Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

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CONTENTS CAN WE SEE OUR FEET? 33 films for tomorrow by Thomas Baird 34 NOTES OF THE MONTH 35 THE CENTRAL COUNCIL FOR SCHOOL BROADCASTING by Flora Meadcn 36 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF M.O.I. FILMS IN 1945 37 THE CZECFIOSLOVAK FILM INDUSTRY by Jili Weiss 38 NEW NON-THEATRICAL FILMS 39 THE CINEASTES by Oswell Blakeston 40 TWO FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES 41 the VISUAL UNIT by R. K. Neilson Baxter 44 POPULAR SCIENCE REELS IN THE U.S.S.R. 45 CORRESPONDENCE 39, 43, 45 M.O.I. FILMS MADE IN 1945 46 VOL.6 1946 No. 53 Published by Film Centre, 34 Soho Square, London w.l ONE SHILLING CAN WE SEE OUR FEET? Seven years ago there were four documentary units. Today there are dozens. Seven years ago there were few films to be made and limited distribution for those that were. Today there is an apparently unlimited demand for films, the biggest non-theatrical circuit in the world, and in some cases quite good theatrical distribution. With all this opulence around the place it might be a good idea to look if we can still see our shoes. In other words, what kind of films are being made? Are they useful films — do they help people? The first thing that our bulging waist-band might obscure is that social documentary films like Housing Problems, Enough to Eat? and The Harvest Shall Come are diminishing in number instead of increasing with the increasing size of documentary. If you take a list of the films by practically any director of the past seven years, you will find few, if any, that are critical and outspoken. True, production has been under official supervision for seven years but there is an old saw about "wills" and "ways". There have been, of course, a mass of non-controversial instructional information propaganda films — films giving no headaches to the director or the unit. Films that would not endanger a unit getting more work from the same sponsor in the future. Films that make better returns financially. Putting the thing in another way, our bulging waist-band obscures the fact that documentary is becoming more complacent in its approach to subjects. Take a film like Children on Trial. It tells the story of the rehabilitation of a boy and girl at approved schools. Its construction is not unlike an ordinary feature. The boy goes to the approved school, thinks that it is all a lot of nonsense. He runs away, is sent back and then for some odd reason sees the light. He reforms and becomes the pillar of the school. The same thing happens to the girl. The results obtained with these two children may be true of some who go through approved schools, but it is rather a lop-sided picture of the problem of juvenile rehabilitation. The film does hint at some of the difficulties. The dormitories are unbelievably overcrowded. The boy who develops a liking for farming is sent back, at the end of the film, to the slums of Liverpool. But these are pretty vague hints and mean little to anyone who has no previous knowledge of the subject. Anyway the hints are so completely smothered by the success story of the film that they don't mean very much. Children on Trial gives the impression that approved schools are a complete answer to juvenile delinquency. Just send the children to them and get them back as little angels in a year or two's time. It is unfair to pick on one film, because what can be said of this film can be said of nearly all the others. They all show an uncritical approach to their subjects. Maybe this comes from the over-use of experts who are usually involved personally in the subject. Whatever the reasons, the effect is bad. Technicians cannot sit back and let someone else do their thinking for them. Seventy per cent of the work of a documentary producer or director or writer is the discriminating investigation of a subject — which doesn't mean acceptance and translation of the official point of view. It means becoming expert enough in the subject not to deliver a one-sided story. The problem of course is deeper than a question of personal integrity. Fundamental questions of our relations with each other and with other countries are involved. Not so long ago, D.N.L. sharply reminded Robert Riskin, of the U.S. Office of War Information, of his responsibilities to world opinion when he forbade the export of certain American social documentaries. We must not find ourselves in the even weaker position of having no social documentaries to export. In short, are we prepared to share our experience with the world, believing ourselves strong enough in spirit and achievement not to fear an examination of our weaknesses? Or are we going to keep up a policy of shining a becoming pink light on our society, blanketing off everything which we dislike? The former policy will bring us world esteem. The latter will steer us back into British Council channels which, at least in terms of films, were often unpleasantly reminiscent of German propaganda in its pre-war heyday, and did untold damage to British world prestige into the bargain. The position today is that documentary is on the one hand producing educational, instructive and descriptive films excellently and in large numbers, but on the other hand is neglecting the production of social documentaries. And the few that are being made are not as truthful as they might be. Now that we have distribution — the best equipment there is to work with — continuity of production and employment — £17 a week instead of £5 — in other words pleasant, comfortable and secure jobs, are we going to forget our aims of the past, forget the mess the world is in, and settle down to become business men, pedagogic educationalists or, as so many documentary technicians are doing these days, go into the entertainment business and make features? What are we most interested in— -the big money, the ot making siory glamour and the undeniable personal pleasju films ; or in making the kind of films that w i like Today We Live, Spanish A. B.C., Behi Housing Problems, The Harvest Shall Come. Inside Nazi Germany, Inside Fascist Spainl h Or MODERN ART, ±1 Heceived: