Documentary News Letter (1940)

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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER MARCH 1940 NATIONAL PUBLICITY IN WARTIME, no Icss than in peace, films which seek honestly to portray civiUsed communities cannot avoid social problems. Education, housing, food supply, working conditions, individual liberty ; these are the things for which men fight in wartime no less than in peace. A people at war may attempt to reject the consideration of them in its propaganda, but only at the risk of presenting to the world the hollow shell of a nation. Today, national publicity has become a wartime weapon and the necessity arises to reconsider the motive and angle of approach in filming sociological subjects. The social organisation of any community is immature, and reporting by film in this field, whether British or foreign, can seldom be exclusively iDi| favourable if the whole story is to be told honestly. Since frankness in self-criticism is always a potential gift to the counterpropagandist, peacetime standards of objectivity which rejected partisanship and ill-founded self-congratulation must be at)l|justified anew, or modified to satisfy the demands of the war effort. In a war between countries professing rival social ideologies which compete for world support, the temptation is away from truth in advertising. Are the rewards for resisting limitemptation to be found only in heaven, or is truth a sword to ioijwhich we can trust our destinies even in modern warfare? Britain's wartime record in honest self-examination, particu:hi larly the record of the press, gives as yet no cause for shame. No Men country at war in modern times has enjoyed greater freedom of editorial comment, although in broadcasting our record is Scarcely so good. In films, .although there have been as yet edjj Insufficient releases of subjects related to the war, or to the goj [British social system, to reveal the current tendencies, a few iiuiK bbservations may be made. To set against the implicit critijdtl pisms of private coal ownership and trade unions permitted in lUiiii ^he Stars Look Down is the shelving of the plan to film Love fv tl \>n the Dole. I Our policy of national publicity by film is yet to be deterned, and in drafting it we begin with the advantage of clean slate. But a policy must be written and it must a policy which provides for the screen examination f social issues, whether controversial or not. For these never be official secrets. If we continue to starve our ema audiences at home or abroad of information on priniples so vital that we are willing to go to war for them, it must le at the cost of throwing those principles open to world-wide loubt. Once the decision is taken to reveal that Britain is in "act a democracy we are faced with a further choice. We can present for the examination of a critical world a democracy hat never fails; or we can present a democracy that often )artially succeeds. Fiction or fact? In the long run fact will pay )est; will it pay us best in the comparatively short run of war? In reviewing the British Council's film on evacuation The Hmes says: ''These Children Are Safe, good as it is, would have been even better had it always been remembered that it is the duty of a documentary camera to give a portrait of its subject that does not slur over its less pleasant features." lere is a definition of documentary duties with which no one can decently quarrel. Yet the consequences of accepting it today must be faced. It means that when we are pubHcising to the world our national wartime achievements we shall not pretend that things are better than they are, that we are always right, that our system of government is perfect. It means that we must not conceal unpleasant truths in obedience to the fear that by revealing them we furnish Dr Goebbels with ammunition to use against us. These are the consequences of a poUcy of frank and honest screening of our wartime social problems. What risks do they entail of loss of prestige and support abroad, or of faltering resolution at home? If we may seem to make a present of anti-British propaganda to Dr Goebbels that need not disturb us. He is unlikely to be kept in ignorance of any British social problem by its absence from the screen. He is in fact more likely to make capital of suppression than of frank admission, since, in commenting on The Stars Look Down, his Hamburg announcer was mainly concerned to draw attention to the omission of Cronin's House of Commons scene. What would be the effect at home of films fairly representing the critical domestic issues of the day? Would British morale be weakened by films which articulated the inevitable dislocations of war, which propounded solution and counter-solution, which took the man-in-the-street to the legislator's table and showed him where he fitted into the scheme of things, and why? The man-in-the-street must believe it is his war or lose it ; and he cannot fight blindfold. Can it be argued that to admit that our democracy is no lightning cure for every wartime ill would deprive the neutral countries of all faith in us and all hope in our victory? If so, the American film tradition of self-criticism should already have laid democracy low before a totaUtarian blow could be struck. But that has hardly been the effect of such public laundering of democratic dirty Hnen as we have seen in films like Black Fury, They Gave Him a Gun, They Never Forget, and many courageous March of Time items ; films of a type which America has certainly not abandoned in her lately intensified determination to preserve the system of Government she is still prepared to criticise in Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Dust be My Destiny. What influences have such films had upon our own estimate of American prospects of success in overcoming any obstacle, internal or external, and evolving a better order of things? Controversy is the life-blood of democracy and America, by her self-criticism, has demonstrated a vitahty which springs from roots in the people. By her freedom of speech, the essential symbol of democracy, America has demonstrated a full-blooded vigour which has done much to give her the reputation of the world's greatest democracy. Today the strength of a nation is measured by the satisfaction of its people. Britain has a record in social service unsurpassed in the world, and publicity for the progress made since the last war in such fields as housing and nutrition can be used to win us support abroad and to reinforce our determination at home. But it is not enough to record our past achievements. Com