Canadian Film Weekly (Feb 25, 1942)

Page 6 Canadian FILM WEEKLY Sl Siltonal Kili Board and You February 25th, 1942 RELATIONSHIP OF NFB TO THE INDUSTRY pee first and main plank in the film policy of the Canadian Government is a very simple one. We take the Film Industry as it is. We don’t try, because there is & war on, to build some other kind of Film Industry. We take it the way it is: as a showmen’s industry dedicated to showmanship and commanding the attention of a Canadian audience of two and a half million people who happen to be interested in and happen to need showmanship. Of course there are other ways of looking at it. One might say with the poets: Absent thee from felicity a while and life is real, life is earnest; and one could start with Orders-in-Council and executive orders to butt into the business and turn the whole thing into a _ state-driven propaganda machine. In fact, there was one government since the war broke out—I won’t mention its name — which had a momentary brain storm and thought that way and declared all screen time belonged to the nation. Of course, in time of war, everything belongs to the nation and to the common effort, but that wasn’t just the wise way to say it. Nor was it necessary to say it at all. Our viewpoint in Canada has been different and for the following reasons. We believe that the strength of the Film Industry lies precisely in the fact that it is an entertainment industry. What is most valuable to the State in time of war, as in time of peace, is that it command a vast audience who go genuinely and spontaneously for the emotional stimulus which the movies give them. ‘That is the very audience we want to’ address. That is the very mood in which we want to find them. Therefore, so far from disturbing the expectation of stimulus, we want to preserve it. The very last thing we want to do is to drive our audience out of the theatres. It would be a poor State Public Relations Service which killed the audience it wanted to reach. * * % Te first result of this policy is that we have from the first sought the co-operation of the Film Industry in Canada. I may say that, at the outset of the war, the Industry, like any other good citizen, informed the Government that its power and strength were fully at the disposition of the State. That offer was made unanimously; and I know that offer was made earnestly and with a full sense of responsibility. We replied in effect: We thank you very much and there is a good deal of specific co-operation which the _emotional The National Film Board of Canada, headed by John Grierson, is today more than a national phenomenon. In all the world it is the most highly regarded of non-private film organizations. Its short subjects have won world-wide distribution and acclaim from distributor and patron alike. Canadians, whether in the film business or not, should become better acquainted with the aims and objects of the NFB, lest its fame abroad exceeds its appreciation at home. As expressed by Mr. Grierson, the Government’s intention is to present entertainment and education—at a profit, it hopes. point doesn’t remove from business is the same as any That the product bears the government’s view the fact that the NFB in other distributor. The NFB admits that and asks no preference except in special cases. cases. Several months ago John Grierson, in an address to the National Board of Review in New York City, spoke on “The Relations of the Government to the Film Industry in Time of War.” Because it dealt largely with Canada, the American film trade press, finding it of minor interest, gave it scant coverage. esting and important. This chief phases of his address. Mr. Grierson’s ideas are inter article is made up of the We intend to extend our report on Mr. Grierson and the NFB in future issues. Film Industry can give. It will be sought and it will be sought in specific terms. But we also let it be understood that we did not wish to disturb the essential workings of the Industry as an instrument of entertainment. In fact we pledged ourselves that whatever we might ask the theatres to carry in the way of public information would have to measure up to the normal standards of interest, entertainment and emotional stimulus, or we would ourselves be the first to jerk it. We have kept that pledge and the Industry has kept its pledge; and we recently had confirmation of that when Mr. Fitzgibbons of Famous Players, speaking for the Industry, made the selfsame point. What is most important in times of war for public information? It is not information. There is no end of information. It comes from a million and one quarters, in quantity and persistence and comvlexity enough to bewilder the soul. No, what we are concerned with primarily is helping the people to a simple pattern of thought and feeling; and here I am using a phrase of Mr. Lippmann’s — a simple pattern of thought and feeling which will enable people to take hold of the facts and give them significance. And to give people a pattern of thought and feeling is essentially a dramatic affair. It is, in fact, the normal dramatic approach of the cinema, which is the right and most potent approach in times of war. = % a rpeeae is one thing we do watch however. We don’t overdo. it. We have 13 issues a year on this series, like March of Time, and that for the present we think is enough high pressure on war reportage initiated by the Government. After all, there is a great deal of other material coming in. There are the news reels; there are the war shorts of the American companies; and, not least, there are the war shorts of March of Time. There are the British Ministry films like London Can Take It and Target for Tonight. We fill gaps wherever they may be. For example, no French newsreels come in nowadays for the large French-speaking public in Canada. So we supply them. But, by and large, we say that’s enough of war reportage and to give the people any more would be to defeat our purpose. In this the Government and the Industry are agreed. In fact, my most difficult job is not to keep the Industry in line but to explain to the various departments, who are howling for screen space, that it is thirteen issues a year, one a month, and no more. Fortunately, I have the imaginative co-operation of a Director of Iinformation who understands these things, and there is a great deal of good sense in the Departments themselves. a * * [is all a matter of meeting the Industry on its own essential terms. The Industry, after all, has a wide field in which we can genuinely operate, It is only a case of studying news values so far as the news reels are concerned, interest value so far as shorts are concerned, novelty value for the specialties and inspiration value wherever we can reasonably put NN —_—_—————— SSS it in. I am not saying that the Film Industry isn’t sometimes a little more conservative than som of us would like to see it; but if, like the man from Missouri, it wants to be shown, it also is true that it can be shown. The history of our Industry over the past few years is not without honor in the realms of higher experiment. * * * | abe machinery today works as follows: The Government’s film interests are operated by a Board called The National Film Board. It is a separate department of the Government which looks after the film interests of all Departments. That is to say, all departments are required by statute ta use it as their agency of production and distribution, and it is the function of the Board to plan from all their “ requirements a common policy, an integrated production schedule, and an integrated plan for distribution. Over and above this work for the Departments, the Board is charged with the job of looking after national as distinct from departmental interests. That is to say, it has a separate production and distribution schedule of its ow?, filling in the gaps the various departments may have left, and doing the sort of purely educational work the others are apt to forget. * a * N° member of the Film Industry sits on the Board. On the other hand, the Board has an advisor in the industry on a dollara-year basis. He is Mr. David Coplan. It is his job to keep the Commissioner informed on the views of the Trade and in general how the winds are blowing; telling the Commissioner, as he often does, when the Government is pressing too hard, or making mistakes from a professional point of view, or where the Government may use*an opportunity of cooperating it has failed to appreciate. This advisor keeps in touch with the various committees on the Industry and keeps the Board informed of their findings and wishes. From the beginning of the war, the Government has had the wholehearted personal co-operation of leaders of the Industry like Mr. Nathanson and Mr. Fitzgibbons, and the active help in production and distribution of men like Mr. Norrish of Associated Screen News, Mr. Gottleib of Audio, and Mr. Atkinson of General Films, and Colonel John Cooper, who governs the machinery by which special messages are sent out to the theatres on a mass scale. —s en of me eat ce oc eS Oe oor he TS OT COO Tee Ce ea