Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JUNE 1940 ■•j gorously than hitherto, the use of films. We have already '3 jntioned the value of documentary films in the theatres. In ^'^t Idition to this there are the many organisations which supply '•>sii| ms to a wide public outside the theatres. These include, for •' i^l^ stance, the varied libraries listed on our catalogue page; '^i eir coverage is on all counts both large and influential. The t'^cres 1ms Division must note and cater for all these audiences if its ^ Drk at home (let alone in allied and neutral countries) is to be "JrEiia uly effective. To quote once again from the Rockefeller jport : — "Democracy today needs the social scientists, both inside and outside the universities. It needs to free them to think with all possible penetration, wherever that thinking may lead. New ideas about human relations and institutional adjustment should be fully, honestly and hospitably analysed. Society should be most deeply concerned not with ridiculing failures or condemning those whose findings it does not approve, but with aiding that small minority of pioneers Svhose work in the social studies is reaching up to new levels of scientific achievement. Such persons are to be found in universities, in government and in private life. No greater M 01 It)' for J imate r Ken mea 'I infoi 'chavi hnique :r am nanoi LH contribution to the disinterested comprehension of today's issues could be made than by affording these able men and women full opportunity to make their work genuinely eff"ective." Such sentiments can and must be translated into terms of war as well as terms of peace. By so doing, the actual war eff"ort will receive a real measure of assistance ; for without vivid enlightenment there may well come a secondary (but dangerous) apathy in the consciousness of people whose major eff'orts are bound up in a gigantic struggle against a ruthless and wellorganised foe. If it is too late to talk of rival ideologies, it is by no means too late to talk of the free mind and, if the phrase can still be accepted, of the good life. Both in public cinemas and in all parts of the non-theatrical world the documentary film has a real contribution to offer. The problem is not one of whether documentary should "go theatrical". The problem is to find the maximum coverage in all fields for a medium which has so much to offer — from inspiration to information — at a time when it was never more vital to find a quick answer to every citizen who, echoing King Lear, demands : — "What's here, beside foul weather?" ECONOMICS ON THE SCREEN •am leadii GREAT DEAL of credit is due to Professor M. Polanyi for IS courage and imagination in pioneering in the use of 1ms in economics teaching. This is a field with great possiilities and one which has been almost entirely neglected. t was not to be expected that the first production of this kind 'ould immediately and triumphantly overcome all difiiculties. 'erhaps, the chief value of Professor Polanyi's film is that it W Bveals very clearly what the difficulties are going to be ; and EOiai ;o TlieJo lalcoii l!0 the EDITORIAL note: The forty minute diagrammatic film Unemployment and Money reviewed here by a London University Extension lecturer on economics was planned and supervised by Professor M. Polanyi, of the Economics Department of Manchester University, assisted by Professor Jewkes. First experimental sequences of the film were financed by private subscription ; the present film was made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The production of the film was undertaken by G.B. Instructional, with Mary Field as producer; the diagrams were designed by R. E. Jeff'ryes and the animation was done by Diagram Films and Science Films. In design and animation the film is a brilliant demonstration of iM the skill and ability of these companies in the production of diagrammatic films. fas,i creat! iofsfl 10 'ill set him and others thinking how they may be overcome. The subject of the film is Unemployment and Money. This fi itself brings out the first difficulty. This particular subject is jj, pcceptionally complicated, and exceptionally controversial. It is ^Imost impossible to present a theoretical analysis of compliated economic sequences in a visual form without immense impUfication. This simplification in its turn implies comaitting yourself, broadly speaking, to whole-hearted endorsenent of one theory, while many are still in the field, and are ipheld in highly respected quarters. The layman will certainly parn one lesson, if he follows Professor Polanyi's film atten^vely. He will come away convinced that unemployment is created by the (apparently quite arbitrary) pohcies of the banks. This is a very dangerous half-truth in a field where nobody really quite knows what the whole truth is. But the fact is that there are probably very few propositions in economic theory which have yet reached the stage of being universally accepted by competent students as demonstrably true. The tendency of an expanding circulation to raise the general level of prices might be cited as one such proposition (and it is one that might very well be the subject of visual exposition) ; but there are precious few others. From many points of view it might be better to begin with something as simple and restricted as this, rather than to attempt to present the appaUingly complex series of relationships involved in the connexion between monetary pohcy and unemployment or cycles of trade. In the second place, variety is essential. Unemployment and Money opens very pleasantly with its processions of animated figures — workers going out to earn the money, and housewives going out to spend it. (Incidentally the fact that it is possible to obtain an income without working for it is tactfully ignored.