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DOCUMENTARY (3)
THE SYMPHONIC FILM
JOHN GRIERSON
The symphonic form is concerned with the orchestration of movement. It sees the screen in terms of flow and does not permit the flow to be broken. Episodes and events if they are included in the action are integrated in the flow. The symphonic form also tends to organise the flow in terms of different movements, e.g. movement for dawn, movement for men coming to work, movement for factories in full swing, etc., etc. This is a first distinction.
See the symphonic form as equivalent to the poetic form of, say, Carl Sandburg in "Skyscraper," "Chicago," "The Windy City" and "Slabs of the Sunburnt West." The object is presented as an integration of many activities. It lives by the many human associations and by the moods of the various action sequences which surround it. Sandburg says so with variations of tempo in his description, variations of the mood in which each descriptive facet is presented. We do not ask personal stories of such poetry, for its picture is complete and satisfactory. We need not ask it of documentary. This is a second distinction regarding symphonic form.
These distinctions granted, it is possible for the symphonic form to vary considerably. Basil Wright, for example, is almost exclusively interested in movement, and will build up movement in a fury of design and nuances of design; and for those whose eye is sufficiently trained and sufficiently fine, will convey emotion in a thousand variations on a theme so simple as the portage of bananas (Cargo from Jamaica). Some have attempted to relate this movement to the pyrotechnics of pure form, but there never was any such animal, (i) The quality of Wright's sense of movement and of his patterns are distinctively his own and recognisably delicate. As with good painters, there is character in his line and attitude in his composition. (2) There is an overtone in his work which — sometimes after seeming monotony — makes his description uniquely memorable. (3) His patterns invariably weave — not seeming to do so — a positive attitude to the material, which may conceivably relate to (2). The patterns of Cargo were more scathing comment on labour at 2d. a hundred bunches (or whatever it is) than mere sociological stricture. His movements — (a) easily down; (b) horizontal; (c) arduously 450 up; (d) down again — conceal, or perhaps construct, a comment.
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