Documentary News Letter (1942-1943)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1942 War and Peace The Function of Documentary At the outbreak of war the film medium was neglected and the claims of those who practised it to assist in the anti-fascist fight were ignored. To-day the documentary film has become the fashionable toy of every official interest. Propaganda films or instructional films? Endless discussions are everywhere taking place as to the proper wartime role of the film of fact. There is agreement on only one point : that you can't have too many films. The civil servant who is not convinced that his work must be recorded on celluloid for the benefit of posterity is a rarity. There is no question of whether the subject-matter he brings is suitable for the medium or whether channels of distribution lie open for the film once it is completed— to have your work filmed is like appearing in the honours list, it is a sure mark of public achievement. The Limitations The time has come for documentary makers to examine not only the powers but also the limitations of the medium they employ. Such an examination will lead to one single incontrovertible conclusion. The primary function of documentary remains to-day, as always, the furtherance of public enlightenment. The issue between instructional and propaganda films, and the vexed question as to which should principally occupy documentary energies in wartime, becomes a matter of small consequence when each type of film is seen to have the same basic purpose. That is to say, the documentary film to-day is concerned with extending public knowledge of vital issues and, in order to do so, it may equally desirably find itself representing the effect of fascist terror upon French national psychology on the one hand, or in instructing housewives on methods of fuel-saving on the other. Those sponsors or makers of documentary films who show little respect for the educational or instructional films as compared with what they feel to be the more important world of propaganda, reveal a complete failure to grasp the original documentary principle. Documentary in its beginnings, and still to-day, is concerned with public enlightenment, but with public enlightenment in a broader sense of the phrase than is accepted in any other field. For the documentary movement, education has always meant not simply and solely a classroom activity. It broadens out from the pedagogic into every field of civic life. Documentary propaganda has always been concerned with the citizen in relation to his social environment. In to-day's warI time situation, many people have assumed that \ the purpose of documentary would be basically j changed because of the switch-over from peace to war. Why should this be so? The nature of wartime educational and propaganda needs I differs from those of peacetime only in detail, not in principle. The nation or groups of nations which will prove victorious is the one which develops the most intelligent and efficient grasp of its problems. In war, as in peace, the role of documentary is to convey to the peoples of the United Nations the most thorough grasp FILM OF THE MONTH "Went the Day Well" /^avalcanti, producer of the impeccably ^"exciting film about the Foreman who went to France, has turned director and presents us with the not at all impeccable but equally exciting Went the Day Well. The film has all the appearance of having been made with one eye on the clock and the other on a copy of the Boy's Own Paper. Perhaps that is why it is such a good film in spite of its faults which are many, frequent and completely unimportant. If you like a film which lingers over its effects, which makes significant detail the turning point of emotion and plot, in fact if you like a film to ponder and remember, this is not for you. But if you believe that it takes all kinds of films to make an evening out and that a rattlin' good yarn admirably turned into celluloid without any of the war situation and its basic implications. The information to be communicated covers the whole of life. At the one extreme it is a matter of feeling and mood: at the otherextreme a matter of physical manipulation. If you like, call the long-term films "propagandist" and the short-term films "instructional". Names do not matter provided you remember that in peace or in war British documentary is always concerned with creating a body of informed, active and therefore good, citizens. There is, however, one important proviso. In wartime the need is more acute because the issues are more critical and failure more disastrous. For this reason the process of enlightenment must in wartime be accelerated. All relevant media, including documentary, need to show quicker results. Energy Wasted If it is accepted that the role of documentary in wartime is informational in this very broad sense, then it immediately becomes clear that a great deal of documentary energy is being wasted on so-called propaganda films which have less relation to fact than to artificial and synthetic feelings calculated to please the superficial observer here or overseas. Under this head fall all films which are content simply to ascribe to ourselves or our allies all the most desirable virtues without providing any factual basis for such self-righteous assumptions. We must be judged by deeds, not by words, and if we are to impress the world with the righteousness of our cause we will do it best by a factual presentation of achievements which we believe to be in the line of good citizenship. Many minds are occupied with the transition from war to post-war and its effect upon documentary objectives. Here again there need be, indeed there should be, no basic change. The good citizen in time of war is also the good citizen in time of peace. Implicit in documentary's wartime teachings must be its teachings for the peace to follow, and information, placed in its true perspectives, is the key. To-day, in wartime, education in national citizenship is broadening into education for citizenship in the corporate United Nations. In peacetime it will broaden further still into education for world citizenship. The process is continuous. frills or decorations is worth going a long way to see, then here is first class entertainment. A party of Royal Engineers arrive in a rural I iiL'lish \illage. They are welcomed by one and all, shown round the defences by the local Home Guard and arc made much of by the local gentry. But very quickly the villagers' suspicions are aroused. English soldiers don't (wist little boys ears (at least, not both at once), we don't make sevens with a bar across the upright, our chocolate does not come from Wien and is not spelt "chokolade". In spite of the efforts of the local Quisling the not impossible plot is out. The Engineers are German forerunners of a full scale invasion. Their discover) means that plan XYZ has to be put into action. This involves shooting the Home Guard and putting all the villagers into the church where the vicar is immediately shot for trying to ring the bells. The film then settles down to tell how the villagers outwitted the Germans. Mounting Suspense To tell any more of the story would spoil the film for it depends entirely for its effect on quick action and mounting suspense. It keeps you sitting on the edge of your seat and the fact that the whole thing can be torn to pieces doesn't matter in the least. My particular quibble was that if the boy who came from another village to deliver the Sunday papers was as stupid as all that, he wouldn't have been allowed to handle even the "Sunday (censored)". But it didn't spoil my enjoyment of the film-at all. For some strange reason, and this is surely a tribute to its makers. Went the Day Well has provoked more differences of opinion than many more important films. Sunday's Darling Goddesses of the film temple have thundered forth from opposite sides and everybody who doesn't like it is quite unable to speak for rage, while those who enjoyed it, and they seem to be in the majority, spend their time telling everybody else to go and see it. Camera and Sound The actors play their parts for all they artworth, I particularly admired Marie Loin's efficient but fatal handling of the hand grenade and Elizabeth Allan's look of sick but victorious horror when she shot her first German. The camera work was excellent. The sound seemed a bit astray, the dinner party in particular sounding as though the whole thing was taking place in an empty swimming bath, but whether this was recording or reproduction it is difficult to say. And here's a final nag. Why do people have to call films by these literary and impossibleto-remember titles. "Went the Day Well," "This Above All," "All This and I kv What do these conglomerations of words mean to anybody who hasn't got a Boots' library subscription or a Golden Treasury handy? And jusl in case the final quibble has left a narking impression let me repeat that this is a refreshing, an exciting and an excellent film and will be enjoyed by everybody except the hopelessly politically-minded and the most pure of intellectuals.