World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

FILM YOUR OWN VIEWPOINT By Andrew Buchanan (Seventh of a Series for Amateurs) Having learnt how to apply imagination to the filming of ""views" in the countryside and the town, the factory and the farm, the time is ripe for filming your own views: for an attempt to put on the screen your ideas on problems of national and international importance. Ambitious? Certainly, yet perfectly possible. But to express one's views on the screen is surely to descend to propaganda! True, but there are two kinds of propaganda ; the first is widespread. It imprisons us, and strives to perpetuate the existing order of things. It is very proper propaganda, so proper that it is not regarded as propaganda at all! The second kind seeks to alter existing conditions — to make the civilised world a finer and more intelligent place. It is always denounced — impropaganda, in fact. Now although one's views must be for or against something, the successful screen journalist is the man who can see both sides of a question, present them with a minimum of bias, and leave his audience to draw its own conclusions. As an artist he is satisfied with having set them thinking — in itself an achievement! No one can be utterlyimpartial, non-political, non-sectarian, and all the rest of it, but one can certainly rise above the angry mass and, from a height, look down on the scene, observing the percentage of truth in both sides, which is invisible to all those distracted by the struggle. Everything is Propaganda The amateur director should seek to strike a happy medium between the superficial new si eel and the penetrating March of Time, and as he is not concerned with the difficulties of presenting propaganda on a commercial screen, he can shoot who he likes, how he likes. Everything is propaganda for something or somebody. Maybe it is American Womanhood, glorified in practically every Hollywood feature, or the British Army patronised in every newsreel. It may be something really useful like the telephone — but regardless of subject matter, there is room for creative treatment in the analysing and building up of a sequence which seeks to solve or clarify important problems, and it will do the amateur director a lot of good to concentrate on the job of utilising his everyday surroundings to exemplify his points. This entails dramatising reality — reconstructing certain past events in order to show how they have created a current position. He will find his themes offering many opportunities for using up material previously shot, and it will have a new significance whether a football crowd, a branch of blossom or a cat fight. Let us consider a subject of universal interest Rearmament. Why does a nation increase its aims'.' Is it logical for it to do so? Is the crippling expense really worth it? Will the present generation benefit, or is all this defence business for future generations -or for the sake of those who make the armaments' If the amateur feels that the only way to make his nation safe is to fill it with more arms than any other nation, he should pay tribute to the strength of his land by showing a series of impressive shots of battleships, troops and aircraft, intercut to create an attractive tempo. A great deal can be done with shadows on a plain wall, upon which silhouettes of map shapes can be shown to portray the vulnerable position of this nation, the strength of that nation, and so on, and I have managed to create the impression that hundreds of people are marching past, by a confused shadow of half a dozen pairs of feet. Informative titles should accompany the parade of the forces, which tell of the position in 1914, and draw a comparison with to-day. However, there are two sides to a battleship, and even to a shell, and the other side is equally interesting. Therefore, the director should go down to fundamentals, and raise the question of whether armaments are, after all, the best means of ensuring peace. If they are, he can strengthen the case for them. If they are not, he can help to destroy it. How? Scenario Suggestions One simple way is on a nursery floor, upon which two little boys are sprawling. Before each is a barrier. It can be a coal scuttle, an arm-chair or a sunshade. In close-ups, they peep suspiciously at each other, trying to find out what is hidden behind the barricades. One has a gun. Its nozzle is visible. The other gets a gun. The first boy therefore secures a second gun. So does the "enemy." The first boy, seeing two guns glaring at him, obtains a third. The "enemy" does likewise. Then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Finally, after showing each boy in separate shots, they are seen surrounded by guns, and the temptation to fire them is overpowering. What a waste if they were never used at all. And so one boy fires, but it so happens that the other boy also fires — and they are both laid out, for the coal scuttle and the sunshade topple on to them. Neither knows who was the defender or the aggressor, but both have lost, or won. Contrast that with two other boys — also lying on the floor. One is suspicious, and has surrounded himself with guns and forts, and the fender. The other is not suspicious at all. He sits unprotected, building with metal strips. He waves to his fierce neighbour, who scowls. The scowl fades as the war-minded boy watches the building grow higher and higher. He aims his guns at the contented unarmed boy, but cannot find a reason to lire. He is in no danger of being attacked. The unprotected boy is certainly not an enemy. Ultimately he accepts his neighbour's invitation to join him in building with the strips. Bunk! Maybe, but a point worth showing, and no greater bunk than the other two nations arming madly against each other. It raises the suggestion that a nation without any defence at all may be safer than one bristling with arms. No one has tried it yet, and so no one is qualified to damn the idea. Let the screen express it. The juveniles can symbolise the international position, and they can be followed by a short, sharp sequence of placards — headlines — and posters: Germany arms — italy on war basis — MILLIONS MORE FOR ARMY — NAVY — AIR DEFENCE, etc., etc., presented with rapidity. A title follows — Which is the Enemy? Every nation is, of every other nation — armaments for defence being interpreted abroad as weapons of aggression. A nation without arms is nobody's enemy, and the citizens of a neighbouring nation cannot be invited to war against it, or to defend themselves against a country which does not possess the means to attack. Subjects are limitless You can portray the people of other nations in little cameos, quite simply, and contrast the activities of peace — industry — agriculture — shipping— with the cessation of all progress when war bursts forth — and you can show war vividly with a twopenny atlas. Tear the maps out, arrange them on the grass, and set a light to them. Feet march over them. Arms brandishing rifles rush across the screen — the flames on the burning maps rise higher — a head bends in sorrow — more feet — and then desolation — ashes — a darkening sky. Futility. Or, if you think otherwise, Honour, Glory, Freedom. I can offer but the barest outline of an approach to such a subject, and am avoiding technicalities, for the purpose of this article is to establish a general method of dealing with subjects, which, at first sight, offer themselves to conventional treatment only. To seek the origin behind the contemporary event, and to dig dow n to the roots of things is the most fascinating task a film maker can set himself. The subjects are limitless— -there's the traffic problem, unemployment, housing — even the British film problem : all are suitable subjects for the amateur who wishes to express his views on the greatest of comedy-dramas — civilisation. PRIMITIVES FOR F.S. BOOKING The three primitives, The Secret of a Queen. Le Bouquet cle Violettes and Satan Finds Mischief, are available for Film Society bookings through Cinema Contact Ltd., Oxford House. 9-15 Oxford Street. London. W.l. Made between 1904 and 1906. each is synchronised, and 1,500 feet in lensth. Early films of historical value were discussed in "The Raw Material of Movie History" h> A. Vesselo in our last issue. These are available through the National Film Library. 38