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tures, and his power of tempoed sequence. These virtues may demonstrate a great talent. They do not make a film. It is the old story of the wood and the trees. In Rising Tide Rotha is a master of foliage.
The whole business so demonstrates the essential problem of production, and so reveals the mistaken relationship which may exist between producer and director that a friendly critic may be permitted to analyse the case still further. If this producer-director relationship is to be fruitful, there is one matter on which the two partners must be agreed — and that is on the theme. On the details of photography, cutting and sound, they may fight as much as they please, for they do not finally matter. The theme does. It must be agreed together, believed in together, slaved at in common, from the inception of the film until its completion.
It is not for the producer to dictate a theme in which the director cannot follow him. That way lies every disaster of production. The directors 'best' deteriorates inevitably into a demonstration of virtuosity. What was meant to be important, for the lack of conviction that goes with it, comes to pretence and disappointment. The director indeed (though he probably needs the money) lends his reputation to an impossible task.
Nor is it for the director to dictate the theme to the producer. The producer has his own responsibilities : it may be to finance, or to doctrine, or to art itself. But though his intentions for a film are thus defined, it is to his interest that the director, as the interpreter of his hopes, should see eye to eye with him. That way he uses another talent and inspiration to complement his own.
The solution is really a simple one. Find the theme on which there is absolute unqualified agreement and shoot to it. It may not be the biggest or the deepest possible theme, it may not be what each separately considers the best theme, but let it be a theme commonly agreed: one indeed in which they can join their energies. Bruce Woolfe and Rotha might consider this. Rotha has a talent well worth exploiting and there is much they might develop together. They cannot afford to be out of step, as would seem to be the case in Rising Tide.
The remainder of the criticism is more personal to Rotha. He is still a silent director. His eye seems to be still exclusively glued to visual design and the pleasing passage of images across the screen. He adds sound but he does not seem yet to think sound. This is wrong of him, for sound, with its many human perspectives, has more to give him than almost any other documentary director. It will warm his sequence and intensify his reference. It will save him from the self-consciousness of his photographic style. Atmospheric music and rhythmic beat are not enough. Sound too must be narrative. John Grierson.
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