Documentary News Letter (1942-1943)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER FEBRUARY 1942 NEWS LITTER MONTHLY SIXPENCE VOL. 3 NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 1942 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER stands for the use of film as a medium of propaganda and instruction in the interests of the people of Great Britain and the Empire and in the interests of common people all over the world. DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER is produced under the auspices of Film Centre, London, in association with American Film Center, New York. EDITORIAL BOARD Edgar Anstey Alexander Shaw Donald Taylor John Taylor Basil Wright EDITOR Ronald Horton Outside contributions will be welcomed but no fees will be paid. We are prepared to deliver from 3—50 copies in bulk to Schools, Film Societies and other organisations. Owned and published by FILM CENTRE LTD. 34 SOHO SQUARE LONDON W.l GERRARD 4253 LETTER TO INDIA Alexander Shaw, in an open letter to a friend in India, discusses his experiences in Indian film production To Pwshottam Tricaindas. Esq., cjo The High Cowl, Bombay. MY DEAR PURSHOTTAM, To write an article about films in India is to write an article about politics. India is now probably the great representative political question, on the correct solution of which much of the future hangs. Enough is being written about India and politics now — here is a letter to you about India and documentary films. It was you who really wrecked the whole show. After six weeks in India it seemed quite obvious that everybody in your country is slightly mad. Some, but not very many, are pleasant l> mad; the others are dangerously crazy. The Europeans are mad because, although they most of them realise the real dangers of the situation, they find it more comfortable to imagine that Victoria, Empress of India, is still on the throne. Your countrymen are mad because they cannot get what they want — freedom. A word for which we are all fighting across the world, but which has never been allowed in connection with the word India. The Mutiny, as we call it, is just over everybody's shoulder and the shadow of General Dyer lies darkly across the last twenty years. Neither side ever forgets these two terrible pieces of history; to the stranger they are something out of a book — to everybody living in India they are to-day's headlines. That's how it seemed at first anyway and that, for the moment, is enough about politics. It was all very difficult for the stranger. Then you came along and, later, were good enough to bring your friends and you showed us what India is really like. Seen from the ship, exotic skyline of Bomba clear. To form a film u icross the reasonably , the problem seemed t of Indians, to train f documentary films, would show them the eep clear of politics. but not perhaps nn them in the technique to make some films whk way and. above all. to Hard work for a year possible. Within six weeks of landing the problem appeared completely insoluble. The making of these films, the composition of the unit and even the mere presence of an English film maker in India, had become questions over which film trade magnates and politicians fought with a bitterness worthy of many better causes. The attacks of the Press, the questions in the Assembly, the cunning thrusts of the American film trade could in the end be ignored or parried. And, of course, there was alwa\s the ivor> tower of Government to retire to. But films can't be made in a vacuum, they can't be made by people cut off from everything except officialdom. The honest film makers must go down into the market place, must be inquisitive, must sense the feel Ol the people and the lie of the land. I he\ must ask the whj and the wherefore and they must co-ordinate and turn into celluloid the results of their contacts and questions. Perhaps it might have been better if we had tried to make our films in a vacuum. There would, at least, have been fewer miseries for everybody, but I think now. as I thought then, that the whole thing would have folded up in a few months, and any films produced would not have been worth looking at. But it would have been much more peaceful. That's why I said that you wrecked the show . You held the key and you lent it and thus destroyed the peace. I hope that it did not bring too much trouble upon your head, although, of course, you are used to trouble. The war effort films were comparatively easy We went to the factories and shot the films and tried to forget what India's war effort could have been if you had come into the war with us instead of being brought into it by us. We filmed the great Tata Iron and Steel Works in Bengal, pouring out thousands of tons of every sort of steel. We filmed the first armoured car to be produced in India, made out of Indian steel and built by Indian hands, the forerunner of a ceaseless stream of the weapons of mechanised warfare. We filmed the army trucks being assembled on their ever-moving lines, the production figures rising daily as the cameras turned. There's plenty of war production in your country, as you know — bullets and shells and guns, tents and khaki drill and medical supplies. Aeroplanes assembled in India soar above the fertile land of Mysore on their test flights, ships built in India slide down the slips to join their sisters in the Royal Indian Navy. Yes. there's plenty of production in India and the armies of the Middle East have felt its weight behind them. We made six films about it and could have made many more. Then there were the Services. The} were easj too. The Royal Indian Navy, for many years a token fleet, has become a reality. Many of the Indians who join it have never seen the sea. but they take to it as though they had always lived in ships just as their brothers on the coast. Indian and English Naval Officers guard the coast of India together and they have played their important part in the war in Africa. The Indian Army needed no film boosting; then exploits in Eritrea alone have earned the applause of the world. The cinema goers were clamouring for films news of them. G.H.Q. did not take kindly to the idea of cameramen attached to the Eorces. and English newsreel cameramen naturally tended to film their own countrymen at war. Australia and South Africa had their own film units in the field and they, too. concentrated on their own battalions. Eor a time the situation was difficult. The Press was full of the great deeds of the Indian soldier, but the newsreel could onlj show the other conquerors. Hut now India has her own film units to see that full justice is done lo their part in the war. B\ now you should be seeing them on the screens in the air-conditioned cinemas of Bombay. There were Indian pilots to take up practice dive-bombing and Indian ground staff to show