write as one who has made scores of commentaries and does not greatly care if, under prevailing conditions, he never makes another. When I say 'made', I mean, read out, from sheets of paper which he has not seen before, at a swiftly moving series of screen pictures which he may have seen run through once. And when I say 'read out', I mean, often bellowed into a microphone hung above head level a couple of yards off. What sort of result can be expected but a cross between Fitz-who's-it's infantile travelogues and the American cadences of the imitators of E. V. H. Emmett? As for the matter typed on the sheets . . . cameras work inside the heads of cinema audiences, behind their eyes. Can't sound tracks work there too, behind their ears, as responsible broadcasters make the microphone work? If your documentary directors want the impersonal, take-it-or-leave-it declamation of the BBC news bulletins, then let us all go on as we're doing; but don't expect audiences to be interested. Interest comes by attraction; and a mere stream of declaimed sound reduces an audience, like people watching continually moving water, to idiocy not interest. That many commentaries resemble mill-races is due to the fact that they are written by people who don't use their voices. Maybe the less commentary, the better. But let the commentator at least speak to his audience, with all the skill and craft he has. He will make the best job of it, if he is in the making of the film as early as possible, and at least at the cutting-room stage; and is personally responsible for what he says. Yours faithfully, JOSEPH MACLEOD UNRRA sir: In connection with Grant McLean's interesting article on filming for UNRRA in China and his proposal that the UN might well sponsor such units throughout the world, I should like to call your attention to five other units sponsored by UNRRA: Captain David Miller, US Signal Corps, who travelled all through Europe to produce Seech of Destiny (1946 US Academy Documentary Award winner) : Nicholas B. Read, National Film Board of Canada, who went to Greece to produce Out of the Ruins; Arthur Calder-Marshall, who went to Egypt to produce The Star and the Sand, the film about the UNRRA Yugoslav refugee camp ; Peter Hopkinson, who went to Byelorussia and the Ukraine to shoot the film later released by the March of Time as The Russians Nobody Knows, and Victor Vicas, who went to Italy to produce Italy Rebuilds for the International Film Foundation. The United Nations itself now has films in production in nine different countries : United States, Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Sweden. If 58 economy-minded United Nations are willing to grant the funds, we hope to continue and develop this new and important field of international documentary film production for international understanding. Sincerely yours, WILLIAM H. WELLS Chief, Film and Television Section Division of Films and Visual Information Cumberland Story sir : I wished to show the uncut version of Cumberland Story which as you know ran for about 45 minutes. I now learn it has been cut to 10 minutes. Now if this is true then it is time there was an outcry. What does Humphrey Jennings, its director, think of this emasculation? 1 have heard the miners objected to the accident sequence (which I believe is cut) but there are other cuts. This film, in my opinion, was a firstclass job — even Winnington of the News Chronicle described it as the Documentary of the Year'. If the reason for this ruthless cutting ii considered necessary because of its propaganda effect, surely a Film Society does not come within the category of squeamish audiences. The accident sequences are not cut in Kameradschaft or The Stars Look Down. Film Societies approach films with a different attitude of mind and I should be interested to know FILM SOCIETIES (continued from p. 95) gave an address. At another meeting, to which architectural students were invited, films on architecture and town-planning were shown, and Mr O. Pryce-Lewis, of the University of Cape Town, spoke on the subject. In May of last year, in conjunction with the Institute of Citizenship, we had a programme on 'Juvenile Delinquency', with the outstanding British documentary, Children on Trial (Jack Lee), and an address by Mr W. D. Marais, Principal of the Tokai reformatories. Stellenbosch invites committees of University societies or groups, such as Native Administration. Sociology and Psychology, to films in which they would be interested, and sponsored with the Geography Department of the University the showing of films of a whaling expedition to the Antarctic. Stellenbosch maintains a happy relationship with the local cinema. Durban has co-operated with the local Medical Association by inviting its members to see a film on 'Neuro-Psychiatry'. It must not be thought, however, that the film societies meet in a mood of gloomy uplift. Members learn much, it is true, about the film and other matters — and they enjoy themselves greatly in the process. In Cape Town. 'Film Society Friday' is an institution among its members, which they do not care to miss. The road is not an easy one. Halls and suitable projectors are not always easy to obtain. South Africa is very far from the centre of things and importing films is impossible, because of copyright restrictions and the veryheavy customs duty, except when films with an educational certificate can be imported through the facilities so helpfully offered by the British Film Institute, which can. however, only provide those over which it has certain rights. But the South African Film Societies hope to continue what is a useful service in the cause of education and enjoyment. It is a movement which should have the active support of all educational and cultural bodies, and of the cinema industry, which cannot but benefit from an eager, well-informed audience. the views of directors whose films have been carved up. and also Film Societies. Yours faithfully, H. E. NORRIS Hon Secretary CAMERA HIRE SERVICE PHONE : GER. 1365-6-7-8 All Inquiries: NEWMAN SINCLAIR MODELS 6A' & E' \nTH FULL RANGE OF EQUIPMENT AND TRIPODS ALSO NEWMAN HIGH-SPEED CAMERA S.F.L. LTD.. 71 IHW STREET. LONDOX. W.l