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and soliloquy) the sociological mood is stressed.
These remarks are, I think, enough to show that in this film Rotha has made an immense step forward, and is now finally in control of his medium.
His technique is, however, still somewhat tentative. Some of the best ideas are not developed more than half-way (hence my plea for the director to stick to his craziness). A good example is a very striking sequence with a riveter at work soliloquising on the future life of the Orion, which puts the general feeling very beautifully, but does not, as it might so effectively have done, similarly pursue (quite briefly) the more intimate problems of the workers' lives (especially in reference to that ultra-civilized bogey, unemployment).
The basis of the sound-score is the shipyards' terrifying row. The Doric voice of the announcer-commentator reverberates with immense effect from the echoing caverns of the incomplete hull. Sound is also overlapped for continuity with considerable skill.
But where Rotha pushes himself well up on the directorial roster is in his final sequence — a smooth and impressive treatment of the launch (the camera restraint is most gratifying) , followed by a really moving anti-climax as the workers move uncertainly away from the empty stocks. The pathetic indecision of the worker in the final fade-out is masterly.
Photography is, as usual, excellent, but also unobtrusive — another sign of progress. Cutting is very good, although I still cannot reconcile myself to the deliberate alterations of long shot and close-up which Rotha delights in. This objection, however, may be too personal. Basil Wright.
FOR ALL ETERNITY
Production: Strand Films. Direction: Marion Grierson. Length: two reels. In documentary, as in all cinema, technique must always come second to subject, but equally technique must be sufficiently good for the subject to have adequate expression. The trouble with so many of our documentalists is their over-emphasis of technique and their underestimate of subject. But here, in this two-reeler of the cathedrals of England, is firstly a dignified respect for subject, and secondly an intelligent although not brilliant use of camera and microphone, and, above all, a moving interpretation of that curious phenomenon — the spirit of the church. My congratulations go out unreservedly to Marion Grierson for this film. Not only has she made, so modestly, a picture that will reach the emotions of any audience, but she has in this era of social unrest and mental disorder, put on the screen something which even the godless must admit has roots deeply embedded in what we call the traditions of the country. Her film will, I believe, be tremendously successful because it transmits something
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