Documentary News Letter (1942-1943)

DOCUMKMARV NEWS LETTER AUGUST 1942 SCIENTIFIC FILMS IN BRITAIN By FOURWAY Civil DEFENCE artists parade in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Political and war training pamphlets monopolise the bookstalls. Aesthetics is being shown the door. Art for art's sake takes one nowhere it" one is stalking a U.X.B. or getting ready for a second front. But aesthetics is still strong, still kicking, even though its kicks may be the kicks of its death throes. The war kids too many people into believing that our intellectual junk shops have been bombed every time the shutters are put up temporarily. In films, at any rate the aesthetic approach is being eaten up by the practical "What can I learn from this?" approach. The series, Canada Carries On, and Fire Guard, to quote two widely differing examples, make this plain. Not that the change is a new one. In Britain it dates at least from Drifters and from the time when the British gas industry decided to base its film programmes on sociology rather than on beauty or sales talk. 3ut the war has speeded up the change enormously. It has rearranged the values of movie making by evolving a new set of box-office criteria. "Is it true?" is beginning to take the place of "Is it entertainment?" Which means that this is one of the periods of history when public taste is in advance of public leadership — one of the periods when the leaders may be asked to give account of their stewardship. This change in public taste and public values is shown significantly in the growth of the scientific 11m movement, which has taken place almost wholly within the war period and has overtaken, in a matter of two years, ten years of stately motion of what may be called the cultural film society movement. The origins of the earlier cultural type of film society, and the scientific film society are a study in comparative sociology. The former was started in 1925 by a group of people particularly interested in the art and technique of making films. Through these early film societies Russian and German classics were screened. The names of Eisenstein and Lubitsch began to come into the same sentences as Aldous Huxley and Virginia Woolfe. The cultural film society movement helped to turn the film from the popular mythology it had been till 1925 into an "art" and an "industry". (Compare Shoulder Arms with The Dictator.) In short, the cultural film society movement, by creating standards of criticism, helped to make the film industry respectable. But the cultural film society movement was— and is imarily interested in films as films; it has usually avoided the consideration of films as a social force, though the progressive Edinburgh Film Guild is arranging programmes designed to explain the outlook, cultural and economic life of various countries. The Scientific Film Society movement was started in 1937 by the Association of Scientific Workers. In that year the Association set up a Scientific Films Committee (a Film Study Group had been active since 1936) "to further the interests of the scientific film, co-ordinating and improving on what is already being done . . .". The Association of Scientific Workers had, of course, no interest in films as such, but it held that its function as a trade union representing working scientists could not be fully developed until there was better public understanding of the work of scientists and of the scientific method The scientific film was one obvious weapon to achieve this purpose In detail, the Scientific I ilms Committee was charged "to make ... a complete file of information concerning (</> scientific films available graded according to merit; (/>) projection equipment available ..." It was to maintain a panel of scientific advisers to aid film producers, and a panel of film producers to aid scientists. It was to issue certificates of merit to suitable films, to produce films and to arrange shows of films "on a national scale". Of these various duties, only the first — the compilation of graded lists of films, and the last — the arranging of film shows on a national scale, have been fully developed. The Scientific Films Committee set up panels of film viewers and began to go through all the available scientific films, assessing them for accuracy of subject matter, clarity of exposition, and suitability for various types of audience. The conclusions of the viewing panels are published from time to time. In 1938, the Scientific Films Committee was responsible for starting the London Scientific Film Society — the first of its kind, and now running independently of the Association of Scientific Workers. In the same year the A.S.W. arranged a series of important scientific film shows in Cambridge, and in 1939 Nan Clow started the Scientific Film Club of Aberdeen. Today there are no less than seven flourishing scientific film societies in Scotland alone — at Aberdeen, Ardrossan, Ayr, Dalmellington, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Prestwick — all save the first started since the war. In England, with the exception of the London Scientific Film Society (which survived the blitz with difficulty but is now flourishing) there were,*till recently, no organised societies, though local A.S.W. committees arranged no less than fifty-one shows in the eight months ending May 1942. There are now signs that England will follow the lead of Scotland and set up formally constituted film societies. (Sporadic shows — however successful — cannot hope to become growing points of public interest.) At first there were some differences of opinion between those who thought that the A.S.W. should support only "films of pure science", and those who thought it should support also films illustrating the relations between science and society ; between those who thought the Scientific Films Committee should represent mainly scientists who wished to see films, and those who considered the Committee's principal duty to be the interpretation of science to the public through the medium of films. These difficulties were, however, academic and disappeared as soon as the Committee proved its usefulness by undertaking both types of duty, and by arranging to book complete programmes of scientific films for anyone who required them, compiling each programme according to the tastes of the audience to be catered for. In April, 1941, the Scientific Films Committee published a Memorandum* distinguishing between the film of instruction and the film of interpretation, urging the need for the wide and organised distribution of scientific films and drawing attention to serious gaps in the subjects covered by existing films. (Scottish teachers, through the Scottish Educational Film Association, had already drawn up a list of subjects on which films were urgently needed.) By early 1942, the Scientific Film movement had developed to such an extent that it was possible to hold a National Scientific Film Conference. The tone of the conference was set by the notice convening the London Session, part of which read : "If we are to avoid disastrous mistakes in social planning, both during and after the war, it is vitally necessary that there should be a widespread understanding of the scientific method. The creative potentialities of science need to be brought vividly into the consciousness of every citizen. . . . Enormous potential audiences are ready, in the factories, in Civil Defence, and in the Armed Forces. . . . The general purpose of this Conference is to see that the films are brought to the audiences." There were two sessions, the first at Ayr on Saturday and Sunday, August 1st and 2nd, the second in London on August 16th. Arthur Elton took the chair during the afternoon meetings at each session. At the Ayr session, 33 delegates attended, representing 27 organisations including the 7 Scottish Film Societies and such organisation: a the Glasgow Corporation, G-B. Instructional, the Educational Institute of Scotland, together with two delegates representing London interests and delegates from Nottingham (Boots' CineClub), Birmingham, and other English towns. The Saturday morning meeting was taken up with reports from the Scottish Film Societies and the passing of resolutions, subsequently endorsed by the London session, and discussed below. The afternoon meeting was opened by the chairman, who pointed out that just as the Cultural Film Society had had a profound effect on the film by creating critical standards, so could the Scientific Film Society movement have an equally profound influence. To win this war efficiently, economically and equitably, it was necessary that we should become a nation of scientists. Not highbrows immersed in technique, but citizens with minds orientated methodically to environment. t Seven other speakers discussed practical problems of setting up societies, choosing programmes, and film appreciation. On the Saturday evening there was an exhibition of amateur scientific films, one on Blood Transfusion, one to recruit women into industry, and one on a deficiency disease in sheep. The makers of these films were primarily interested in conveying a useful message. From this it followed that each film was of greater than local importance, for each could be used (and in two cases was already being used) in the Scottish libraries as a direct part of the war effort. For as soon as the amateur gives up competing with the professional in terms of film technique, camera movement or acting, and begins to compete with him in terms of clarity of exposition or intrinsic social importance of subject matter, the amateur is on level terms with the professional, or even at an advantage over him. Infacl.theainaieurceased to be an amateur; he becomes professional. •See D.N.I . Vol ii . No. 4. pane 6!. s.v I) N I 101. (Continued overleaf)