Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS 45 Ross McLean a Close-Up by Alan Field THE gentleman whose classic features distinguish this page is Mr Ross McLean, Film Commissioner of the National Film Board of Canada and spiritual leader of the largest single documentary film, graphics and visual aids agency in the known world. Today the National Film Board which Mr McLean heads has 600 employees, sends its films and graphics materials to more than 35 countries, operates its own national non-theatrical circuits and has produced in its seven years of existence more than 2,700 films. About this job of running a two and a half million dollar enterprise, Ross McLean has the following to say : "Films of every kind whether entertainment, educational or documentary have a terrific impact upon people. It is our responsibility jointly with film makers everywhere to see that some assuagement of the savagery of modern life is made possible by people who realize the full potential of film.' The present healthy state of the Film Board, its wide range of activity and its personnel bear lasting witness to the influence and initiative of John Grierson who was Ross McLean's predecessor as Canadian Film Commissioner. Comparison between the first and second Film Commissioners is invidious. A more profitable speculation could be made upon the qualities required to head the National Film Board. Obviously the Film Commissioner must be capably an administrator. He must know his nation, his people and their history; he must understand the social and economic topography of his country. He must possess, above all, a political 'nous' in addition to that discursive reason which the Platonists called logos'. With understanding and knowledge must go sympathy and respect for creative undertakings in the public good. In these capacities Ross McLean is abundantly gifted and in the balance sheet it can be fairly said that there was on the native horizon no other person singularly fitted for the job. If Britain is the spawning ground for the documentary idea, Ross McLean is the link in the chain which anchored that idea in Canada. It was Ross McLean who first proposed that John Grierson be invited to Canada to survey the Canadian position in the light of the British documentary development. The meeting between Grierson and McLean took place in December 1935 when the GPO was recovering from the birthpangs of Night Mail. Basil Wright, Cavalcanti and Evelyn Spice were present for that occasion. No tablet as yet marks the historic site of that meeting but one might justifiably be erected. At that time a Government film establishment did exist in Canada — the Motion Picture Bureau — which began its work in 1924, flourished during the silent days of film and fell upon evil times in the early 'thirties. The emergence of a full-accoutred British documentary found the Motion Picture Bureau struggling with subtitles dealing with moose and goose. Ross McLean's proposal led Grierson to Canada and the evolution of the National Film Act of 1939 with the Scottish film master installed as the first Commissioner. Four hundred crises and two thousand films later, Grierson resigned in October 1945. Ross McLean had meantime become successively Assistant Film Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner by 1943, Acting Commissioner at Grierson's resignation and finally, in January 1947, was appointed to head NFB. It is interesting to note that the Order-In-Council authorizing the appointment was sent with the personal congratulations and best wishes of the Prime Minister of Canada. Background to this drama begins in Ethelbert, Manitoba, where Ross McLean was born 42 years ago. Recently an Ottawa journalist pleading for more adequate rail facilities for the region described Ethelbert as "the birthplace of many famous Canadians — including Ross McLean, the Film Commissioner'. Despite the alleged lack of transportation, Mr McLean cul a swathe through schools of the prairie lands like a 16 ft. reaper-thresher. Graduating from the University of Manitoba with BA in modern history, at the tender age of 21 he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and journeyed to Balliol for a sojourn amongst the Oxonians. Documentary seeds were implanted when he became the first holder of the Beil senior research scholarship and wrote a thesis on the social consequences of emancipation in Trinidad and British Guiana. Mr Mel can's thesis found certain flaws in that emancipation After receiving his BLitt at Oxford there followed a session of special work for the Unemployment Relief Commission of Illinois. In 1932 he was national secretary of the Association of Canadian Clubs, the organization which has played an important part in the growth of an informed national expression. At the time of meeting Grierson, Mr McLean was stationed in Britain as secretary to the Rt Hon Vincent Massey, former High Commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom. With the inception of the National Film Board, Ross McLean was one of its three originals— the others being Grierson and Janet Scellen. Stuart Legg was then liaison at the old Motion Picture Bureau. From the first McLean's skill in negotiation, his wide knowledge of government and the personalities of government were invaluable in getting NFB established and working. In those early days after 1939 he both directed and produced films. The healthy, active and widening scope of NFB's work is the best testimonial of Ross McLean's stewardship. He has welded its manifold activities into a more co-operative whole; he has raised standards of production in film and graphics; he has shown enterprise and insight in initiating new programfl I the strong tree that Grierson planted he h.^ added his own mature and civilizing influence. Of the future of the National Film Board he says: 'NFB has a special function as a pilot plant in terms Of ideas and the adaptation of ideas and somehow 01 other those ideas must help to add to the common understanding and the enlargement of compassion among people '