Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS Documentary in Germany FROM A CORRESPONDENT a striking compilation film, Nurnberg has recently been released in the American Zone of Germany. It was sponsored by American Film Section under the inspiration of Pare Lorent/, who initiated the work in New York. It has been produced by Stuart Schulberg and edited by Jo Zigman. It is a summary of the Nurnberg Trial and has been made in the English and German languages. It gives a calm, unemotional summary of the proceedings and the results. Originally it was intended to build the commentary wholly from extracts from the speeches of the prosecution, defence and the witnesses, but this was found impossible. So the commentary takes the form of a precis. The film is remarkable for a number of reasons. In the first place, a great proportion of it is built up from material taken in the courts, and one has ample time to study the faces and bearing of the protagonists. A less courageous producer would have been tempted to cut away, and to allow only a minimum of the film to take place in the court. Schulberg and Zigman decided otherwise and their decision is amply justified by results. The court scenes are supported by a collection of seized library material, including a record of a pogrom enlarged from 8 mm. and some scenes of an improvised gas chamber. To give an idea of the mentality of some of the people who took these films, the gas chamber scenes were found on 16 mm casually inserted among idyllic scenes of the countryside of occupied Poland. They had been dropped in as if they were an ordinary part of an enjoyable week's leave. The film is more than an indictment of the leaders of fascism. Though the commentary makes a sharp distinction between Nazis and Germans, the ordinary onlooker must draw the conclusion that the ramifications of the plot were so wide and deep that every German person was to some extent a participant, not only on the battlefield, but in the torture chamber. In days when some people w ould ask us not to give the matter of Germany's guilt another thought, the film gives a salutary reminder of things which happened only a little over three years ago. Since it has been shown with considerable success in the American Zone of Germany, it suggests that, for the first time, the German people themselves may be taking stock of their own record. Between them, the British and American Film Sections have been responsible for promoting a number of documentary films in Germany, and at long last the movement looks like taking hold of the imagination both of producers and the public. All the films are made by German units. As one might expect, the styles of the films from the two zones are in contrast, those from the American tending to rely on library' compilation and, more often than not, deliberately pointing a moral. Those from the British side tend more to be objective accounts of what is going on. They rely less on library' material and more on actuality shooting. Hunger — a joint production of the British and American Film Sections, distributed mandatorily to every cinema in the American and British Zones, was a joint affair. It was built up from librarj material and was issued in the spring of 1948. It was designed to make clear that much of the starvation and hunger in Germany was caused by a dislocation of world agriculture, caused, in its turn, by the German war. It explains that our Indian and other Eastern Allies have a better claim on world food supplies than the ( tel man people. The film also pointed out that a great deal of food in Germany, designed for the ration, was being diverted to the black market, owing to faulty and corrupt German administration. Since that time, American Film Section has sponsored a number of films dealing directly with the moods, feelings and outlooks of the German people. It's Up To You contrasts two kinds of Germany before the war. The gentle, industrious, religious Germany and the tough, fierce, cruel Germany. These two contrasts, the film says, were present before the war. Which is to predominate in the future? Marschieren, Marschieren! made by Renaissance Film and produced by Gerhard Born, says, quite simply, that everyone who marches to the beat of a mi lit try band and becomes hypnotized by martial music sooner or later marches to his death. Ich unci Mr Marshall deals with the relations of the Marshall Plan in Western Germany. Other films in production deal with life in Berlin, the free German Press, racial toleration, the air bridge and the Joint Import-Export Agency. All the films so far released are wellpaced polished one-reelers. The British Film Section is inspiring films dealing with the day-to-day life of Germany, designed at once to make the public well-informed on current problems of the day, and to influence people to be more tolerant towards one another. Lebensadern is a documentary dealing with transport. It explains how the present difficulties arise. It points to difficulties overcome and it says that, given initiative, the German people have in themselves resources to bring the transport system back to the point of efficiency which was once the envy of Europe. The film ends with a moving ceremony of the first train to cross the repaired Hohenzollern Bridge at Cologne. Another film deals with returning prisoners-ofwar. It suggests that this problem is not being tackled as sympathetically as it might be by some Burgomeisters, already driven to distraction by shortages of housing. It puts in a claim for more sympathy, more tact and more practical treatment. A film in production on the raising of wrecks in Kiel harbour is as exciting a piece of documentary journalism as one will see anywhere. Yet anothei deals with the rehabilitation of the German fishing industry. At least one documentary worker of note has come up in the British Zone. His name is Rudolph ECipp. His shooting has a freshness and strength winch British documentary director and came ra man will envy. I inally, one must not overlook the ( term in workers in Berlin, mainly concentrating on trick films and labouring under the greatest of difficulties. Nevertheless, 1 Otte Reiniger is getting ahead with silhouette films and two other people are beginning to make remarkable progress. II ins Bolke is making puppet films, and the illustrator and artist. I Haakon, has begun to make cartoon films which show great promise. No note about films in Germany can omit the newsreel Welt in Film. This is a joint AngloAmerican affair, though produced almost wholly by German film men. The shooting is as good as any newsreel in the world. If by virtue of its position it avoids some political topics, its treatment of contemporary life in Germany has a raciness and quality of observation which puts it in a class by itself. AN AMERICAN FILM Round Trip. Producer: Raymond Spottiswood. Director: Roger Barlow. Produced by The World Today Inc. for 20th Century Fund. 20th Century Fund is an association in America which seeks to promote a liberal economic policy. It stands for free trade in America, for the lowering or total removal of tariff barriers. The film hopes to convince the Americans that American prosperity ultimately depends on the free flow of trade, and not in the artificial protection of inefficient industries in America, when it would be cheaper to purchase abroad and allow an inefficient industry to close down. Technically, the film takes the form of a trans-continental and trans-oceanic argument between an isolationist businessman, transport workers, producers and workers in Europe and Latin-America. The speakers call out to each other and argue, and the isolationist businessman is final!) reduced by having his clothes and watch whisked awaj from him, since the former were in uie in Britain of British cloth and the latter in Switzerland. I >> an English mind, the arguments seem a little strange until one realizes that the film is flogging a horse which died m Britain about 1848 h 'lort. America is now where Britain was a hundred years ago. and seeking to explain to herself that a country cannot sensibly be a creditor nation, and have tariff walls, ihe argument is as valid in Amen, s it was in Britain a hundred years ago fee i ally, the film is well made. The characters ate well cast and speik their minds with relish. The fact that dialogues t ike place across gaps of thousands o\ miles gives the film a kind of universality which Stimulates the imagination. It is distributed in the S nontheatrical l>. and is not available in Britain.