Documentary News Letter (1942-1943)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MARCH 1942 DOCUMENTARY AND EDUCATION there is no greater indictment of our genera! educational system than that at this time when initiative, competence and co-operation in every branch of our national war effort is needed, there is so much muddle, indecision, and failure to cope with emergencies. The result of this lack of coordination and of the desire to pass on the responsibility for action to someone else means that the most urgent things do not get done. Whilst we delay and hesitate and ignore the lessons of our disasters, our national prestige declines. As long as the school curriculum continues to make little provision for making people aware of the obligations of citizenship, other methods must be used to arouse this consciousness in the general public. The press, the film and the radio e the principal channels for conveying information. They can influence public op nion and rouse the interest of the greatest number of people simultaneously. The responsibility of giving the right sort of information rest in the hands of those who control these three services. The greatest moral integrity on the part of those who wield such power is therefore essential. The film is the only one of these services which can make its appeal to a large gathering of people who have come together individually and form a temporary community whose reactions can be observed. People go to the cinema to be entertained and not for instruction; but if a docu ntary film presents a theme which is related to a human experience with which they are in sympathy or which they share, then the audience appreciates it and it will have a direct influence on their attitude of mind towards the problem which has been presented. In these days of upheaval, when homes are broken up. and families separated, when a feeling of uncertainty and frustration and boredom makes decent people doubt their old ideals and distorts their sense of values, a film like They Also Serve restores the sanity of human kindliness and neighbourly common sense. There is nothing spectacular, nothing consciously heroic about this story' of a woman who serves the needs of her family, who rubs her husband's rheumatic back when he comes home from work, who helps her young neighbours, and who by her patience and friendly example makes her rather selfish daughter feel quietly ashamed of herself. This film is essentially human and free from the taint of sentimentality or a patronising attitude. It is for the homes of such people, for the most fundamental of human relationships, that we are fighting. All the qualities which the mother in They Also Serve shows are needed in the efficient running of this war for the people. It is possible through films of this nature to do something which neither lecturing or preaching can do. For instance if more films on evacuation could have been treated in this way and widely shown in reception areas and in those towns from which women and children were evacuated, the insurmountable psychological problems might have been humanly solved instead of being officially ignored. Living with Strangers does, indeed, go some way towards presenting the problem properly. There is a need for these •"social" films which frankly present themes which deal with those probf which harass so many people; problems which assume gigantic proportions until a sympathetic (By EDITH MANVELL) and understanding person restores a sense of balance and wisely guides a worried community to find its own solution to them. In a society which regarded education as a social service instead of as a means of instilling a lot of miscellaneous facts and arbitrary rules of conduct into the minds of more or less unwilling victims, many of the difficulties which beset adult life would never arise. But as it is. few people have been encouraged to combine competence with human understanding when taking the initiative or making decisions. Only the antisocial and selfish people seem capable of being efficient : the rest of the community just drifts along, waiting to be told what to do, making mistakes, and correcting them by bitter experience. The right kind of education would avoid much of this, or at least it could set things going along the right lines. Films can show us how sensible and competent people get on with the most ordinary jobs whether they are directly concerned with the war effort or with the welfare of people who have other responsibilities. How, for instance, does the housewife combine home duties with work in a factory? Some women can do it, others get in an awful muddle and the home and the work suffer in consequence. I should like to see a film on infant welfare, not as an instructional film made in an institution run by a highly trained staff, but in the home of a woman like the mother in They Also Serve — a working class home such as many women have to live in. Where conditions are bad, the criticism implied might rouse the social consciousness of those who see the film and make those who themselves live in such conditions aware that they have a right to something better after this war is over. Another film could treat the theme of the nursery school from a new angle: that is, in its influence on the home life of the child who attends such a school. Do the children who go to these schools live in two worlds? Are their minds confused by having to change over twice a day from one environment to another? Are they bewildered by having to make a rapid mental readjustment when they get home, where they may get a "box on the ears" for doing something which at school they are encouraged to do? Are the parents being educated as well as the children, or do they send them to school because they do not want the trouble and responsibility of looking after them? Though many institutions offer better conditions than many homes, they can never supplant the home, nor should they. It is for the people that the fight goes on and against such things as bad housing — bad cooking and housekeeping— ignorance and low standards o\ living against similar inefficiency and lack of responsibility in national affairs that we are struggling. Many films, simple, short and direct would be better than a few long films which arc too comprehensive. Not only should they appear in cinemas just once, but they should be available for clubs, welfare centres and other institutions, through the local library projection service as the need arises. Post-war reconstruction will not be just a matter of rebuilding our devastated cities, nor should it be left entirely to governing bodies to carry out. Reconstruction will mean very little if the greatest problems of modern civilisation — the spiritual or psychological aspect of reconstruction—is neglected. This is one subject which is going to cause a lot of trouble in the future, but whether it will ever come in the province of documentary films depends on its social application. That is, the religious and moral education which is going to be inflicted on people, especially school children, in the future. Is it going to be left in the hands of professional theologians to dictate on these matters, or are people going to ask that moral upbringing in the future must be based on the development of a sense of social and individual responsibility to the community, and the positive idea of service as something which is worthwhile because it contributes to the happiness of others? What will meet with official approval in this matter may leave the public indifferent. The mass of people will not be impressed by religious revivals; they will continue to drift on in a rather purposeless manner, gradually losing their sense of values, unless some moral objective replaces the unprogressive ideas of controversial theology or the sentimentality of many of its disciples. People to-day want to feel that there is a real purpose in being alive, not just as individuals but as the founders of a new kind of community where vital issues are not entirely based on physical needs. Can this unformed, this rather vague urge to a new ideal be expressed through the medium of film?