Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

138 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER This article was written as an Introduction to a Catalogue of Danish Films DENMARK AND FILM By ARTHUR ELTON Denmark has made a contribution to the art of the film out of all proportion to the four million people who live within her borders. She was one of the earliest European countries to take up film production, and to this day on the Nordisk lot at Valby, near Copenhagen, stands a glass walled and roofed studio built in 1906 when interior scenes had to be illuminated by sunlight. By the 'twenties, Denmark had become a major European producing centre of silent films. Asta Nielsen and Psilander were making hearts throb faster and breasts heave from Moscow to Madrid. All Europe laughed at Fyrtaarnet and Bivognen (Lighthouse and Tram-trailer), the famous pair of comedians, better known as Pat and Patachon, or Long and Short. It was at this time too, that a young journalist, Carl Theodor Dreyer, was gaining his first experience in films. When the sound film spread round the world, Denmark was at a disadvantage. Not only was she a small country, but she belonged to one of the smaller language groups. Nevertheless, by rigid economies, she managed to keep her film industry alive and to make about ten feature films each year till the outbreak of World War II. When I came to Denmark a little time after the liberation, almost the first film I saw was Carl Dreyer's masterly study of witchcraft, Day of Wrath ( Vredens Dag), with its splendid acting and photographic quality and its moving formal stylized dialogue. I thought at the time, and I think still, that this is one of the world's most important contributions to the art of the cinema, to be ranged alongside such films as Potempkin, The Grapes of Wrath, The General, Drifters, The Covered Wagon, Song of Ceylon, and the Gold Rush. Alas, when the film was shown for the first time in Copenhagen, it was almost unanimously condemned by the film critics, and no producing company had wit enough to give Dreyer another film. It was not even sent to the Cannes Festival in 1946, where it would certainly have created a sensation. Fine Quality Only the Danish Government had the wisdom to get Dreyer to work with documentary. It is England's good luck but Denmark's misfortune that Dreyer could only find support for a new feature in London, for a country can ill afford to lose her artists and creators. Lest it be thought that Dreyer's masterpiece is the result of an individual genius, working outside a tradition and in isolation, at least two otherfeature films of fine quality have appeared in Denmark in the last eighteen months — The Red Meadows (De Rode Enger) and Ditte, Child of the People {Ditte Menneskebarn). The former, directed by Bodi Ipsen and I an Lauritzen, is a taut workmanlike story of the Danish underground movement. The latter is the first full length feature film to be made by Bjarnc I [enning Jensen, who has trained both as an actor and as a documentary director. Several of his documentary films are listed in this catalogue. Ditte is a sensitive and finely observed study of the life of an illegitimate girl on Jutland. It has something of the quality of a novel by Thomas Hardy. HenningJensen's documentary sense, combined with his sense of character and situation, has enabled him to make a film both dramatic and full of the sights and sounds of country life. As one watches it, one can almost sniff the wind as it blows in from the North Sea across the Jutland dunes. Such is the tradition and such are the achievements against which the present collection of one hundred documentary films must be judged. Before and during the war Danish documentary had its beginnings just before the war. Paul Henningsen's long and beautifully photographed The Film of Denmark, produced in 1935 was an isolated experiment. By the time of the German invasion, Denmark's only documentary unit, Minerva Film, had only a few films to its credit, though these included some medical films by Axel Lerche, and Theodor Christensen's documentary on the building of the Trans-Iranian railway, sponsored by Kampsex, the Danish film of civil engineers. When the Germans smashed into Denmark, her film technicians were faced with two alternatives. Should they abandon their screens to the Germans, hand over their film studios and cutting rooms, and allow their film culture to be wiped out? Or should they attempt to hold their industry in their own hands, keeping alive some of the essential qualities of Danish life and ideals? Like their comrades in France and other occupied countries they chose the latter course. The Government decided to help, and two authorities were charged to sponsor documentary films — ■ Dansk-Kulturfilm, a voluntary body supported out of public funds in the form of a tax on cinemas, and Ministerierncs Filmudvalg, the Film Committee of the Danish Government. The former approximates to the British Council, the latter to the British Central Ottice of Information. As in England, the production functions of Dansk Kulturfilm and Ministeriernes Filmudvalg have now been merged. Thomas P. Heijle, an educationist closely associated with the I oik High School movement and founder and director of an organization showing stage plays to school children, looked after the film work of the former. Mogens Skot-Hansen, one-time civil servant in the Danish Ministry of Fducation, became responsible for the films of the latter, under a committee headed by Vilhelm Boas of the Ministry of Justice. Skot-Hansen brought to the films a knowledge of civil service procedure and a sense of public purpose. To these qualities he soon added first rate technical skill, for he quickly became not only an ingenious script-writer, but also a capable director and film editor, and an expert on non-theatrical distribution. Today he is one of the best documentary producers, and his special qualities have enabled him to find a compromise between the rigid civil service procedure and the creative freedom without which artists cannot flourish. Early in 1947 he joined the film department of UNESCO in Paris to work under John Grierson. Similarities So, when I came to Denmark. I found a documentary school already established with strong and lively traditions of its own. 1 quickly felt that. even if English documentary could contribute something by pointing to technical and social paths which it might be profitable to explore, my colleagues and I in England had a great deal to learn from Denmark in return. Before the war, Britain had evolved both the theory and practice of documentary. But in spite of such famous titles as Drifters, Man of Aran, Night Mail. Housing Problems and Song of Ceylon, British documentary did not become a mature or sizable industry till after 1941, when it became harnessed to the war effort. Danish documentary also reached maturit> during the war, and the movements in the two countries, divorced from each other as they were, shjw remarkable resemblances. Even their differe ss are complementary . The war forced both Governments to turn to the film as a method of public information and to sustain public morale. Both Governments adopted the documentary approach, though not in England till after some ludicrous attempts had been made to dish up Rule Britannia as an incentive to go to war. The five-minute film, released free of charge to the public cinemas, was introduced almost simultaneously in the two countries. Both sought to find a workable compromise between the old theory that a civil service administers and neither interprets nor creates, and the fact that films, and documentary films in particular, are interpretative and creative Oi nothing at all. The differences between the two schools were as Striking as their similarities. In England the documentary film became a weapon of offence Frills and fal-lals were jettisoned. Perhaps with them went things which we could ill afford to di without. Things like humanity and humour Things which bring that warmth which is essen rial if there is to be a deep and sympathetic relation between the film maker and his audience. Sc 1 still feel pleased when 1 remember that, in the middle of the war. the Ministrj o\ Food was persuaded not onlj to accept but to like Len Lye's fantasy on the Woolton pic When the Pie wa Opened. I am happy, too. to have beendistantb