World Film and Television Progress (1938)

Described by Harry Watt Giving an account of what promises to be one of the year's best documentaries. I think we may say that the presentation of a real-life incident in narrative form is a new departure for documentary. We are accustomed to descriptive documentaries and travel-films, analytical and social documentaries, but the narrative documentary is a comparatively new thing. The film is real, in so far as it tells a story that really happened, and in fact often happens. At the same time, the film is artificial, because it is a reconstruction of the story. The people are real fishermen, fisher girls, radio operators, but they are at the same time actors, for they have lines and actions to rehearse and perform. Again, the details of incident and dialogue are in a sense artificial, because they are supplied to the story, but also real, because they are constructed from observation of actuality, and written with the eye on the subject. Perhaps you would be interested to hear how this project worked out on production. I imagine that you want most of all to know how we got on with the direction of real people called upon to act for the first time in their lives. Well, it was not easy. There are disadvantages which must be faced. People who have never performed have no idea of voice production (how could they have?) and are often unintelligible. Some of this unintelligibility was corrected in production, some of it was left in the film for the sake of colour. Also, as you might expect, a number of the cast were somewhat stiff, especially at the first attempts. Against these factors, however, there are many advantages — real people look right. Their faces are right, their hair is right, their hands are right, their feet, their postures, the way they pick things up and lay them down. left: "■One of last winter's gales.'''' Above: "The radio men are the real thing.'''' This also is to be expected. The radio men are the real thing, and their reality more than compensates for any deficiency in acting. Also, they are patient, willing to learn and anxious to please. The women are less satisfactory than the men — partly because they generally have more "emotional" stuff to do, and partly because they are inclined to fuss about their appearance. Yet when we consider the awkward conditions — they must act in the street, in a net factory, in a grocer's shop, with small boys all around — we have to admit they do pretty well. There isn't much point in going into detail about the actual shooting. It meant going out in a gale. Our gale over-acted all the time, ruined all the best shots with salt water, made everybody sick, and finally drove us back to port. We would have been much better to fake it. The film attempts to show that courage and endurance are part of the daily life of the fishermen, in fact part of their stock-in-trade. This is one of those facts that everybody knows, and nobody realises, until some tragedy occurs. 1 suppose it's inevitable that nobody should pay any attention to the dangers of the sea, or the courage of the seamen, until the vessels are sunk and the fishermen drowned. It works that way with the miners, too. They are heroes only when the roof falls in, which is silly. Why should a fisherman have to get drowned before anybody notices him? Wh) should the ship have to go down, before it becomes news? I suppose it comes to this. that we have got so accustomed to screaming headlines that we don't believe in danger, unless somebody can produce a dead body. Anybody who goes to see North Sea expecting dead bodies will be disappointed. There is no wreck. In fact, come to think of it, the film is a most pedestrian affair; nobody gives his life for his friend, there's no melodrama, it's simply the story of men at work in a particularly dangerous job, and getting out of a particularly tight corner partly by luck (all sailors require luck) and partly by hard work. Of course, it's exciting — it couldn't be otherwise. It leads up to the most terrific ending. Guess what happens. Here are the men sweating blood for thirty-six hours at a stretch, and the skipper directing them and at the same time enduring the private agony of responsibility. And guess what happens — there is an ease-up in the weather, and the wireless gets going again, and everything is all right, and they make tea. Well, as I said, if anybody expects them to be rescued at the last minute, by a liner or a battleship, or picked up by a submarine, the film will come as a great disappointment. The film is not about what might happen to North Sea trawlermen, but about what does happen to them, and that is this — when bad weather comes, they may get drowned, or take their chance in the boats, or get back. We have tried to show that the endurance and the courage of those who get back are not less than of those who don't. I believe we are all mixed up between courage and martyrdom. and fail to recognise the one, unless it results in the other, and I don't see why we should wait till people are dead before we give them a hand. 25