Documentary News Letter (1942-1943)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MAY 1942 The Documentary of the Month THE HARVEST SHALL COME Production: Realist Film Unit lor Imperial Chemical Industries. Producer: Basil Wright. Direction: Max Anderson. Camera: A. E. Jeakins. Script: H. W. Freeman. Music: William Alwyn. Commentators: Edmund Willard and Bruce Belfrage. Cast: John Slater, Eileen Beldon and Richard George. Running time: 40 minutes The documentary film has too frequently in the past and still today been stigmatised as a cold, objective reporting of facts. Its critics harp back to the early days of sound when many documentaries were simply pictures illustrated by commentary. The critics have taken no heed of the advances made by documentary since 1933. Grierson emphasised in this advance the importance of the human factor in relation to whatever story was being told, but as it was not at first possible to employ expensive synchronous sound, the earliest documentaries were restricted to the bringing alive of ordinary human beings in visual terms. Grierson brought Robert Flaherty to this country to add to the documentary films that quality of human feeling that Flaherty had so successfully developed elsewhere. Parallel with this development went the development of sound. The documentary was impatient with the purely reproductive cinema, and when it acquired sound, it endeavoured to use it imaginatively. Grierson brought Cavalcanti to this country to aid in this development ; so that simultaneously two developments were proceeding— the development of the human interest and the development of imaginative sound. These developments did not obscure the fact that documentary was not being built up simply as a method of film-making but as a means to an end. Its readiness to adopt all the new developments and to be in the van of technical progress did not mean that it was neglecting the possibilities of other methods of evolving its theories. There were many attempts to adapt the story. At first documentary naturally looked to the reporting of true stories from life, and these found their beginnings in North Sea. There were two reasons why documentaries did not go more fully into the story type of film — one was their desire to master craft; and secondly, the limitation of finance. Films like Merchant Seamen and Target for Tonight are films modelled on the work done in the early North Sea period. They have an immediate dramatic appeal because their subjects in themselves are dramatic; but today that side of documentary film-making shows no signs of advance, except in technical quality. These remarks are only a preface to consideration of a new documentary film. The Harvest Shall Come, which marks one of documentary's most significant steps forward. It is the first genuine story film made with the documentary purpose and by documentary method. The story is that of a farm labourer and his family, their life from the day when he joins the farm as a youngster in the nineleen-hundreds to the present war. The main parts are played by actors, and the background is filled in by local Suffolk villagers. Because of the integrity of the script writing and direction there are no points where the two groups clash. The actors merge into their background. There are no false situations and there are none of the story twists so dear to the hearts of our professional scriptwriters. The films pulls no punches and tells the unfortunate story of the decay of British agriculture, which in the last forty years has only been encouraged by the incidence of two wars. The story is fiction, but it reflects the life of every British farm labourer and is heart-tearing in its sincerity and in the power of its deliberate understatement. It is a great tribute to that section of the community — the farm workers — who have borne the burden of the industry's decay. The film has all been photographed on location and tells its story purely by dialogue. Even the cottage interiors were shot in the village. There is a lack of technical polish about the film which only adds to its quality as a rugged documentary. It has been argued that a certain technical brilliance of the photography in The Grapes of Wrath tended to emphasise the unreality of certain sequences, particularly in the "Okie" camp. If there is any criticism to be made it is that the artificial sequence of the two women who tip the main character because he is only farm labourer illustrates the difficulty in adding to an honest story some extraneous incident to push the argument home. The film has deliberately eschewed the lyrical approach to the countryside so beloved of the romantic impressionists of documentary. Here there are no fine billowing clouds and rich meadow-land looming through the filters. It is not forgotten that behind the beauty of the rambler roses and the thatched roof is the squalor of rural housing. The film is sober in tone and has that purposeful insistence on facts that is a characteristic of all good documentary. The film marks the emergence of one of the best documentary directors for many years — Max Anderson — and of the actors, it should be said that John Slater, playing the main character, is an outstanding interpreter of working-class character. There is no doubt that this film must be shown in the ordinary cinemas, and will undoubtedly prove an outstanding success. Its honesty, its closeness to the hopes and fears of ordinary people, its reflection of the nobility and heroism of the ordinary working man, will reach out to the hearts of any audience. CHANGE OF ADDRESS Park Studios Putney Park Lane S.W.15. TEL. unchanged Putney 6274 I FILM/ OF GREAT BRITAIN LIMITED