The cinema and the public: a critical analysis of the origin, constitution, and control of the British Film Institute (1934)

Recent public references by the Film Group of the Federation of British Industries (who have appointed one of the Institute's governors) to the Institute's having been formed " with the full knowledge and consent of H.M. Government "* are equally confusing ; since the Government has throughout refused to accept any responsibility in regard to the Institute. 4. PROPOSED WORK. The " British Film Institute " has published in its official statement, and frequent references have been made both in articles and letters in the Press and in statements at conferences, to a list of ten items of work which it hopes to undertake. Nothing is easier for a new organisation, as you know, than to draw up and have printed an impressive summary of the work on which it hopes to engage ; it is another matter for it to carry out that work satisfactorily. In this particular case, moreover, each of the ten items of activity mentioned can be shown, on analysis, to be either (a) something someone else or some other organisation is already efficiently performing, f or (b) something which the Institute, as now * In a letter of protest to the Board of Trade, summarised in the press on November 24th, 1933. " The trade as such," says this revealing letter, as given in full in To-day's Cinema on November 24th, J933> " holds no special brief for the recently -formed British Film Institute, but it should be pointed out that the Institute has been formed with the full knowledge and consent of H.M. Government." t E.g., " To advise Government Departments concerned with films" (Item 8). The Government has already its own Cinema Officer, Mr. Foxen Cooper, for this express purpose. Page 34