Business screen magazine (1944)

JOHN GRIERSON Government Film Commissioner The Story of Canada's \alional Film Board IN establishing a government film organization and in giving it freedom of action, Canada has placed herself in the van of those nations which realize that one of the basic factors in progress and reconstruction is an informed public opinion. Today the title "The National Film Board of Canada" on a film is a familiar sight the world over. Men. woBin'n and eliildren in the crowded country school houses of remote Canadian rural communities: distinguished diplomats gathered at Canadian Embassies in foreign capitals; war workers in factories who pause durmg the lunch hour to see industrial films in their plant cafeterias; Latin American villagers who gather round the travelling projector to see films on Canadian nutrition problems explained in their own language; men and women of the armed forces acquiring new skills and training for their return to civil life; all are familiar with National Film Board films. Canada's connection with the documentary film movement has been a long and honorable one, A New World of Visuals lies North of the Border lasting for almost thirty years. It goes back to the days during and immediately after the last war when Robert J. Flaherty was working on the now world famous "Nanook of the North." Already the Canadian Government, recognizing the value of films in the promotion of trade relations, had formed in 1917 the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau. For twenty years this organization, under the Department of Trade and Commerce, had a small but regular output of films dealing with Canada's scenic attractions, wild lite and natural resources. However, with the development of public information during the thirties, and the growing necessity of countering totalitarian propaganda by stating the nation's case to her friends abroad and explaining the Dominion to its own people, the CJovcrnment of Canada felt that the film medium could be put to more considered use. In 1938. the Govornniont invited John Grierson, head of the G.P.O. Film Unit in Britain, to come to Canada and make a survey of film possibilities. As a result of his recommendations the National Film Act was passed in May 1939, creating a National Film Board with authority to ad\'ise the Government in all its film activities, and to co-ordinate, under a central body, all the film needs of the various government departments. In 1941 the Board absorbed the functions of the Motion Picture Bureau, and in 1943 it took over the Graphics Division of the Wartime Information Board. The Film Board is thus concerned now not only with film production but with film strips, still photographs, posters and displays. It is, in a word. the chosen instrument of the Canadian people in the field of visual information. Meanwhile Grierson, on his way to Australia to , advise the Commonwealth Government on its own film policy, was called in by Ottawa, after the outbreak of war, to take the position of Government Film Commissioner and executive head of the i National Film Board. Grierson is today responsible i to a Board made up of two Cabinet Ministers, three < senior civil servants and three members of the public chosen for their interest in and knowledge of the film as a medium of public information, and is ably assisted by his Deputy Commissioner, Ross McLean. John Grierson was already well known as a pioneer in the documentary film field when he accepted the Canadian Government's offer. Born in Perthshire, Scotland, son of the headmaster of a village school, he served four years in the Royal Navy during the first world war, went through Glasgow University on scholarships and later lectured at Durham University. From Durham he went to the United States on a three year Rockefeller Fellowship. He was a frequent contributor to United States magazines and newspapers, specializing in the psychology of information and studying information media. Returning to England in 1928 he studied the development of educational and informational films on behalf of his government and joined the Empire Marketing Board to make the first English "documentary" film. Drifters. This was an outstanding success. Other documentaries followed which have given him a secure place in the history of film. When the Empire Marketing Board dissolved he went with Sir J. ALAN FIEiri Producer of Catnula (arries On STANLEY HAWES Producer, Labor-Management Films GRAHAM MCINNES Information Editor MALCOLM ROSS Director of Distribution 22 BUSINESS SCREEN MAGAZINE