Documentary News Letter (1940)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER DECEMBER 1940 YOU CAN'T BE SMART ABOUT NEWTS The spoken word in films and broadcasting, by VOX POPULI CRITICS of the M.O.I, short film, Britain Can Take It, have remarked upon the perfect Haison achieved between the film itself and the commentary spoken by Mr. Quentin Reynolds, an American journalist, and the fact that it should have called forth such unanimous comment suggests that such perfect liaison is very rarely achieved. In Britain Can Take It no attempt is made to dramatise the tremendous situation of a great city standing up to a full-scale bombardment from the air — just the bare facts in pictures and in words, and these words spoken in a very simple straightforward way, as one would speak to a receptive child, no false pity, no patronage and no patriotics. The eff"ect of this discretion is, of course, to increase the hitting power of the film, since the very moderation of the treatment helps to set free in the minds of the audience the anger and resolve which a more violent technique would only have cancelled out. This use of understatement is not new. It is at least as old as Shakespeare, who advises his actors to "acquire and beget a temperance" in their work, and not to "tear a passion to tatters." Nor is it very remarkable — its chief quality as a technical device is that if you were not on the lookout for it it might escape you altogether. But it is very rarely seen in such perfect visual and aural combination as in Britain Can Take It, and when this film is seen in the same programme as other documentaries it sets one thinking very hard about the exact function of the commentary in a short film. Perhaps my own experience was particularly unfortunate, for I happened to see a coloured short called Water Babies immediately after Britain Can Take It. Water Babies must be one of the best things Mary Field has ever done. It is simply a life history of newts. First the mating, then the laying of the egg and its successful camouflage against the terrifying water beetles hunting for food, then the tadpole gradually taking shape inside the swelling case and, at last, the birth itself and the uncertain eff"orts of the baby newt to conquer its new element. Last of all, the shedding of the gills and the first journey as an amphibian. The whole thing is done with astonishing patience and economy and is tremendously exciting, as only the elemental processes of Nature know how to be when they are tenderly and delicately explored. But it would be difiicult to imagine anything more out of place than the commentary which accompanies this little masterpiece. This is spoken by Emmett, who makes the mistake of attempting to add something of his own to what is already absolutely complete — what we call, in the country, "pumping on a full bucket". Some words of explanation are perhaps necessary here and there, but only of the very simplest kind. Emmett is essentially a performer, a virtuoso of the microphone — moreover, a virtuoso with a streak of the comedian about him. He will play for laughs. And being a single act, he naturally wants to put across that act, because he believes that the public are waiting for it, because he is a very excellent showman, and because comedy is in his blood. Why should he step aside for newts? Well, he gives his own act (a very skilled act) in front of the mike, and this act naturally comes into coUision with the film. Not just a scrape and a bent mudguard. Head on. For the aim of the film is obviously to delight and instruct, while Emmett's is just as obviously to entertain and amuse, more often than not at the expense of the chief actors in the picture. In fact, Emmett makes the mistake of trying to compere the newts as if they were human performers and he cracks gags about them as a good compere will crack gags about the actors in a show. In the theatre, of course, the smarter the gag the better. But you can't be smart about newts. They beat you to it every time. And in any case no one wants you to be smart about newts. Newts can take care of themselves. So much for the manner of the commentary. With regard to the matter. Miss Field herself must take a share of the blame — ^or did Emmett's reputation as a commentator carry the Field? In any case, the application of human social values — ^mainly trivial, like "giving him the once-over," "making a date" and "new spring suitings" (I quote from memory, but this gives a fair indication), is extremely insulting to audience and to newts, and in exceedingly bad taste, the inference being that newts cannot hold our attention unaided and that a sort of condiment of facetious human social parallel will help to put them across. Maeterlinck's Life of the Bee is a classic example of this mistake, in which the human erotic hfe is used as the measuring stick for bees. But there is this to be said for Maeterlinck. He doesn't try to be smart. It is obviously a mistake to employ a professional virtuoso commentator on such a job. He is naturally more interested in his own performance than he is in newts. He may, of course, quite like newts, but he will still be unable to hide his professional style and his individual technique. What you want is someone who loves and understands newts and who has no set microphone manner. Why not Miss Field herself? Or one of the naturaUsts who worked with her? Someone without tricks. I remember seeing a film about gannets commentated by Julian Huxley. Simple, unassuming, convincing, and relying on the subject itself to hold all the necessary interest, i.e., accepting the premise that documentary is firstly a graphic and not a literary form and, therefore, that the aural element should always be subordinated to the visual. It always is subordinate in point of fact, because no spoken words, however delivered, can compete with a moving picture, but they can, and often do, intentionally or unintentionally, try to