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58
DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS
DFN COMPETITIONS
RESULT OF COMPETITION No. 3
entries for this competition (a letter to an aunt explaining how documentary films differ from others) fell roughly into two groups — on the one hand were the serious entries and on the other the facetious. One competitor remarked that it was not likely that James Mason or Rex Harrison would ever be seen in documentary— there wouldn't be enough cash in it for them! Another entry defined documentary as a film which shows 'why the woman next door ran away with someone else's husband'. Well, we asked the Review Board about this and they asked us to find out where they could get hold of such a film — they thought it would make a pleasant interlude for one of their sessions.
All in all, the entries were good — Philip Mackie wins by a long lead with his masterpiece of indecision, and Ruth Partington takes second prize for an excellent entry in serious vein.
SOUND
AND THE
DOCUMENTARY
FILM
By KEN CAMERON
With a Foreword by CAVALCANTI
'He is undoubtedly well-qualified to speak on sound recording matters relative to documentary production.' —THE CINE TECHNICIAN
'He has provided the textbook on sound which every student and future writer on the cinema will find indispensable.' -SIGHT AND SOUND
With numerous illustrations 15/ net
PITMAN
Parker Street Kingsway London WC2
FIRST PRIZE
Dear Aunt Tabitha,
difficult Your question is a a ImpXa one to answer.
You remember, of course, what Grierson said
about aroiitive latarppetativo raaliaa
roaliotlo oreation of intarp on this subjeot.
Well, documentaries are films which deal with
or houses, or herrings, or plana real people, /and not fictional ones. They may or may not have may or
have not gat fictional stories, and they 4e may not use pot aw professional aotors. On the whole,
though, the easiest way to recognise them
is by their ooolologloal oontont loft wing
lootype Goveramoat propaganda dialogue
laolt of dialogue tho wordo "Contral Offloe
very shortness, though some of thera are quite
long. Anyway, if you see a film non
probably theatrically it's bound to bo a documentary,
exoept that of course they do show nondocumentaries non-theatrically too. Perhaps the clearest way I can put it is by saying that documentary films are the films that are
made by the people who make documentary films.
am afraid this will not set I hope this osta yourmind at rest on this
question.
Your loving nephew,
Philip
P. 3. Thank you so muoh for the woolly earwarmers. I always wear them at the Scala.
P. P. 3. It's a silly word anyway.
SECOND PRIZE
MY DEAR AUNT,
1 should like to answer your question about documentary, but must avoid the maze of definition. Read Grierson and Rotha, makers and publicists of documentary film, to get an idea of its purpose and properties.
Then turn to films. Renoir and Vigo, Ford, Rossellini, move us by their creative interpretation of reality, you may object. Yes, but compare their properties — studio sets, professional actors, above all, a story of individual emotional reactions. Whereas documentary uses 'the native actor and the native scene', studies on the spot to find the story of work, instead of constructing
sets to suit the story of love. It prefers an | economic to an emotional approach, but is none ' the less human. Unnamed people in an un I familiar life may move us in Song of Ceylon ; the illustration of an argument by compilation of images is a triumph in the hands of Rotha.
If art mirrors nature, documentary may be a microscope or a searchlight, turned on the essential universal aspect of humanity. This explana , tion becomes eulogy! See documentary films, subscribe to DFN, and complete this sketchy answer.
Your presumptuous niece,
RUTH
COMPETITION No. 5
the usual prizes of a guinea and half a guinea are offered for a set of six maxims for the guidance of the young man (or woman) entering the film world. Entries should reach the Editor before June 15th.
CORRESPONDENCE
sir : May I express a measure of disappointment at the close-up of Ross MacLean? I disagree with nothing that was said, but I feel — as will others, I am sure — that too much was left unsaid. For instance, there was absolutely no attempt to describe what might be called the glamour of Ross MacLean. Although this was partly redressed by the admirable illustration, the function of that extra-long cigarette holder, whether as stiletto, tickling feather, blockbuster, or even peashooter, was not revealed. One must always remember that Ross MacLean is a man of action — and not least, when, with feet on desk, and with the panorama of the Canadian landscape screaming its colours through his office window, he tilts the said holder jauntily, or with menace, at someone or other at the end of a long distance telephone wire.
Personally, when I think of Ross, I like to remember the rapid direct action taken by him on occasions such as that on which his front tyre was blown out by a porcupine in one of the less accessible roads of Quebec late on a Sunday evening. Perhaps such reminiscences are too trivial. Nevertheless, I wish your article had registered more emphatically the dynamism of a man who, rejecting what he felt to be the worst of the English attitude, as he learnt it during his sojourn at Balliol and later in London, started, way back in 1935, to campaign in Canada for that very English thing, a Government Information Service. When others, such as John Grierson. arrived in that vast and seductive concentration of geography and ethnology, they found that the cigarette holder, used this time as a flame-thrower and ploughshare combined, had already eliminated the weeds, and equally had prepared and sown a fertile soil. Yours etc..
JOHN SUSSEX