Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 35 going public. There were films to teach people the pattern of their new citizenship and of their new way of life. We had to learn how to do the blackout, how to build the shelter, how to care for our gas masks, how to protect our children's health and how to make the best of spam. At the same time, portable projectors were sent out to factory workers in the lunch-hour break at noon and midnight, to the mining villages in the valleys of Wales, to farms in East Anglia, to shipbuilding yards on the Clyde and to the smallholders in the Hebrides. In this way, people who would normally have been remote from the danger areas identified themselves with every fighter in the island or overseas. We saw being created in our hands a new, vast and important instrument in the public's education. The peace calls again for every organisation to take up the challenge and assume its responsibility. It won't matter much if we don't have every instructional film telling us how to drive a car or how to cook a steak, if there are no cars or steaks. It will matter very much if the people of the democratic countries, the people of the United Nations, fail to recognise the challenge which still faces the peaceloving nations. But if every organisation in its particular field will teach, and teach, and teach, the important issues which will come before men's judgment and will devote all their energy to the discussion of these issues as they appear in their own specialised fields, we may yet bring the democratic idea into all men's minds and purge from their thinking for all time the diabolical idea which Hitler had for a brief period dangled before men's eyes. So let us get rid once and for all of this bogy of propaganda. Call it what you will, an information service which creates in men's minds and hearts a feeling of responsibility and citizenship is a necessity in any State which could be democratic, and better that the task should fall to the artists than to the politicians. Our artists must create and enliven the world for us all, or we shall be the poorer. Several hundreds of films were made in Britain better to acquaint her citizens with the democratic ideals for which they were fighting. Similar films were made in considerable numbers in America. When Europe began to be liberated, films were ready to be shown, to give the liberated peoples their first glimpse of truth after many dark years. The film Man — One Family, which we are going to see tonight, was one of these films. It was to be expected that after years of German occupation German ideas would at least have some currency on the liberated territories and so this film was made to disabuse any minds infected by German ideas and to reinforce the minds of free men in the democratic truth. The future of documentary films seems to lie mainly in the hands of governments. In Britain, the Government has decided to continue to produce documentary films to promote discussion and also at times to point directions in the trying days of a post-war reconstruction. The Ministry of Information has now passed out of existence as public expositor of current ideas and problems and its place has been taken by the Central Office of Information, which has already scheduled some 200 films for production. It is natural at this time, in looking to the future to imagine the United Nations Organisation utilising film. It is presumed that UNESCO will endeavour to secure the circulation of many films throughout the world and perhaps to produce its own films on international problems. Here lies one of our greatest hopes for the future. It is presumably UNO's job to keep the peace, but that is not enough. The absence of war does not guarantee any more brotherhood in the world. Knowledge of other nations is essential if the democratic ideal is to have world currency. We can no longer rely on our purely national ideals ; we must have access to the ideals, intentions and aspirations of other countries and it is hoped that UNESCO will be able to circulate films emanating from many countries, so that all of us may have the benefit of a variety of points of view. Given access to many diverse opinions and to the many different national ideals throughout the world, we shall have a freer air in which to develop the Truth and the Peace. NOTES OF THE MONTH "The Irresponsibles" from our colleagues across the Atlantic comes a spirited 2,000 words in The Screen Writer. Karl Schlichter, director of radio education for the Los Angeles County Tuberculosis and Health Association, asks of script writers in particular, and of the film industry in general, whether they should not consider more seriously their responsibility to the cinema-going public when story subjects touch on public health and hygiene. After referring to the successful use of Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (including 16 mm. screening in the educational field) he mentions that A Song to Remember evaded the issue of naming Chopin's affliction — tuberculosis. Most of the article deals with the perpetuation of an unenlightened outlook, as portrayed in The Bells of St. Mary's, through the misguided artistry of Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. While in no way advocating "dull interjections of medical treatises into standard movie fare", he asks what good reason there is "for rejecting an opportunity for social content when it can in no way impede dramatic construction". Arizona, the film leads one to suppose, has the dry kind of climate to which T.B. afflicted Americans should resort; yet American doctors devote much time to replacing this myth with sounder, positive doctrine. It is meet, the film suggests, that the deserving spirit of the good Sister (Ingrid Bergman) should not be burdened with the knowledge that she has tuberculosis; yet it is cardinal that the patient should be aware he or she has the disease. The film reckons it not unseemly that "the motivation of the good Sister's entire life, her love of children" should find greatest^tragedy in that she will be sent away from her charges — not that they may have become infected with her bacilli! The author suggests that scripting on these lines is the work of "irresponsibles". Yet it was not irresponsible film writers who helped crystallise the right attitudes for winning World War II. During that same war 206,000 people died from T.B. alone. "Draw your own balance sheet," he ends. This monthly periodical is published by The Screen Writer, 1655 Cherokee Avenue, Hollywood 28, California, U.S.A., for a foreign annual subscription of three dollars. Films in Schools a conference was held on May 20th, at the Ministry of Education, over which Miss Ellen Wilkinson presided, to discuss the development of films and other visual methods in the schools. Representatives of the several associations of Local Education Authorities and teachers were present, together with members of the Central Office of Information and of various sections of the film industry. It was agreed that the teachers themselves should establish a committee, with which the Ministry would be associated, to draw up programmes of films required for educational purposes. Production arrangements will be made through another committee to be set up by the Ministry, upon which the Ministry itself, teachers and film makers will be represented. This Committee will work with the C.O.I.