The Cine Technician (1939)

Dee. -Jan., 1937-8 T H E C1X E -TECHNICIAN' L70 THE FUTURE OF DOCUMENTARY in the name of public education, and going out to a non (Continued from b 168) theatrical audience of twenty or thirty or fort^ million people a year, also in the name oi public education. With a lead to their lesser brethren in the sticks. Perhaps it the development oi television it will appear, though in is because they, too, have a notion of instructing the slight^ altered form, and reach to inure people even than citizenry, only keep it off the record. The\ would be that. As regards its material, it will reflect, mere than ashamed if they were charged with it. ever — wars and dictatorships apart — the seriousness of its You will have gathered my own view. Fifteen sociological purpose. Already within the past two years, it seconds or thirty seconds in every hundred minutes: it has made a dramatic approach to social material : describdoes not matter what the proportion is. It is not good ing such fundamental themes of public interest as nutrienough. We want programmes where we pla\ first fea tion, housing and health and the state ol education, desture and since only the specialised theatres could do thai cribing the work ol public depart incuts and making a first for us, our policj is to have our own theatre system. It, attempt to bring these matters into the forum ol public is true that we cannot have Odeons and Plazas and discussion. There will he more of that. Granadas. We could not pay for them and in fact we As regards the aesthetics <>l the documentary could not till them. hint what we can have is even movement. I beg the technicians will not concern school, every church hall, and every debating centre in themselves too much with what they hear. It is the country; and we are well on our way to getting them. true that we have had to develop certain technical novelSuch a policy must affect the future of the documen ties in order to add excitement to plain material, but i;ir\ film greatly, for every form of circulation has its own our big terms and our sober discussions are often particular inhibitions. This can be said, however: that in just part of our selling talk-: calculated to impress those non-theatrical circulation, you do not need to he all the dignitaries ol Wardour Street who. as we all know, are time on the jump. You do not need to he tor ever giving so impressed with art that they fall Hat on their faces your film a shot of strychnine to keep it on the pop. You before it. Wasn't it Sam Goldwyn who talked art to can expect people to be at least in the dun initial stages Bernard Shaw'? And wasn't it Bernard Shaw who said: of a thinking moid. You can expect your audience to '"I hat's right, .Mr, Goldwyn, yon look alter the art and come a bit of the way in the process of understanding I'll look after the business"0 and you are not lor ever under the obligation ol sugaring In Documentary you may take it we are sensible pills, tempering the wind to the shorn lamb, remembering enough to he looking alter the business. It is. as I said to give the old lady in the back row a dollop of mother before, an educational and uplifting business, hike the love and. in general, acting like a fussy and patronising Y.M.C.A., the Little Brothers of St. Francis, the Ku nld hen. Which is what most showmanship amounts to Klux Klan and the Holy Rollers only different. In tact, anyway, il you remember your Wardour Street portraits. technicians who are still dreaming daftly that John In tact, whatever happens among the second features and Maxwell will pay them a hundred and Hlty a week should the so hardly patronised interest shorts, the main future not bother their heads about it. Documentary will do of documentary is where it is now : financed by sponsors them no good — and vice versa. PASSING THE BUCK In the good old days of doubtful cameras, some of us in fact, MOST of us -blamed the apparatus— PASSING THE BUCK. Today your boss— and if YOU'RE a boss, YOU — know cameras are fool proof if looked after. Our Service Pays. We DO look after ours. The Buck cannot be passed. Like Venison? WE DO! Ibappv Cbvistmas (HAW IONFC Day and Ni9nt Newman Sinclair jriMVY JvllCj Camera Hire Service 49 GREEK STREET, SOHO, W.1. GER : 6716