Film Culture (February 1958)

LEWIS JACOBS: FREE CINEMA | A new kind of film support has appeared in England, offering a wide opportunity for creative independence to British film-makers, known as “Free Cinema.” A special board called the British Film Institute’s Experimental Production Committee has been created to sponsor “experiments by young talent in film style, technique or subject; and to support ideas unlikely to find sponsorship under ordinary commercial conditions.” The money for these projects has come from a fund derived from a percentage of the British entertainment tax returned to the motion picture industry. Recently five representative films were presented at the Museum of Modern Art, thanks to the ubiquitous efforts of Cinema 16—that vanguard of film societies— in collaboration with the American distributor, Contemporary Films. A large audience of film-makers—documentary, poetic, experimental, TV spots, industrial, animation— turned out despite a furious rainstorm and a subway strike, reflecting the great interest here in the program. Enlightened patronage has been rare, but in the past it has played an important role in the British documentary tradition. Beginning in 1927-8 and _ continuing throughout the Thirties and Forties, such government agencies as the Empire Marketing Board followed by other government, social, and industrial organizations were uncommonly liberal in their sponsorship of films and in providing opportunities for new film talent. So long as the film’s general aim was served and its budget observed, no limits were placed on the film-maker’s artistry. During those two decades the English documentary flourished with extraordinary creative fire and excitement in the works of Grierson, Rotha, Wright, Elton, Lye, Watt, Anstey, Legg, Taylor, Jennings, and others who produced the spate of memorable pictures that placed the British in the forefront of the documentary movement. But with the postwar social and economic change of climate came a change in sponsorship for the non-fiction film. By 1950 the leading documentary film-makers had to seek other support. Most of them turned to commercial production for more profitable but also more cautious clients. The general quality dropped. Now once again, creative independent sponsorship has come to the aid of the talented film-maker. Nice Time, Momma Don’t Allow, Together, O Dreamland and Every Day Except Christmas were presented as “. . . the first signs of a fundamentally progressive approach to exploring contemporary life through the cinema” (a statement by the Committee for Free Cinema in the British Film Institute’s program notes). Together won a special award at Cannes (1956); Every Day Except Christmas received a gold medal at Venice (1957). The first film, Nice Time (Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta), documented a typical Saturday night crowd searching for amusement in Piccadilly Circus. Framed by opening and closing shots of the statue of Eros, which dominates the surrounding streets, are the uninhibited actions of milling crowds, seized upon by a candid camera, with occasional. Weegee-like studies of unashamed vulgarity or unconscious pathos. As a whole the film proved to be a loose compilation of colorful characters which was not strong enough in its impact to leave a deep impression. Momma Don’t Allow (Tony Richardson and Karel Dlustrations: (From top to bottom) 1, 2, 3, — Momma Don’t Allow (directed by Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz); 4, 5 — Nice Time (directed by Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta). (Courtesy of Contemporary Films.)