Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JULY 1940 CHILDREN AS FILM CRITICS essay on Ekk's Road to Life won a rize offered by DNL in conjunction with le Education Department of the Burslem idustrial Co-operative Society. Another [rize essay will be pubhshed next month. (y a senior pupil at the City School of Commerce HIS FILM made a great impression on me, peraps because it is the first Russian film I have een, and it has certainly made me want to see IK '°'^ ** The treatment of iheme and photography is so ifferent from American films, as is the stark ealism of the sordid details, such as the last asps of Kolka's mother, the drunken madness )f his father, the dead Mustapha jolting on the rain, the stoning of the dog, and the smeared nakc-up on the snivelling women after the vrccking of the hut. The fine photography impressed me very nuch, and certain parts stick in my memory. )ne of these is where Sergei was alone in conlict with the boys : he was shown alone on a black background, with a strong light on the single igure, with no furniture or other figures to disI ,ract the eye. I think this emphasised how alone _^ I pe was and also the strength of his character. Another was when he returned from Moscow to he Collective and was confronted by a sacked refectory. He sat down, alone again, on a bench, ;learly lighted, and gradually dark, unlighted igures closed in on him, the shapes of the boys. Dne more excellent effect was when Mustapha, fColka, and the pick of the Collective went to the [lut to break up the gang, and Mizcha was drunk. The room was seen from his bleared eyes, whirling J 1 "ound in a mad kaleidoscope, with voices swelling md dwindling in a crazy rhythm. Suddenly the lounds stopped, and in a cold clear shot a levelled ■evolver was seen. Something of the same effect vas felt when the first rebels from the Collective rolled home along the railway track. The camera ivas apparently behind their legs, swaying and lurching with them. An effective shot was when Sergei was being tossed in the air by the boys md the next shot was of earth being thrown up from the ditches the boys were digging. Although the film glorified community life and the purpose of human beings as cogs in a biachine, one became interested in the welfare of individual characters such as Kolka and Mustapha. The plot was almost reminiscent of Greek tragedy in the strictness to which the one plot iwas adhered to. (An English or American film could hardly have resisted introducing a romance jbetween Sergei and one of the female workers, or even a sister of one of the boys.) The dramatic irony of Kolka's best friend, Mustapha, being the cause of his (Kolka's) mother's death, for the sake of one stolen apple, is also Greek in its force. Suspense was cleverly used to keep the attention keyed. Would the boys escape? Would Musitapha come back? Would he catch the train? These were questions we kept asking ourselves. The introduction of the characters as the film progressed appealed to me, as it made the film seem more real than in our system, where the whole cast is introduced together before the film begins. It makes it rather like reading a novel or biography. The superb acting must not be forgotten. The Communist idea of a community of people working together was shown in its brightest aspect here. The boy, Mustapha, was a wonderful actor. His squat, Slavonic, yet fascinating face expressed suspicion, sullenness, devilment, joy, and sheer happiness in a way that our most experienced and ascetic-looking actors could envy, and his portrayal of death, 1 think, without make-up, was perhaps too convincing for comfort, as was the twisting of his stocky little body in the air as he was flung from the train. The boy Kolka was very, very convincing in his roar of terror when his drink and griefcrazed father tried to kill him. His full-throated bellow was much more real than all the gestures. covering of the face with the hands, and bloodcurdling screams. He also was very good in utter dejection after having been beaten. Sergei, with his hat expressing his emotion for him, and Kolka's father's wild grief were good touches. Mizcha, the gang-leader, when he had been robbed of his accomplices, the Wild Boys, determined to be gay, and breaking down, gave a great performance, and the death of Kolka's mother was worthy of attention. I liked the comedy of the stolen spoons, with the contrast between the dog enjoying his food and the boys in such distress with theirs (Mustapha being covered with it), but did not care for the very obvious low comedy of the cutting away of a most important portion of a lady's dress, which 1 thought unworthy of the film. However, I think that The Road to Life will remain in my memory long after the majority of films that come to our local cinemas, for its photography, its acting and its story, although I'd be glad to forget some of the more harrowing bits. STORY FILM OF THE MONTH GASLIGHT By a Film Critic TO THE BRITISH film producer the British past has nearly always been one long, rather vulgar joke. Kings chaw chicken bones ; Regency bucks mince across the set in phoney wigs, the nineteenth century is either a funny oddity in British history or it is sanctified by the mystic presence of the little Queen. Neither extreme is usually convincing, but in Gaslii(ht we have a film of the eighties which takes its background seriously and with relish. (The title, by the way, comes from what was in those days one of the most prominent parts of interior decoration — the fishtail gas burner and its globes and gasoliers.) The result is a polished and finely made film which can hold its own with Pygmalion and French without Tears. So good is Gaslight, yet so firmly confined within the established conventions of the screen, that one can find little to pick upon for special emphasis, with the exception of its unusual theme. The author of the stage play from which Gaslight is taken is Patrick Hamilton, who will be remembered for his psychological thriller Rope. In Gaslight he again tackles a psychological theme. A man is trying to drive his wife mad by making her believe that she is not responsible for her actions. He hides jewels and pictures and is trying to persuade her that she steals them in fits of unconscious aberration. His motive for doing this is that she has found a clue to the fact that he is a murderer, though she does not realise the implications of her discovery. In consequence, he tries to derange her mind so that no one will take anything she says seriously. The direction of Thorold Dickinson has the signal virtue of unobtrusiveness. So smoothly are the scenes played that one is never aware of the direction at all, and there can be no greater praise for a director than this. Bernard Knowles's photography is equally unobtrusive and for that reason, equally first-rate. He has caught the atmosphere of the interiors of the eighties with their spindly furniture and host of knick-knacks. Anyone who has seen such rooms surviving today will recognise what I mean. Most of the knick-knacks stand away from the wall ; the frames of the pictures on the walls are heavy; there are groups of small pictures standing on little easels on every flat space; the wallpapers are dark with a bold design. The real rooms are usually underlit and a pattern of shadows. This Knowles has reproduced. His work is an answer to the still too many people who go round saying that first-class cinema photography cannot be found outside Hollywood. I envied the Art Director. He must have spent weeks and enjoyed himself collecting the furniture for the sets. Nearly every film of the nineteenth century suffers because the sets are empty. Few people have the patience to collect enough furniture for them. Here again the attention to detail is one of the many successes of the film. And finally, the dresses alone, particularly those of Diana Wynyard and Cathleen Cordell, make the film worth seeing. Production: John Corfield for British National. Direction: Thorold Dickinson, from the stage play by Patrick Hamilton. Photography: Bernard Knowles. Distribution: Anglo-American.