Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 53 WARTIME WEDDING by John Shearman John Shearman, a documentary film director, was during the war a member of the R.A.F. Film Unit. He found himself working alongside both feature film and documentary film technicians and he had consequently a special opportunity of observing the interaction of the two film forms There seems no doubt that the British feature film has made one of those magnificent leaps forward and upward which play an important part in the development of all art forms. One of the many forces behind that leap was the prewar development of British documentary. The great period of true documentary was before the war. Drifters, Song of Ceylon, Shipyard, Night Mail . . . the classics of documentary were the revolutionary products of the nineteen thirties. At that time a good many people looked at them with suspicion — not unusual with revolutionary art. The true documentary continued into the first years of the war. Men of the Lightship, Coastal Command, Fires Were Started, Ack-Ack . . . they were in the straight line of descent from Night Mail and North Sea. But nobody now was suspicious of them. It had suddenly become immensely important to depict how a small group of people, typical of many such groups, behaved in actual circumstances, circumstances of the greatest and most urgent reality. The war demanded (inter alia) documentary. The revolutionary, suspect, foundling child of the film industry was suddenly welcomed into the very best society and became a part of the niental life of the people. At about the same time feature film makers in this country found themselves caught by a strange emotion. They wanted to say something sincere about people at war. Getting Together The two groups, feature and documentary film makers, had spent the pre-war years sniffing haughtily at each other ("Say what you like, it's not box-office", and "But it's nothing to do with real life".) Now, with the coming of war, they stopped sniffing and began to get something from each other. Documentary directors found that they needed the technical resources of the studio in order to make their films big enough to match the giant size of their subject — war. Feature film makers found themselves wanting to leave behind the fantasy-life of the popular film and turn to a life which was a good deal closer to reality: a fusion of techniques was inevitable. Other :auses operated towards the same end. Documentary and feature technicians found themselves working together in the Service Units. A ?reat documentary unit was accommodated in a ■equisitioned feature studio along with the R.A.F. and Army film units. The authorities (the ireat "They") wanted films for specific purposes, ind entrusted the making of them to both groups. Thus feature films began to acquire a flavour )f the documentary — The Foreman Went to "ranee. One of Our Aircraft is Missing, FortyNinth Parallel, Next of Kin. The effect of this iniltration of the documentary idea can now be traced in most of the great British features made during and just after the war — In Which We Serve, San Demetrio London, The Way Ahead, Canterbury Tale, and, outstandingly, in Journey Together. After the first show of this film (before its West End opening) a group of feature technicians wandered out of the theatre saying, "Of course, it's pure documentary." They were closely followed by a group of documentary technicians saying, "Of course, it's a pure feature." This was in 1945. A fusion between feature and documentary techniques and ways of thought had taken place. The Use of Sound The feature film makers were not the only ones affected. Something had happened to documentary film makers, too. Documentary is more than just a special technique of making short films with picture and commentary. Documentary is an idea. But it is true to say that before the war documentaries generally were short and had little or no synchronised dialogue. If documentaries get longer and use more synchronised dialogue, they become more like features. Both these things happened to documentaries during the war. They became longer because there was more to say. Why did they tend towards more synchronised dialogue? For a number of reasons. Because, granted greater length, commentary alone was no longer adequately gripping. Because dialogue does in fact take place in the real-life equivalents to documentary situations. Because the best way to show a man giving orders (for example) is, quite simply, to show a man giving orders. Because the specialised jargon of the bomber and the gun site has its own artistic value. For documentary film makers the need for synchronised sound brought its own practical problems. It is axiomatic that sound on location is hell. Documentary, therefore, had to go into the studio to a greater extent than had been its habit. Fortunately it managed to do so without becoming studio-bound and losing reality. There were problems, too, for documentary writers. Dialogue must, on the whole, be written before it is shot. It must say, or imply, what has to be said or implied, yet it must be as near as possible to what would in fact be said, though it must be tighter than normal speech, and less profane. Writing it, then, is an expert job. The Actor A still greater problem confronted the director of this type of film. He could, with a reasonable hope of success, film a non-actor doing something. He could not, except in special circumstances, get a non-actor to speak dialogue. With the best will in the world on everybody's part, a non-actor speaking lines usually creaks a bit. There are, of course, shining examples to the contrary, and routine stuff — "Contact", "Left, left . . . steady . . . bombs gone", and the like can be perfectly satisfactory. But to ask more than that is to ask an amateur to do something for which professionals train and study during their whole working lives. The result, generally speaking, is bad. Sometimes it is unspeakably bad ; sometimes there is but the vaguest suspicion that something is not quite right. That was the problem. The immediate tendency was for documentary directors to use a professional actor now and again — not at all for his or her star-value, but simply because he did the job best. But not all professional actors did the job best. Stagey dialogue and action are as bad (in documentary) as creaky dialogue and action. The professional actor with a tradition of stage and feature work only is not the final answer. Contact So the two pre-war worlds of feature and documentary have, during the war, made contact. Western Approaches is perhaps the perfect example of the feature-like documentary. It is of feature length; it is made in Technicolor, that spoilt darling of the studios; it uses no commentary. But it was made by a documentary unit under documentary conditions. No professional actor played in it. Synchronised sound. Technicolor camera, cast and technicians went to sea in the real Atlantic, not in a tank or before a back projection screen. Is it feature? Is it documentary? Or is it, like Journey Together, some new fusion of both schools? Common Ground The two films, Western Approaches and Journey Together are an instructive comparison for, starting from opposite poles, they have arrived on common ground. In Journey Together, script and direction, photography and recording were carried out by people with a feature, not a documentary, training and background. Almost every part was played by a professional actor. In production the technical resources of the studio were fully and admirably employed. Back projection, model shots, tanks and so forth were used freely and fully. The editing was by a feature editor. What is the common element in these two films which sprang from such different beginnings? It is, perhaps, that in both these films and the many others like them, real-seeming circumstances surround a small group of realseeming people whom we get to know individually and with whom we identify ourselves to a greater or less extent. They are symbols of many people to whom similar important events are happening.