Documentary News Letter (1941)

DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER SEPTEMBER 1941 WHITHER FILM SOCIETIES? By PATON WALKER (Chairman, Scottish Federation of Film Societies) EVERY succeeding wartime season is progressively ; difficult to organise. The best of the continental feature films in the country h-ne for the most part been shown already, and only the second and third-rate remain. The documentary producers of this country are nearly all harnessed in some way or another to the Ministry of Information and while the excellence of their output is maintained the variety of theme and subject is gone. The film of Travel has disappeared. The experimental film has disappeared. It is difficult, to put it m.ildly, for want of material, to continue as we did; for want of members it may become impossible and uneconomic. But, forgetting for the moment the nbership question, is this apparent lack of films of the type we used the real handicap to programme composition it seems? I doubt it. There are still plenty of so far unused documentaries. Every year the supply of reprints of early films increases. Admittedly the available stock of old experimental such as Night on the Bare Mountain and the Fischinger and George Pal stuff is exhausted ; but then they have been scarce for years anyway and we still have Len Lye. Also, in those mysterious vaults belonging to the London Film Society there are. I am led to believe, some almost legendary experimental which may, one feels, some day be made available to other Film Societies. Inevitably we come back to the shortage of continental features, but I am not so sure that this even is an insurmountable obstacle. There are plenty of excellent British and American features such as Down went McGinty which have not been widely shown and are eminently suitable in a properly balanced programme for Film Societies. In the past, the rather misguided emphasis laid on the impDrtance of the latest and best French Film (the majority of features shown were French) tended both to overbalance the programme's effectiveness and to obscure the real function of a Film Society which is, I suppose, partly to encourage an appreciation of film as an art form with diverse and variable techniques of its own, and partly to make available to its members such films as may tend to justify and exemplify this conception. I doubt if past programmes on the average have established any basic idea, apart from a generally expressed appreciation of Documentary, other than that the French Feature Film is a superior and more adult form of entertainment than the teatLire films of other countries. Putting it bliintl>, the Societies have unwittingly sponsored the creation round the French film of an aura ot Miob highbrow appeal (which incidentally the specialist cinemas have capitalised) an end which is. I hope, far removed from the intentions of the a\erage Society. There are, however, alternatives to the old type of programme. During the last few seasons the Edinburgh and Ayrshire Soci eties ha\e tried out from time to time composed programmes on such subjects as Poland, Czechoslovakia, The Low Countries, The SinoJapanese conflict. Ballet and Music on the screen, etc. In these programmes the feature film was subsidiary to the theme of the programme and could be drawn from the best available source, not necessarilv continental. Admittedly, a composed programme is not possible at every meeting; but it is, in the opinion of a great mtiny people in the Film Society movement, the proper and in fact the only possible development for Film Societies, particularly in wartime. There is no limit to possible subjects. There is no limit to film supply when the necessity of other than an occasional continental feature film is overcome. Lastly, if the British Film Institute carries on, as I believe it intends to do, with further examples of and successors to composite films such as Cavalcanti"s Film and Reality and Drawings that Walk ami Talk, and puts its excerpts from Battleship Potemkin and other film milestones on 35 mm. as well as on 16 mm stock — an interesting nucleus will be created to be drawn on and built up from. The Film Society movement should consider seriously its position and take up this or some other new policy or, in the larger cities at least, it will not survive the competition of the specialist cinemas whose numbers will presumably increase after the War. In any event competition of this sort with a commercial organisation is hardly desirable. Let us hope that the difficulties of wartime supply may in the long run prove the greatest benefit to Film Societies ever, by forcing them to move in a direction where progress is possible, supply unlimited, and initiative and imagination FILM SOCIETY NEWS THE Manchester Film Institute Society and the Manchester and Salford Film Society are much to be congratulated on the enterprising programmes they are rimning. Recent 35 mm. shows at the Rivioli cinema included Free France, Soviet Sports Parade, And So To Work, with Nous les Jeunes and Chapayev as features. Two novel sub-standard shows have also been arranged at the Y.M.C.A., one on August 30, when the Professor of Russian at Manchester University presided at a show devoted to excerpts from a number of the great Russian silent films. These included sequences from Potemkin, Mother. Last Days of St. Petersburg, Ghost That Never Returns, and The General Line. The second show on September 13th is a display devoted to town planning, when the' main item is to be Ralph Steiner's The City. It is hoped to group with it Bonds The Big City. The Builders, and New Moscow. THE Secretary of the Glasgow Scientific Film Society writes: "This Society has been in existence for one year, and arrangements are going ahead for the Annunl General Meeting which is being held on 25th September. The second half of the meeting will be devoted to a short film programme, which will include Galapagos, a very interesting film on embryology; a Disney Cartoon, etc. From a small group of scientists interested in scientific films, a committee was formed, with the result that we now have a large and enterprising film society, endeavouring to present to all our members films of interest and education. Our members are eagerly looking forward to our next session, and judging from the requests I have received with regard to our opening film meeting, it seems that our endeavours were warmly appreciated. We hope to enrol many new members this year, as many applications last year had to be refused owing to rather restricted seating accommodation. Our film subjects during the last session embraced many, branches of science, including: Chemistry Engineering, Biology, Physiology, Medicine, etc. We aimed at varying our programmes sufficiently so that our non-scientific members could appreciate and understand the films as well as the scientists. The Society also formed an Experimental Group, which immediately went ahead with a film dealing with a very topical subject— "Blood Transfusion". We hope to present this experimental film on our opening night, which we intend should take place some time early in October. We expect this film to rouse a lot of interest amongst amateur film enthusiasts." Belfast reports that plans for the coming season are not yet fully settled, but that it is hoped to arrange six film shows. One promising thing is that there is some hope of securing a cinema for these shows, instead of the somewhat unsuitable hall used hitherto by this Society. Shows will probably be held in the afternoons, to avoid blackout complications. The Society has no reserve funds, so that the proposed season involves soine financial risk ; on the other hand it is hoped to obtain exemption from Entertainment Tax. The excellent Monthly Film Review will continue publication.