Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER Editorial Board: Edgar Anstcy, Geoffrey Bell, Sinclair Road. John Taylor, Basil Wright APRIL-MAY 1947 VOL 6 NO 56 PUBLISHED BY FILM CENTRE 34 SOHO SQUARE LONDON Wl 81 INFORMATION— PLEASE 82 NOTES OF THE MONTH 83 SPONSORSHIP 84 ODD MAN OUT 85 WHAT HAPPENS AT THE MOVIES? 86 CANADIAN INITIATIVE 87 NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD FILM Annual subscription 6s. (published six times a year) 88-89 NEW DOCUMENTARY FILMS 90 NON-THEATRICAL DISTRIBUTION 91 GRAPHICS IN CANADA 92-93 CORRESPONDENCE 94 NOT GOOD ENOUGH 95 BOOK REVIEWS 96 THE RECEIVING END Bulk orders up to SO copies for schools and Film Societies INFORMATION— PLEASE Touring World War II this country pursued a policy of public ■^information and enlightenment which was based on a simple but fundamental thesis. This thesis was that people must have something worthwhile to fight for, not merely something to fight against. The annus mirabilis of the war saw not only \ la mem and Stalingrad, but also the Beveridge Report. The Labour Government today is facing the consequences of failing to take proper account of the importance of public information. The fuel crisis of February found the citizenry at large unprepared, uninformed and therefore bewildered if not resentful. Practically no one knew why there was no coal, or why, all of a sudden, the productive capacity of this country was being curtailed. This, mind you, after an intensive if superficial campaign to plug the 'Export or Die' story. The Peace Effort The plain fact is that speeches by Cabinet Ministers — in or out of the House of ( ommons are nowhere near the answer to the specific problem. Just as in 1940-45, so today, people must have something to fight for, some future target of good living and the good life against which to weigh hardships and disillusionments which they are bound to suffer in the post-war world, whatever the complexion of the Government in power. Knowledge is Strength What is needed mainly is clear and sensible explanation. No peptalks or exhortations can be really successful unless people understand present problems and the method by which they can be solved. As it is, the opposition rejoices in a field-day of negative bombardments and the replies of Ministers and Cio\crnment spokesmen appear to be no more than a reciprocal barrage of doctrinaire tomatoes. Yet our present Government has a cast-iron majority, and was presumably elected because people in this country believed that it alone could put into practice the very ideals on which the war was fought and won. What people are not getting is a sense of understanding and a sense of leadership. They could get some measure of this it the machinery of public information was giving an output similar to that which, for all its faults, it achieved during the war. Films, radio, Press, lectures, exhibitions — geared to an overall plan, not of political propaganda, but of explanation, enlightenment and, above all, of informed discussion, could clear the lines within a few months. That the present Government realizes this in theory is obvious from the fact that the Central Office of Information exists (the Tories might well have dispensed with it i. and from the fact that Francis Williams has his own set-up at 10 Downing Street. Hut the means of public enlightenment are not being used with skill or with vision. The people of this country are not being given the feeling being in on a great experiment designed to bring a better life to them and to ordinary folk everywhere. Information plus Fnthusiasm It is time that Mr. \ttlee and his colleagues realized that the modern State cannot function without an informed and enthusiastic public any more than it can exist without the necessities of physical life. The two things are part and parcel of each other: and, despite other preoccupations, the ( ahinet should, before it is too late, turn its attention to this essential need to inspire the need to ghrC that leadership which rests not just on a foolproof majorit\ hut on (Inactive consent, goodwill. Intelligence and el tort of a united nation. Otherwise how can we. let alone the other I nited Nations, gel anvwhere ' I I I I s II \\i \ PRODI i [TON DRJV1 l\ I'l HI U INFORMATION RK.III \V\ \v