Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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34 DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS BASIL WRIGHT CLOSE-UP it is now 18 or 19 years since young Basil Charles Wright arrived in our then slender midst, with a great family tradition of liberalism, a classical degree from Cambridge, and two exercises in film which derived from neither. The first was a study in nudity and popped back and forward between diving boards and water splashes in a manner then greatly affected by the discards from the Cambridge Football Fifteen. The second was about a haggard young character who threw himself about from chair to chair, gazed periodically at the rain in the window, then spread red-currant jelly all over his face so that he could more realistically commit suicide under a bus in front of the National Gallery. Both efforts were so delightful that Basil Wright was (a) given two prizes for enthusiasm, and (b) put to honest work at 25s. a week. For a period thereafter he concentrated on Canadian apples and Burma teak in 500-feet lengths, presumably in preparation for a career in the City. He thereby so gained the habit of brevity that, invited on one momentous occasion to recut a feature, he promptly shortened it to a rather bad one-reeler. John Taylor, who was about 7 at the time and pushing the EMB barrow from door to door, in shorts and school cap of questionable origin, continues the narrative. 'Young Bas,' he says 'then started out on the next stage as DirectorCameraman,' and 1 quote. This, one remembers, was a film originally called Shepherd's Spring which was a good title, only Box Office reared its caliban head and called it O'er Hill and Dale. What happened was that B. W. listened to a certain great shepherd called Martin in a pub in Hawick, Scotland, took quiet and gentle account of his betters, as is his genius, and made one of the nicest things done in these days, in the matter of a week. It is quite certain that Martin, like that other great man Chaplin, produced, directed and acted the film, but our Basil was the boy who was there. He was then rightly heralded as the most promising poet in the group. This aesthetic demonstration cost £120 and it made ten times its money with a musical fol-derol attached, to make you weep. A recent film on the same subject which cost probably twenty times as much, did not know what it was about when it came to the cloud shadows hurrying across the hills, and this may be because it did not have Basil or, especially, Martin. This, however, is the merest guess. To be young, and good, and humble, and search instinctively and confidently for the qualities we once saw in the poetry books, seems to become increasingly difficult. Is it conservatism? Is it socialism? I never know. At this point, our character had, so to speak, proved himself. He was the cheapest director around and so proud of it that on an unaccompanied trip to the West Indies he made six films — Windmill in Barbados, Cargo from Jamaica, etc, etc. — on a negative allowance of rather less than two to one. The net affect of this was to give his producers false ideas of his powers ever afterwards. The economy of his vision they took for granted ; the luxury of exotic habits incidentally acquired was something else again. The more serious issue came to a head in the publication of the only great work on Rum Swizzles ever presented to Alcoholics Anonymous, and the organization of the best party between the wildish 90's and Princess Elizabeth's wedding. His closer friends avoided it but stayed on the telephone with strong police contingents nearby to be rushed to the spot in case of necessity. In some manner or other he sandwiched into these looser days a quiet little film about the country coming to town and took it so seriously that he acquired a claypit in Essex and started the impossible task of turning it into an exercise in horticulture. Song of Ceylon came in here and it is a curious story. It was not invented, as some say, because of Gervais Huxley's Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board. It was invented because John Taylor had gone off with Robert O'Flaherty, the well-known descendant of the God-save-us-from-the Accursed O'Flaherties, on a two-year holiday in Aran, to say the least, had gone native. Like the first Russian Ambassador to the Court of St James's, he was dropping £5 notes and other sundries indiscriminately. His hair was long to his shoulders. He had achieved in Aran the slaphappy state of total emancipation. Some of us felt that a visit to the Orient was called for, where the influence of O'Flaherty, Pat Mullen and Tiger King, might be countered, if only a trifle, by contact with the Sahibs east of Suez. Personnel management was more or less at its best in these days. Wright was sent along to do something about the Buddha on the side. B.W. took Song of Ceylon so seriously that one doubts if a director ever went on a journey better equipped in knowledge of the region he was to visit, and from the deeps. A dozen others helped him on his return, and particularly Walter Leigh and Cavalcanti, but the man who knew about the drums from the beginning and reached into a sense of this other people, was this liberal scion of a liberal family, making poetry out of his liberalism. It was nice to see, and maybe many more things should happen that way out of the blood and basic. When this writer thinks of Song of Ceylon it is not for the pieces of sound experiment but for the otherworld quality achieved by a young man who gave himself up to his subject. Incidentally, Song of Ceylon was one of the few films ever made without thought of the audience. We said for once, the hell with the audience, let the bastards wait even if the shot is 175 feet long and prayer in any case should be sweet and slow. It was, in the highest sense, a personal film. In the meantime, one should add, John Taylor fulfilled the actual contract with the Tea Propaganda Board, tuxedo and all, and disappeared to a university somewhere to polish up his Irish. It was quite the prettiest combination of talents while it lasted. Here, he takes over the story himself. 'By now, Wright was Senior Director. The Unit, renamed the GPO Film Unit, had been growing and Wright had to take over some of the production and administration work. Documentary extended every year of its first fifteen years and someone had to help train new people, start new Units, produce, dig up films, and all the other thankless jobs. This, of course, was the end of many of the best of the directors. Nearly always it was the same story. A director would do some production work, but would make one or two films a year. In the end they always became so involved on the production side that direct film-making became impossible.' This is true enough. Wright, Legg, Rotha and half a dozen others were prevailed upon in one measure or other to give up their own filmmaking so that a new generation of film makers might have service and guidance. Wright was the first of the sacrifices and, with his immensely immediate sense of film and film-making, it was almost in the nature of a personal hurt. His cooperation at this strategic moment in the development of the documentary film should be the more warmly noted for what it represented in service to others than himself. It is now commonly allowed that he is one of the best producers in the group as he is certainly one of the most tutored in public service and one of the most sensible in common council, but those who know him know also that he could cut the pants off any cutter in the business, and feel and see the memorable image as few are born to do. The script of Night Mail was Wright's, though the shooting detail of Watt was out of his rough, rich self, and the cutting was Wright's though Cavalcanti in a burst of inventive quality gave it its sound line. It was perhaps Wright's last outing as Jimmy the One on the fo'c'sle head. John Taylor goes on, 'He was Studio Manager at Blackheath, he started Realist — he ran Film Centre — he was producer at Crown — adviser to the MOI — started International Realist — and in the meantime had a hundred and one odd but necessary jobs. He served on Quota Committees — was a member of ASFP — financed World Film News — and edited DNL. He promoted hundreds of films and produced and advised possibly on a thousand. He lectured, wrote criticisms for several papers, and served on scores of organizations and committees. 'Unfortunately for Wright, he was the most successful of the documentary producers. It was not only that he produced many of the best films such as Men of Africa, Children at School. Face of Scotland, The Harvest Shall Come, Neuropsychiatry, Diary for Timothy and Children on Trial, but, for some unknown reason, he was trusted and confided in by all and sundry. The sponsors trusted him — the units — the producers and the technicians — everyone was willing to take his word.