contents
& other papers
documents for documentary
1
anatomising d.n.l.
2
pamphlets
5
reports and memoranda
6
book review
7
appendices
8
bibliography archive
& library items
editorial note
VOL. 9 (1) Seventy-second Issue 2019
Yin Ying Kong
DOCUMENTS FOR DOCUMENTARY The Film Centre Papers
B
ritish Film Institute (BFI) curator Patrick Russell and moving image curator James Piers Taylor’s Shadows of Progress –– perhaps the only comprehensive text on documentary film in post-war Britain to date –– glosses over Film Centre in its chapter on ‘Documentary Culture: Groupings, Gatherings and Writings’: ‘The need for a body serving the Documentary Movement had been identified pre-war with Paul Rotha establishing the Associated Realist Film Producers in 1935 as a cooperative body for documentary film-makers. In 1937 it ceded many of its functions as consultant and advisory body to the newly formed Film Centre and had effectively dissolved by 1940 as its members were dispersed into the many facets of war work.’1 I read this book midway into my investigation and had by then uncovered numerous writings by Film Centre. Predictably, I was puzzled by this assessment. Is Film Centre’s Documentary News Letter (D.N.L.) — among other works — not evidence of their healthy and functioning publications department, which continued for eight years2 after this alleged ‘dissolution’? Reading on, I discover some measure of acknowledgement: ‘Who was writing about documentary? In the 1930s and 40s, the Movement had its own semi-official house journals: World Film News, Documentary News Letter and then Documentary Film News. At the same time, the BFI-published journals Sight & Sound (containing general commentary on film) and Monthly Film Bulletin (containing reviews of new releases) also followed British documentary closely. […] After the closure of Documentary Film News in 1949, there were no direct equivalents.’3 The writers additionally highlight John Grierson (who coined the term ‘documentary’)4 and Paul Rotha as film-makers who have ‘enthusiasm for use of the written word — skilfully composed and propitiously placed — as a form of cultural self-promotion’.5 What goes unacknowledged is that their contemporaries, including Donald Taylor, Basil Wright, Edgar Anstey, and Arthur Elton6, also effectively mobilised the written word — and towards a shared agenda: ‘With the outbreak of the war in 1939 it became clear to [this] group of practitioners in the documentary field –– experts in production and distribution –– that they must somehow become articulate in the interests of the proper use of the film for purposes of wartime information and instruction.’7 In an article for Kinematograph Weekly, as a solution to the governments’ lack of appreciation for truth in propaganda, Taylor called for ‘the responsible people in documentary [to] keep hammering away, as is done in their paper, Documentary News Letter.’8 Likewise, addressing the lack of a ‘clear understanding of the purpose of docu-
mentary’ in World’s Press News, he claimed, ‘Only documentary’s own paper, Documentary News Letter has kept the old spirit alive.’9 These self-references effectively announced the group’s ‘independent and critical’10 position, jointly devised within the structure of Film Centre and D.N.L.’s Editorial Board. It’d be too simple to state that Film Centre’s papers were merely for ‘cultural self-promotion’. In their various formats, the newsletter, scenario treatment reports, and pamphlets (among other documents) directed policy, aided instruction, and advanced discourse on documentary’s purpose. Film Centre was : –– (a) ‘established [...] to promote and finance documentary film’11 (b) ‘an impartial body guiding policies and purposes’12 (c) an ‘omnipresent production consultancy’13 (d) ‘an advisory and promotional body for documentary film-makers’14 most film historians, unfortunately, only felt compelled to qualify Film Centre’s work to this degree –– and clearly inconsistently. The Arts Enquiry’s The Factual Film (thankfully) provides a comprehensive profile, replete with examples: (a) Film Centre was set up by Grierson,15 Elton, and J.P.R. Golightly to operate as a consultative and policy-forming body outside government control (b) The Association of Realist Film Producers’ (A.R.F.P.) functions, to consolidate and promote the movement, initiate documentary production by national sponsors, and maintain a united front should public issues arise,16 were largely assumed by Film Centre. (c) Film Centre’s purpose was not to produce films but to advise sponsors, supervise production,17 make arrangement for distribution, undertake scenario work and research, open up new markets, and in general guide the development of the documentary movement as a whole. (d) One of its most notable projects was the Films of Scotland (1938) series, produced to tell the country’s story at the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition. As adviser and co-ordinator, Film Centre ensured that a consistent policy and standard were maintained across five films made by four production companies –– The Face of Scotland (Realist), Wealth of a Nation (Strand), The Children’s Story (Strand), They Made the Land (Gaumont-British Instructional) and Sea Food (Pathé) –– and successfully distributed them via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (e) The documentary film exchange scheme worked out in 1939 by Film Centre, London, and the Museum of Modern Art Film Library, (continued overleaf)
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THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS
New York, laid the basis for official exchange during the war. (f) Film Centre also trained people in promotion work. Members William Farr and Thomas Baird were sent to develop non-theatrical distribution at the Petroleum Films Bureau and the British Commercial Gas Association respectively and later, during the war, joined the distribution branch of the Ministry of Information (M.O.I.) Films Division.18 [See more on The Factual Film in ‘Book Review’, page 7.] Missing from documentary history These days, only appearing intermittently in the biographic blurbs of documentary’s greats, Film Centre seems a victim to its own members’ reputations. Cinema St Andrew’s website19 attributed the D.N.L. to its individual Editorial Board members, but ‘Film Centre’ is conspicuously absent. Similarly, the National Library of Scotland credits the advisory role for Films of Scotland to Grierson, without mentioning his working capacity under Film Centre.20 The series does not even feature in Film Centre’s filmography by BFI!21 1 Patrick Russell and James Piers Taylor, Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 11. (Unclear whether it’s the A.R.F.P. or the Film Centre that has dissolved. No further mention of Film Centre.) 2 Documentary Newsletter ran from 1940-49 and was incorporated into Documentary Film News in 1948. 3 Shadows of Progress, p. 15. 4 The term was coined by Grierson in a review of Robert Fla-
herty’s Moana, New York Sun, 8 February 1926. 5 Shadows of Progress, p. 15. 6 This group, along with Rotha, Stuart Legg, and a dozen others, were once Grierson’s apprentices at the Empire Marketing Board documentary film unit. Grierson calls them the ‘people of like mind [who] joined me’. John Grierson, ‘The Story of The Documentary Film’, The Fortnightly Review, 146 (1939), 121–30, p. 124. 7 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, November/December 1946, p. 49. 8 Film Centre Collection (hereon, FCC), Item 3. An article in Kinematograph Weekly (8/1/42): ‘Donald Taylor, Documentary Chief, Calls on Government to Summon Home Grierson’. Notably, this ‘hammering away’ appeared to be a strategy favoured by Edgar Anstey; he ‘disagreed with [M.O.I’s change from five-minute shorts to fifteen minutes ones], being of the opinion that hammering away every week at the propaganda points was preferable.’ Edgar Anstey Collection (hereon, EAC), EHA/3/6, 1/2 9 Ibid. An article in World’s Press News (8/1/42): ‘Position of Documentaries by Donald Taylor’ 10 Film Centre, ‘DNL No. 12’, Documentary Newsletter, December 1940, p. 1. 11 Jo Fox, ‘John Grierson, His “Documentary Boys” and the British Ministry of Information, 1939-1942’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 25.3 (2005), 345–69 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01439680500236151> p. 345. 12 Ibid., p. 361. 13 Patrick Russell, ‘Five Forgotten Filmmakers’, British Film Institute, 2014 <https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/five-forgotten-filmmakers> [accessed 15 February 2019]. 14 Patrick Russell, ‘Elton, Sir Arthur (1906-1973) Biography’, BFI Screenonline <http://www.screenonline.org.uk/ people/id/513790/index.html> [accessed 24 February 2019]. 15 Grierson was involved in Film Centre’s founding and first year of operation but left to be Film Commissioner in Canada. He was then not a director but an adviser to outfit. 16 This united front manifests in Film Centre’s D.N.L. as acts of anonymisation: ‘Occasionally the suggestion is made that film reviews appearing in D.N.L. should be signed. The policy of the Editorial Board is that D.N.L. should maintain a self-critical attitude towards documentary attainments, no less than a readiness to spot-light its successes. This outlook, fundamental to documentary itself, is reflected in the manner of presentation of the film reviews in the News Letter. Commonly a film is reviewed by an individual selected by the Board. By the fact of its being published, unsigned, such a review is
endorsed by the Board as what it considers a valid point of view about that film. Often the review is written by a Board member, in which case clearly it is appropriate that it be unsigned. If a review is signed the implication is that it is an expression of a personal opinion with which the Board does not necessarily wholly associate itself.’ Film Centre, ‘Notes of the Month’, Documentary Newsletter, 1945, p. 99. 17 Film Centre members were chiefly involved in external projects as producers or production advisers. As per their definition for ‘Producer’: (a) in story-films, he is […] responsible for the film’s entertainment value and thus has the last word in casting, story treatment, etc.; (b) in documentary, the producer is closer to day-to-day production and the creative shaping of the film than in story-films. […] He coordinates personnel and has the final word on any disagreements between them. (e.g. between writer and director).’ EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 18 The Arts Enquiry, The Factual Film (Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 56, 180. Shell Film Unit also credits Film Centre for training one of their leading cameramen, Alan Fabian. See Norman Vigars, A short history of the Shell Film Unit (1934-1984) (unpublished, 1984), p. xii. Additionally, in a testimonial written for Lionel Cole by Edgar Anstey, dated 5 June, 1944, it is reflected that ‘Lionel Cole […] was first employed as a trainee in film-making at Film Centre Ltd. and was then transferred to the Shell Film Unit as an assistant film director.’ EAC, EHA/3/6, 2/2 19 ‘Documentary News Letter’, Cinema St Andrews, 2013 <http://cinemastandrews.org.uk/archive/documentary-news-letter/> [accessed 22 March 2019]. The University of St Andrews Library & Centre of Film Studies funded the digital archiving of the D.N.L., a project coordinated by the Media History Digital Library, scanned from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art Library. 20 ‘Grierson was appointed as adviser for the production of a series of seven films that as a group would reflect the spectrum of modern Scotland and its people in a vivid and meaningful way and would form the centrepiece of the film programme for the Exhibition.’ Janet McBain, ‘Biography of “Films of Scotland Committee”’, National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive 21 This filmography list is, in itself, difficult enough to find online. ‘Film Centre Filmography’, BFI <https://www.bfi.org. uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b94277ff1> [accessed 12 February 2019]. Several other films Film Centre was consulted for do not feature in the list, including Golden Reef (1955) and Approaching the Speed of Sound (1957).
Anatomising Documentary Newsletter D.N.L. was published by Film Centre from 1940-49 & incorporated into Documentary Film News from 1948. Towards an understanding of D.N.L.’s diverse functions: performing Film Centre’s democratic ideals, guiding the government’s use of film for propaganda, imagining and implementing ideas for post-war educational film, and raising the standards of film criticism and appreciation.
Self-described as… A publication ‘devoted […] to the Documentary Film in education and national expression’, ‘filling the gap’ of those suspended during the war and ‘[continuing] the policy and purpose of the late World Film News in as far as the documentary approach to everyday living is concerned’.22 In October 1941, this editorial statement was changed: ‘[D.N.L.] stands for the use of film as a medium of propaganda and instruction in the interests of the people of Great Britain and the Empire and in the interests of common people all over the world.’23 These statements plot Film Centre’s shifting critical standpoints on documentary’s purpose and underscore their understanding of the medium as one that is contingent on social needs.24
SIGHT
and
Hard and direct In a letter to a member of the Editorial Board (with an abridged version later published), Grierson wrote that ‘The penalty of realism is that it is about reality and has to bother for ever not about being “beautiful” but about being right’; further, ‘Times press and so must production; and with it must go a harder and more direct style.’25 These descriptions of ‘The Documentary Idea 1942’ seem to be uncannily reflected in the D.N.L.’s wartime writing. Their critical opinions were expressed matter-of-factly at specific parties, including the President of the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Information (‘Make Up Your Mind, Mr. Dalton’;26 ‘M.O.I.—What Plans Have You?’).27 Often also a dissenting voice to popular opinion,28 D.N.L. had unsurprisingly received criticism for self-assured-
SOUND
ness and ‘juvenile egotism’—‘they are right: all men thinking otherwise are wrong.’29 Small but influential30 Despite beginning as a duplicated sheet for circulation to private subscribers, by the end of its first volume, D.N.L. had ‘subscribers in almost every English-speaking country in the world.’31 Mentions in other publications and correspondences (both letters to Film Centre members and D.N.L.’s ‘Correspondence’ column) reveal an esteemed readership comprising critics, leaders of film societies and associations, educators, film-makers, and policymakers. With its fifty-fourth issue in 1946, new readers were also welcomed via newsagents and booksellers.32 Such a following enabled D.N.L. to place pressure on the government. (continued next page)
MONTHLY FILM BULLETIN appraising educational and entertainment values
A cultural Quarterly published by: The British Film Institute
THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS Front Page Headlines
1940: War Aims for Documentary33 1941: Propaganda Front, Films for the Services34 1942: Action Please, Facts to be Faced35 1943: What We Are Working For, Take Heed For Tomorrow36 1944: A National Need, Liberty For Whom? From What?37 1945: Grierson asks for A Common Plan, The Future of the Educational Film38 1946: What is to be done?, Films in Schools39 1947: Now is the Time, Information––Please!40
Early editorial, the first of which written not three months into the Second World War, comprised lucid instructions on the use of film for propaganda — advice intended for government bodies. In ‘War Aims for Documentary’, Film Centre asserted that the ‘documentary idea (dramatisation of fact) is no longer merely theory. It has become a practical weapon in the drive towards social progress. […] In the current war the value of this weapon has been, as far as we know, denied by no one. But its use, in film terms, after four months of war, appears to be in danger of neglect.’ The latter statement was a barb directed at M.O.I., whom (to Film Centre’s frustration) delayed the mobilisation of documentary’s workers and technicians by nine months after the war began.41 Corresponding to phases of the war situation, Film Centre condensed the requirements of propaganda as such: ‘First, there was the defensive stage in the war, when Great Britain stood alone, and when propaganda had to be directed to convincing people at home and abroad that this country could hold out. The beginning of the next stage was marked by the entry into the war of Russia and the USA. Propaganda then had to switch to the offensive — to show that the United Nations could beat the enemy. [For the third phase in 1944, propaganda] must emphasise not only the might of the United Nations, but their will to remain united after the war, and to work together then for the good of themselves and others.’42 Weighed upon by wartime imperatives, Film Centre’s steering of documentary towards propaganda could be deemed predictable. Its greater contribution lies in the far more daunting and ambiguous43 task of clarifying documentary’s post-war purpose, in anticipation of the defeat of the Axis powers and M.O.I.’s probable demise. Against popular opinion, Film Centre questioned the need for ‘lib22 D.N.L. first issue subscription form, scanned document. Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1940) (London, Film Centre, 1940) <http://archive.org/details/docum01film> [accessed 12 March 2019] 23 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, October 1941, p. 190. 24 ‘[As] the idea behind [the British Documentary film movement] developed and has come to be accepted, one has realised that it was never really an adventure in film making at all. It was, from the beginning, an adventure in public observation. The documentary film movement might, in principle, have been a movement in documentary writing, or documentary radio, or documentary painting. The basic force behind it was social not aesthetic. It was a desire to make a drama from the ordinary to set against the prevailing drama of the extraordinary: a desire to bring to the citizen’s eye in from the ends of the earth to the story, his own story, of what was happening under his nose. From this came our insistence on the drama of the doorstep.’ Grierson, p121-22. Donald Taylor condenses it so in ‘Position of Documentaries’: ‘Documentary does not describe a method of film making, but a purpose’. FCC, Item 3. 25 An abridged version of the letter was published in D.N.L. 3:6. Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, June 1942, p. 83. 26 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, August 1942, p. 109. 27 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, September 1942, p. 123. 28 In Kinematograph Weekly (8/1/42), Donald Taylor deliberately picked on Target for To-night (1941) as an example of bad documentary and bad propaganda, because [… it was] the most popular example and must therefore suffer criticism: ‘There were major faults in that it was purely representational, “reportage” treatment. From a documentary point of view, there was no attempt to dig behind the subject and show its implications from either a strategical or broader national perspective. For showing to our own people and those abroad, there was no distinction drawn between attitudes of our airmen and the Germans. Surely we must draw distinction between not only the inspiration of these points but the purpose which they are carrying out.’ [Abridged] FCC, Item 3. 29 Article in Cinema (16/9/42). Ibid. Also, for a hilarious review that pulls no punches, see D.N.L. on British Picture News in D.N.L. 5:5. 30 The Arts Enquiry, p. 101. 31 ‘Government departments at home and overseas read D.N.L. Public libraries in Britain, the U.S.A. and Canada file D.N.L. on their reference shelves.’ Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, November/December 1946, p. 49. 32 Ibid. 33 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940, p. 1. 34 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, August 1941, p. 141 and October 1941, p. 181. *Titles are taken from ‘Notes of the Month’, which replaced headline articles that year. 35 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, February 1942, p. 17 and March 1942, p. 33. 36 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1943, p. 209. 37 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1944, pp. 24, 41. 38 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1945, pp. 49, 73. 39 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1946, pp. 113, 17. *Volume changes between issues; accounts for strange pagination.
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eration’ from government control, pointing at the industry’s ‘distorted rhetoric’ — its assumptions on the ‘imagined threat of nationalisation’ and belief that laissez-faire post-war production would afford greater liberty of expression (would they not still be held down by private enterprise and profit motive?).44 In suggested post-war plans, Film Centre stressed that centralising bodies, like a new National Information Board, were needed to regulate information, education, and public morale (essentially, to adopt the M.O.I.’s functions without censorship and ‘wartime clobber’)45, and to use the International Labour Office (I.L.O.) as a world centre to share film records of advancements.46 Film Centre also called for documentary’s involvement in social planning: ‘if documentary is not preparing itself intensively for these rehabilitations and reconversions and researches, these health and housing and nutrition programmes, these replannings of villages, towns, cities, regions and rural backhouses, I don’t know what it’s thinking of.’47 These aspirations were later realised in the Central Office of Information (C.O.I.), (briefly) the World Union of Documentary, and Film Centre’s own collaborations with Unesco.48 [See more on projects with Unesco in ‘Pamphlets’, page 5.] Notable Articles
Film Grammar, Educational Film, and The ‘Cinemette’
In the same way that Film Centre disseminated their conception of film as a ‘weapon’,49 they introduced a new rhetoric to initiate discourse on film in teaching and everyday life, in preparation for the forthcoming proliferation of the camera (due to mass production and lowered costs) and towards a more informed use of school projectors remaining from wartime educational campaigns. The Editorial Board commissioned articles that ‘[brought] verbal and visual expression into juxtaposition to bridge the gulf and pave the way for a visual-minded generation.’50 In ‘Educational Film’, Visual Education Lecturer G. Patrick Meredith introduced new frameworks for categorisation and production based on literary structures: the Essay-, Chapter-, Paragraph-, and Sentence-types of educational film. He qualified that film is a medium with its own laws, inner structure, stylistic devices, ‘vocabulary’, ‘grammar’ and logic, which could provide new techniques and content. Progression in educational film was, at (continued overleaf) 40 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January/February 1947, p. 65 and April/May 1947, p. 81. 41 At a Film Centre meeting, Rotha referred to this as M.O.I.’s ‘scandal of early days.’ ‘In a decade by 1939 [Rotha had] built a very efficient machine, which was not used at all for 9 months. A large body of workers, technicians and others were unemployed, with salaries paid by Rockefeller Foundation. The only exception being GPO Film Unit which had funds on hand to make films off the cuff. Rotha agreed to provide account of this period.’ EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2. 42 From first draft of Arts Enquiry Film Report on The Aims of the Films Division M.O.I. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 43 ‘[Though] the documentary film is widely recognised as being Britain’s main contribution to the development of the film form, and although the War has given it the opportunity to demonstrate its power to instruct and inform, indeed to inspire, a critically threatened people […] no guarantee exists that the opportunity will be proved to continue this vital social work into peace.’ See foreword in preliminary Arts Enquiry Film Report draft to circulate. EAC, EHA/3/6, 2/2 44 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1944, p. 41. 45 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1944, p. 24. National Information Board alternatively named National Film Office, as outlined in ‘Recommendations’, The Factual Film, p. 36 46 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1944, p. 27. 47 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, 1945, p. 49. In an earlier article for Cooperative News (3/10/42), ‘Plea for Use of Films As Social Weapons Rather Than for Entertainment’, Basil Wright propounded similar ideas: ‘Reviewing the possibilities of the film as part of the post-war machinery for creating international understanding, Mr Wright declared that the groundwork for ensuring that the film played its rightful part in this task could be done now. “We should,” he said, “be planning now to take over all the screens and all the projectors in Europe in order that the peoples who have been living in a vacuum, starved of the truth, should be restored to mental balance and re-educated.” They should aim at creating the framework of an organisation which would facilitate the exchange of news, views, and knowledge between the working people of each country, preferably, he added, a centralised organisation such as the International Labour Office.’ FCC, Item 3 48 On Unesco’s role in film exchange: ‘Many of [the liberated countries] have plans for increasing the numbers of projectors in schools and for developing the use of the film in teaching. Films can undoubtedly play an important short-term and long-term role in assisting these countries to solve some of the problems of educational reconstruction. […] It should be within the competence of U.N.E.S.C.O. to encourage the exchange of all types of factual films, not only teaching films but instructional films on health, farming, and industrial processes, and information films dealing with a country’s life and institutions. It could also give assistance to other functional organisations such as U.N.R.R.A., which already has a Films Department and will require informational and instructional films to assist in coping with the enormous physical problems of reconstruction.’ The Factual Film, p. 183. Film Centre’s pamphlets to aid and facilitate. 49 Examples of the film described as a ‘weapon’ (in propaganda, education and instruction) are seen in D.N.L. 1:1 ‘War Aims for Documentary’ (as above) and Cooperative News (3/10/42): ‘Plea for Use of Films As Social Weapons Rather Than for Entertainment’ (quoting Basil Wright). 50 Film Centre, ‘Educational Film’, Documentary Newsletter, January/February 1944, pp. 3-4.
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THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS
Anatomising D.N.L. (cont’d.) the time, impeded by teachers’ training in the verbal tradition — ‘curricula, syllabuses and lessons [were] accordingly conceived in verbal terms, and they [found] it difficult to conceive education in any other terms’ — a problem solvable only by collaboration between film-experts, education-experts, and subject-experts.51 ‘Film Grammar’ by Arthur Elton extended this literary analogy: ‘Though the film industry has produced its great and less great novels and poetry, it has not yet produced parish magazines, learned periodicals, local papers, minority pamphlets, and all the other commonplaces of literature and free speech.’ He further borrowed the concept of literacy, making a case for mass education in film grammar, to expedite the growing pains that film must undergo (as writing did) to become a ‘commonplace’ language. ‘I do not mean that the common man must acquire the intricacies of film grammar and expression in the way in which a professional must do, but I mean that he must become as familiar with the elements of film craft, as writers of letters and pamphlets and parish magazines are familiar with the elements of writing.’52 These efforts to foster a common understanding of the future of factual film attained a degree of success: reader Richard Delaney latched onto the ‘line of thought [Film Grammar] engendered’ and conceptualised the ‘cinemette’, a small cinema equipped for 16mm sound projection. ‘What it will resemble most is the learned periodical mentioned in the article’, with a programme modelled after ‘Penguin New Writing’, combining work by amateurs and established film-makers, and which may become the ‘miniature screen counterpart of Pelican Books’.53 Edgar Anstey emphasised (in a Film Centre meeting) that ‘the critic needs to know the potentialities of the film medium, so that he can apply criteria and judge if the potentialities are fully used.’54 By equipping them with the rhetorical framework to consider these potentialities, D.N.L. may have been making critics of their readers yet. Notes of the Month & People and Plans These sections comprised short updates on movements in the Film Industry, government, and internally, including personnel changes, policy revisions, and controversies. Their tone varied from conversational quips and barbed remarks to impersonal reports and solemn obituaries. Notes of the Month was often used to welcome new members, such as Dr. Stephen Ackroyd, appointed Director of Film Centre’s new Medical Sciences Section in 1945,55 and publicly signalled Film Centre’s active structural revisions, designed to meet documentary’s potentialities — here, in the scientific services specifically.56 It demonstrated that Film Centre heeded its own advice and that of pioneers in other fields. The Medical Sciences section was notably formed by suggestion of a specialised medical film producer who wrote to Basil Wright.57 Film Reviews From April 1940’s New Documentary Films, Story-film of the Month, and Film of the Month for Children: Island People (Realist Film Unit) reviewed ‘By an American’ and ‘a film industry executive’ Handicraft Happiness, Rugmaking, Quilting, Thrift (G.B.I.) reviewed ‘By a woman’ Backyard Front (British Films Ltd) reviewed ‘By a farmer’ Colloids in Medicine (Merton Park Studios) reviewed ‘By a teacher’ Planned Electrification (Merton Park Studios) reviewed ‘By an engineer’ Spirit of the People (British Pathé) reviewed ‘By a Film Critic’ Pinocchio (Walt Disney) reviewed ‘By an educationalist’ and ‘a schoolboy aged 11’58
The Editorial Board created a platform in D.N.L.’s film reviews for the subject-experts to voice their opinions, supplemented with articles like ‘On Children’s Film Appraisal’ (‘If the film is to appeal to the child/ We must know what the child likes’)59 to encourage film-makers to accept their expertise (on account of their age, nationality, profession, gender, etc.). Film Centre took action to democratise the film
when prevailing organisations were not yet in the practice of doing so. The Board of Education, for instance, released three films on ‘Youth’ in the 1940s without consulting youth organisations.60 As film in education was of particular concern, the Editorial Board took care to provide concise valuations to aid educators in choosing films and to develop their standards of judgment, and further ensured the accessibility and timeliness of their recommendations.61 These standards were projected onto their counterparts. Film Institute’s Film Bulletin, formed in 1934 ‘to supply information about the film in education’, was discredited in D.N.L. for having ‘forgotten [their] aims’: ‘The paper is crammed with reviews of feature films, many of which are of no interest, and none of which are available to teachers and private users.’62 Correspondence Similarly, the ‘Correspondence’ column was a democratic forum for the reader to challenge or add to the points raised in the articles. Sometimes, a back-and-forth ensued between reader and author, forming discussions or debates that spanned several issues of D.N.L. Information Services
Film Catalogue of the Month Film Libraries Non-theatrical Film Libraries Documentary Bookings for [the month]
Film Centre rendered an information service to ‘fill the gap’63 left by the BFI and Central Film Library. Its member Calais Calvert discovered in interviews with youth organisation representatives that many were ‘eager and willing to use film and have access to some projectors but [did] not know where to get information on suitable films’;64 relevant film libraries were either unknown to them or had not supplied the required service. Alphabetical lists of libraries (with addresses, subjects or titles, types of film, fees, instructions for borrowing) and show bookings were promptly published, to work in conjunction with D.N.L.’s film reviews. Intertextual Functions Book Reviews Reprinted Articles
From the sparing amount of literature produced on the factual film — many riddled with ‘false facts’65 or reliant on publicity handouts and thus biased towards production companies66 — Film Centre screened texts for informational and discursive value. For books, specific sections would even be signposted: ‘Readers of the [D.N.L.] will find value in the chapters on…’67 (This was done with the same pith and exactitude as in D.N.L.’s film reviews. Dissected by ‘Subject’, ‘Treatment’, and ‘Propaganda Value’, each film was declared to be of interest to specific audiences: factory workers, town audiences, the American public, etc.) Texts that attended to films were also featured to propose a mutual relationship between different media types in disseminating information. How Wireless Works and Cinema and Television, produced to accompany the American short film series The March of Time, were cited as ‘brilliant examples of what can and must be done in books, radio and films to explain the modern world to its citizens.’68 D.N.L. also generously reprinted articles, letters, and scripts from other authors and publishers, endorsing papers which treated film criticism ‘with a sense of responsibility […] not only attempt[ing] an objective reviewing of feature films but also try[ing] to introduce to the public notice other film-forms, in particular documentaries and Ministry of Information films.’ [See more reprints in ‘Pamphlets’.] D.N.L.’s final 13 months… Documentary Film News maintained many of the above functions but more generally recalled the pre-war World Film News, with its broader international coverage, reintroduction of images, and varied literary forms (mostly poetry). The ‘hard and direct’ tone was replaced by a considerably lighter one, echoed in a less compact editorial design and illustrated caricatures of documentary figureheads. More forums for participation were also generated, as with D.F.N.’s competitions.69
THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS
REALIST FILM UNIT LIMITED A FILM A MONTH FOR 70 MONTHS SEPTEMBER 1939 TO JUNE 1945 34 SOHO SQUARE W.1. TELEPHONE: GERrard 1959 51 Ibid. 52 Film Centre, ‘Film Grammar’, Documentary Newsletter, January/February 1944, p. 11. 53 Film Centre, ‘The “Cinemette”’, Documentary Newsletter, 1944, pp. 49-50. 54 Meeting discussion point on ‘Critics as Experts’. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 55 Film Centre, ‘Notes of the Month’, Documentary Newsletter, 1945, p. 75. 56 In a summary on the film in research: ‘The film, with its techniques of slow motion, quick motion, stop motion and micro-cinematography, has proved extremely valuable in scientific research, The Secrets of Nature series of films have shown how the film can record natural processes which take place either too quickly or too slowly for the unaided human eye to distinguish. Except in science and medicine the film has been little used for research, despite its obvious value, for example, to the sociologist and the anthropologist.’ The Factual Film, p. 27. 57 Lupton (unclear signature) wrote a letter to Basil Wright on 1 December 1944. Action was taken to establish a Medical Science section by early 1945. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 58 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, April 1940, pp. 6-7, 9. This type of review continued across several issues in the first volume. 59 Film Centre, ‘On Children’s Film Appraisal’, Documentary Newsletter, August/September 1947, p. 125. This article notably mentioned the Petroleum Films Bureau’s Ballad of the Battered Bicycle (1947), produced in association with Film Centre, a road safety film that took on a carnivalesque, absurdist narrative to appeal to their young audiences. 60 The youth organisations were reportedly ‘aggrieved’ at the Board of Education’s actions. The three films were presumably produced around 1943, the year in which the Film Centre’s report on ‘The Use of Films in Youth Organizations’ was drafted. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 61 ‘Each month attention will be drawn to a few Films of The Month for Children and reasons will be given why the teacher will find them useful, interesting, educational or perhaps merely entertainment. They will be reviewed at the time of their London premiere so that teachers all over the country can have their plans made by the time of the general release. Only films which can be recommended without reserve will be mentioned.’ Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940, p. 15. 62 Film Centre, ‘Notes of the Month’, Documentary Newsletter, 1945, p. 51. 63 Meeting discussion point on ‘D.N.L. as Information Service’. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 64 Meeting discussion point on ‘Information Service available on Film’. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2. 65 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940, p. 21. 66 ‘Most of the daily papers have regular film columns, though the content of these is usually trivial and lacks objectivity, while local papers rely almost entirely for their film articles on publicity handouts by the production companies.’ The Factual Film, p. 30. 67 In a book review of The Indian Film by YA Fazalbhoy, The Bombay Radio Press, editors note that ‘Readers of the [D.N.L.] will find value in the chapters on Newsreel, Education and National Planning.’ Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940, p. 21. 68 Cinema and Television and How Wireless Works by Stuart Legg and Robert Fairthorne; How Cars Run by Arthur Elton. March of Time Series, edited by Arthur Elton, Longmans, Green, ‘3 new books in the series initiated by Why Aeroplanes Fly. […] Each gives a clear, concise, account of what everyone ought to know about how the thing works today, prefaces this with a short historical sketch, and, in conclusion, indicates objectively the good and not so good effects of the ways in which men are using the things they have invented. The many diagrams and illustrations are excellent, the books are brilliant examples of what can and must be done in books, radio and films to explain the modern world to its citizens.’ Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940, p. 14. 69 D.F.N. offered prizes for curated film lists under a theme (7:61) and ‘letter[s] of remonstrance to a cinema manager whose programmes are not to their taste’ (7:62), to name a few competition briefs. Film Centre, Documentary Film News, January 1948, p. 4 and February 1948, p. 20. 70 Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940, p. 20. 71 See scanned document after final page of D.F.N. in Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1947 - 1949) (London, Film Centre, 1947) <http://archive.org/details/docum68film> [accessed 24 April 2019] 72 H.G.A. Hughes and Sinclair Road, The Film and Fudamental Education, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 1 (The Olen Press, 1950), behind front cover.
Pamphlets in the first issue of d.n.l...
‘Readers of the Documentary News Letter will be interested in these pamphlets, obtainable from 34 Soho Square, London, W.1. Price 3d. Post free. SEARCHLIGHT ON DEMOCRACY by John Grierson. (An undelivered lecture to The British Institute of Adult Education) THE STORY OF THE DOCUMENTARY FILM by John Grierson (Reprinted from the Fortnightly Review). ( A few copies only.)70 THE CINEMA AND THE INFORMATION SERVICES by Thomas Baird. (An undelivered Lecture to The Association of Special Libraries and the Information Bureaux.)’ in a letter to the museum of modern art 71 film library ...
Dear Sir, When the publication of Documentary Film News was suspended in January 1949, it was the intention of Film Centre to continue their publication activities in a different form. We are now publishing in association with Unesco a series of pamphlets, a list of which I enclose, on the use of films and filmstrips in fundamental education. These pamphlets are available from Film Centre, and we would welcome your support in assisting us to obtain as wide a distribution as possible. Yours faithfully, FILM CENTRE LTD.
5 Readers of this paper will be interested in these pamphlets, obtainable from the British Library. Request from their online catalogue. THE FILM AND FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATION by H.G.A. Hughes and Sinclair Road. (Foreword by Sir Stephen Tallents) CHOICE AND CARE OF FILMS IN FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATION by Peter Brinson. (Contains a brilliant account of Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North) FILM DISCUSSION GROUPS IN FUNDAMENTAL EDUCATION by Peter Brinson.
[More titles in appendix.] Published by The Olen Press for the Research and Publications Department of Film Centre in 1950, this series on the general principles involved in the use of films and filmstrips in fundamental education was designed to assist teachers, doctors, agronomists and others whose work took them into the field of education in its widest sense.72 Of the formats employed by Film Centre, pamphlets are the most ad hoc. Initially used to publish ideas that would otherwise go unseen, undelivered lectures and historical documents found second lives in this form. In the Fortnightly Review, ‘The Story of the Documentary Film’ is sandwiched between titles like ‘Baltic Neutrality’ and ‘Diet and Democracy’, indicating an audience of wide-ranging interests. The pamphlet brought Grierson’s ‘Story’ directly to the eye of its stakeholders. When Film Centre focused its efforts on humanitarian projects, pamphlets, replete with technical notes, were apt for distribution, small enough to be on hand for educationalists to reference.
BLACKHEATH FILM UNIT LIMITED 19 High Street, Leatherhead
Specialising in the Production of
EDUCATIONAL, TRAINING, INDUSTRIAL, AND DOCUMENTARY FILMS Ralph Cathles John Downton
Beryl Price
Rupert Hardisty Frances Bourne
6
THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS
REPORTS AND MEMORANDA Film Centre undertook investigations and prepared reports for appropriate groups interested in using documentary films, such as: (a) The Possibilities of the Production and Distribution of Films by the International Labour Organisation, Geneva (1937),73 which analysed the social use of film and indicated the international channels available to the I.L.O. (b) a memorandum on the use of film for propaganda, commissioned in 1940 by M.O.I.’s new director J. L. Beddington in a period of reorganisation, that ‘form[ed[ the basis of much of the [Film] Division’s subsequent work.’74 Scenario treatment reports appear to be Film Centre’s chief advisory medium. To name a few examples, they were used for the Rockefeller-P E P-Film Centre Project,75 the Arts Enquiry Films (on Evacuation; Public Opinion; Food, Rationing and Nutrition; Leisure and Cultural Life),76 and the Colonial Office’s film Introducing the West Indies.77 The reports are reflective of Film Centre’s standards in and opinions on research and production policy, each one produced with rigorous detail (on the scope of and approach to subject; technical treatment; ‘the situation today’; definitions; filming sequences; bibliography) and supplied with a ‘Digest of Research Material’. For a film about The effect of the War Upon British Leisure Activity and Cultural Life, extensive research was undertaken to gather and authenticate content. Sources included: (a) reports and memoranda (by government departments or local committees, cultural and social organisations, research bodies like BBC, Mass-Observation, and the London Press Exchange) (b) newspapers and magazines (national and provincial, and by private firms) (c) personal interviews (with persons possess-
ing broader general knowledge including government officials and publicans; people with more restricted knowledge and assessment of effect on specific ‘worlds’, e.g. secretaries or officials of associations and gallery curators, principals and teachers, students of art schools; representative members of general public in wide geographical and social cross-sections; people engaged in chance conversation, quoted verbatim in streets or public meeting places.)78 (d) hearsay information that is impossible to authenticate and therefore used merely to provide an occasional directive to further investigation.79 in the research ‘digests’, alternative research methods and their representative bodies were evaluated and, sometimes, championed for their progressiveness. Mass-Observation, a social research organisation which took both covert and diaristic approaches to archiving material about British everyday life, was described to have ‘added many new angles to the whole study of Public Opinion, chiefly because Tom Harrison and Charles Madge do not primarily claim to record opinion nor to make a census of facts, but regard these two things as a means to an anthropological end.’80 Film Centre’s support for such organisations stimulated development in social research and paved the way for more cooperation between the social sciences and the socially-conscious film.81 Film Centre paid close attention to circumstantial details in their reports, often sourcing material from Mass-Observation’s files. Black-outs, according to Mass-Observers, were the ‘highest grievance’82 of civilians in 1939, as such, scenario treatment for a film on wartime evacuation reflected that the following should be recorded:
73 ‘This memorandum outlined the various non-theatrical channels that might be used by the I.L.O., and suggested types of films that it might sponsor. As a functional body the Office was in position to use documentary films effectively but unfortunately the war prevented it from implementing the proposals of the memorandum.’ The Factual Film, p. 180 74 ‘[This memorandum] came to form the basis of much of the Division’s subsequent work […] By the end of the year these changes were beginning to take effect. The Division had a definite production programme at last and a policy to which it has since adhered with a fair amount of consistency.’ Ibid, p. 64. 75 Yvonne Fletcher Collection (hereon, YFC), Item 6f. Political and Economic Planning (P E P) is a British policy think tank formed in 1931. 76 YFC Item 6 (a-f), Arts Enquiry Film Reports, Film Centre Wartime Scenarios on Evacuation; Public Opinion; Food, Rationing and Nutrition; Leisure and Cultural Life from May 1940. 77 EAC, EHA/3/2 78 In the report’s appendix, the interviews were classified into subjects: art, books, cinemas, education, journalists, music, officials, religion, social workers, theatre, general. 79 YFC, Item 6e 80 ‘The science of sociology, [Harrison and Madge] say, so well-developed for surveys in Borneo and the Australian bush, must be applied to the British people for the benefit of the British people. In such an application it will not be sufficient to analyse the answers to formal questionnaires, which at best can only give an impression of what people are prepared to reply to a stranger, when he asks them about things to which, in the normal run of life, they may only give ten minutes or,
less thought in a day. More important that these questionnaires which invite people to think and talk about recondite subjects, will be surveys of what in their normal life people actually think and say and do. Trained investigators must listen-in to conversation in pubs and cafes: observers must be found who, unknown to the other members of their family, will be prepared to report faithfully as to what goes on in their own homes. Particular attention must be given to the difference between what people say, think and do. Again, what people say must be subdivided into what they say to a stranger, a friend, or a wife. What people think must be treated in terms not only of a conscious thinking, but of the subconscious. What people do must be treated in relation to what they do in public, and what they do in private. Frank diaries kept by observers will, Mass-Observers say, provide as valuable evidence as formal questionnaires. Even dream diaries will have to be kept and their results analysed.’ FCC, Item 2 81 ‘Sociologists have been very backward in realising the record-value of films [and] limited use of them has been made by anthropologists. Some ten years ago Alan Broderick was at work in the Anthropological Institutes in London and Berlin trying to collect anthropological films. As very few existed, attempts were made to finance the making of films of primitive peoples who are slowly dying out, but these schemes came to nothing. Much valuable anthropological material is to be found in travel films and documentaries, such as Flaherty’s Nanook and Moana, Cooper and Shoedsack’s Grass, and in such films as Dark Rapture.’ The Factual Film, p. 149. 82 Black-outs were ranked the ‘highest grievance’, above concerns about food, prices, lack of amusements, transport, employment, etc. FCC, Item 2 83 YFC, Item 6a
‘“a narrow strip of light”. It must be remembered that trains in Britain are now “blacked out”. The strip lighting allows enough light to fall on the books and papers which passengers are reading; it does not illuminate the rest of the compartment.’83 For Introducing West Indies’ investigative report, Edgar Anstey emerged from visits to Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts, Antigua, Jamaica, and Trinidad with notes categorised into themes and territories for the Crown Film Unit’s reference. Notably, the following was his first point under West Indian ‘general’ culture: ‘cricket. Cricket is played throughout the West Indies with great enthusiasm. In almost every territory, there is a cricket field in especially picturesque surroundings, and the black players in their white clothes, even the smallest playing with great skill and polish, would make a pleasant episode.’84 C.L.R. James, an intellectual who grew up in Trinidad, would publish Beyond a Boundary (1963) on how ‘cricket was used by the British to instill their cultural values on the unruly natives’85 over two decades later. Looking at the project through a contemporary lens, when attitudes have changed with new ethnographic scholarship, the West Indian survey and film carry two-fold anthropological value: as records of the West Indies and of the British colonial gaze. At a juncture in history when there was little impetus to preserve film as a historical resource –– for it was ‘chemically unstable, troublesome and even dangerous to store, difficult to index, awkward to handle by means of mechanical viewers, fragile and easy to deface’86 –– Film Centre expressed concern that ‘little [had] been done on a systematic basis in Britain to preserve film material’ in general, let alone for the purpose of the record film.87 Film Centre’s awareness of each film’s potential to be a ‘valuable record of contemporary life’ and ‘to assume historical and sociological importance’88 made itself apparent in every meticulously produced report. 84 EAC, EHA/3/2 85 C.L.R. James describes cricket as a tool of the Empire, used to instill in ‘unruly’ bodies routine, regularity, and instinctive discipline. Suniti Somaiya, Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words, The Culture Wars (BBC4, 2011) <https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/01E52F0C?bcast=68888015> [accessed 24 April 2019]. 86 Arthur Elton, ‘The Film As Source Material For History’, in Aslib Proceedings (presented at the Aslib Annual Conference, Blackpool, 1955), VII, 207–39 <https://doi.org/10.1108/ eb049567> [accessed 18 March 2019]. 87 ‘The only library established in Britain for the preservation of films in general […is the BFI’s] National Film Library [which] collects copies of all types of films […] both for their historical or educational value and as illustrations of the development for the film itself.’ The Factual Film, pp. 26-27. 88 Film Centre also asserted the value of the record film in other fields: ‘In scientific research the film has proved of immense value in giving a pictorial account of experiments.’ ‘The film has also been used in surgery; among other purposes, for recording operations. Films of this kind have a two-fold value: as a record of a particular operation and the methods used, and for giving students a clearer picture of what takes place than they would get if they had themselves watched the operation.’ ‘In industry some use of film has been made as a record and some firms have made their own amateur attempts at recording factory processes. Films have also been used by industrial psychologists to record the movement of operators with a view to eliminating wasteful effort and reducing movement to the most efficient minimum.’ The Factual Film, pp. 148-49.
THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS
Book Review THE FACTUAL FILM (1947) by The Arts Enquiry Oxford University Press. £8 on Amazon. The Factual Film is part of a series of three reports (alongside Visual Arts and Music) sponsored by the Dartington Hall Trustees, ‘designed to give some account of the place of these arts in [British] national life, their economic and administrative background, their social importance and their value in general education.’89 Writer and media producer John Wyver, to whom my discovery of this text is credited, recommended the book as a ‘key source’ and ‘invaluable (and still little-used)90 publication’ for wartime and post-war documentary, noting thirteen entries in the Index for Film Centre.91 The Arts Enquiry, under which The Factual Film was produced, was intended as ‘more than a fact-finding exercise’,92 largely by the insistence of Dr. Julian Huxley, who sought to steer the project towards ‘[inviting] knowledgeable professionals to participate in deliberations that would result in policy recommendations for post-war implementation’.93 To assert the Group’s independence for this purpose, Christopher Martin, the arts administrator at Dartington Hall who first proposed the idea for the Enquiry, stressed that the investigation had to be kept private; ‘it was not intended that the Report should be merely a statement of official views. As servants of the Enquiry, the [Film] Group should not allow itself to be told what, or what not to say.’94 The Enquiry’s ‘terms of reference were not restricted, nor was there any necessity to put forward proposals likely to be acceptable to the Government’.95 Those who held official or semi-official positions were thus made anonymous in the published outcome. This naturally makes attribution of authorship difficult. However, evidence suggests that Film Centre was a major contributor: its drafting process occurred a year before preliminary drafts were circulated96 and archived documents reveal that it developed much of the book’s structure and content.97 With this known, it comes as no surprise then, that Film Centre was so thoroughly accounted for in the publication; its sentiments on the M.O.I., vehemently expressed in its own newsletter, corresponded with that of The Factual Film; and the book’s substantial chapter on the use of the film in education certainly aligned with Film Centre’s own interests. Influential even as a preliminary draft, the report formed the basis of government discussions on the future of the BFI in inter-ministerial meetings between 1946-47.98 In its published iteration, conclusions and recommendations were deliberately organised in its front pages (as Martin observed, ‘Heads of [government] departments would be unlikely to read more than a summary’),99 followed by a more expanded exposition for general audiences.100 An important record of policy advocacy and documentary history, outlined clearly and comprehensively, The Factual Film is proof of Film Centre’s foresight and the quality of its research services.
7
Documentary News Letter Owned and Published by
FILM CENTRE LTD. 34 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.1 GERRARD 4253
89 The Factual Film, p. 5. 90 The Factual Film is certainly overlooked. Anna Upchurch’s ‘“Missing” from policy history: the Dartington Hall Arts Enquiry, 1941-1947’, one of the few documents investigating the Enquiry, almost exclusively discusses Visual Arts. 91 Email from John Wyver dated 21 February 2019. 92 ‘[Mary Glasgow] supported the Arts Enquiry initiative as a fact-finding exercise that would […] assemble potentially useful data and information about the practices of artists and cultural institutions in England.’ Anna Rosser Upchurch, ‘“Missing” from Policy History: The Dartington Hall Arts Enquiry, 1941-1947’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 19.5 (2012), 610–22., p. 613. 93 Julian Huxley’s steering of the Visual Arts Group resulted in a ‘change in approach’ across the Enquiry, to dissolve the Central Group […] ‘[and to include] policy recommendations’, and ‘leave the survey to a set of “specialist committees” in each artistic discipline’. Ibid., p. 614. Referencing The Arts Enquiry, Visual Arts (Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 5. 94 EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2. 95 Visual Arts, p. 10. 96 EAC documents regarding the Arts Enquiry date back to 22 November 1943 (and suggest earlier activity), whereas ‘By October 1944, a preliminary draft of the whole report was completed and was circulated privately to over two hundred people.’ The Factual Film, p. 6. 97 From EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2, examples of Film Centre’s input for definitions, tone, structure, historical facts, and discourse: (a) the Report accepted Film Centre’s definitions for filmic terms like Short, Long, Producer, Director, Exhibitor, etc. (b) a ‘Proposed Table of Contents of Final Report’ was discussed in the 22 November 1943 meeting (c) In the 3 January 1944 meeting, there was a discussion of tone –– ‘Anstey felt this section [on M.O.I.’s positive achievements] read too much like official handout; Martin thought this applied all the way through.’ –– and structure –– ‘Martin had in mind 2 forms [for the Report]: one, very matter of fact, for government departments, and another, a more expanded forum, for publication’ and Miss Calvert ‘wondered if a compromise between the two outlines could be arrived at.’ (d) Rotha felt criticisms on the M.O.I. should mention the ‘scandal of early days’. ‘In a decade by 1939 [Rotha had] built a very efficient machine, which was not used at all for 9 months. A large body of workers, technicians and others were unemployed, with salaries paid by Rockefeller Foundation. […] Rotha agreed to provide account of this period.’ (e) Numerous explanations were provided on M.O.I.’s substitution of fifteen-minute films, variously that the Trade had found it irksome, with copies not arriving on time (Anstey); M.O.I. experienced difficulties producing a film a week (Farr); ‘it’s impossible to tell a story in 5 minutes’ (Rotha); and ‘the five-minute system kept all companies busy on these films alone’ (Farr); eventually concluding that ‘it could be put that opinions were divided on the wisdom of the change’ (Anstey). 98 ‘Even before the war ended, the Institute had become such a marginal organization that the very justification for its existence began to be publicly questioned. The first serious attack on the BFI was formulated by the Dartington Hall Trust. During the war, this independent body carried out a comprehensive Arts Enquiry which severely criticized the BFI’s limited achievements and lack of influence, in particular in the field of formal education, which had been its main activity. Beside the BFI’s constitutional and financial weaknesses, the survey put the blame on its inadequate staff and chronic lack of initiative. […] When the Report was published two years later under the title of The Factual Film, its conclusions were somehow more positive. The Enquiry recognized the need for a national film institute, but with a reformed constitution which would guarantee its independence from interest groups, a permanent and adequate financial basis, and a complete redefinition of its brief towards the promotion of film as an art form. Although the Government did not officially endorse the Arts Enquiry’s conclusions, the document was circulated among the government representatives who debated the future of the BFI, and it formed the basis for their discussions in three crucial inter-ministerial meetings between January 1946 and January 1947.’ Christophe Dupin, ‘The Postwar Transformation of the British Film Institute and Its Impact on the Development of a National Film Culture in Britain’, Screen, 47.4 (2006), 443–51 <https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjl035> [accessed 20 April 2019]. 99 Officials were also made aware of the enquiry in the research process, including M.O.I.’s J.L. Beddington. EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2 100 Miss Calvert’s suggestion in footnote 95 (c) was heeded.
I.C.I. Film Productions Imperial Chemical Industries are engaged in the production of films as visual aids in scientific education.
IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES LTD., NOBEL HOUSE, BUCKINGHAM GATE, S.W.1
8
THE FILM CENTRE PAPERS
APPENDIX Bibliography ‘Documentary News Letter’, Cinema St Andrews, 2013 <http://cinemastandrews.org.uk/archive/documentary-news-letter/> [accessed 22 March 2019]. Dupin, Christophe, ‘The Postwar Transformation of the British Film Institute and Its Impact on the Development of a National Film Culture in Britain’, Screen, 47 (2006), 443–51 <https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjl035> [accessed 20 April 2019] Elton, Arthur, ‘The Film As Source Material For History’, in Aslib Proceedings (presented at the Aslib Annual Conference, Blackpool, 1955), VII, 207–39 <https://doi.org/10.1108/eb049567> [accessed 18 March 2019] ‘Film Centre Filmography’, British Film Institute <https://www.bfi.org.uk/ films-tv-people/4ce2b94277ff1> [accessed 12 February 2019]. Fox, Jo, ‘John Grierson, His “Documentary Boys” and the British Ministry of Information, 1939-1942’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 25 (2005), 345–69 <https://doi.org/10.1080/01439680500236151> Grierson, John, ‘The Story of The Documentary Film’, The Fortnightly Review, 146 (1939), 121–30 McBain, Janet, ‘Biography of “Films of Scotland Committee”’, National Library of Scotland Moving Image Archive <https://movingimage.nls.uk/ biography/10037> [accessed 24 February 2019]. Russell, Patrick, ‘Elton, Sir Arthur (1906-1973) Biography’, BFI Screenonline <http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/513790/index.html> [accessed 24 February 2019] Russell, Patrick, ‘Five Forgotten Filmmakers’, British Film Institute, 2014 <https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/five-forgotten-filmmakers> [accessed 15 February 2019] Russell, Patrick, and James Piers Taylor, Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) Somaiya, Suniti, Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words, The Culture Wars (BBC4, 2011) <https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/ prog/01E52F0C?bcast=68888015> [accessed 24 April 2019] The Arts Enquiry, The Factual Film (Oxford University Press, 1947). The Arts Enquiry, Visual Arts (Oxford University Press, 1946). Upchurch, Anna Rosser, ‘“Missing” from Policy History: The Dartington Hall Arts Enquiry, 1941-1947’, International Journal of Cultural Policy, 19 (2012), 610–22 Archive and Library Items Available on shelves BFI Reuben Library Film Centre, Documentary Newsletter, January 1940 to December 1947. Film Centre, Documentary Film News, January 1948 to January 1949. Most issues of Documentary News Letter are accessible online via: Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1940) (London, Film Centre, 1940) <http://archive.org/details/docum01film> [accessed 12 March 2019] Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1941) (London, Film Centre, 1941) <http://archive.org/details/documen02film> [accessed 12 March 2019] Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1942 - 1943) (London, Film Centre, 1942) <http://archive.org/details/docu34film> [accessed 12 March 2019] Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1944 - 1945) (London, Film Centre, 1944) <http://archive.org/details/docum56film> [accessed 12 March 2019] Film Centre, Documentary News Letter (1947 - 1949) (London, Film Centre, 1947) <http://archive.org/details/docum68film> [accessed 24 April 2019] *Missing issues are 5:5 and 5:7, obtainable from BFI Reuben Library.
EDITORIAL NOTE Assumptions: Documents produced by individuals or groups representing Film Centre are all considered Film Centre’s documents (within reason). D.N.L. Editorial Board members are presumed to be part of the Film Centre publications department. ‘Borrowed’ elements from the numerous publications that influenced or were produced by Film Centre (e.g. D.N.L., D.F.N., and World Film News) included: lists, reprints, ads, information services, etc.
Archive and Library Items Accessed with prior request British Library Hughes, H.G.A., and Sinclair Road, The Film and Fudamental Education, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 1 (The Olen Press, 1950) Brinson, Peter, Film and Filmstrip Projection in Fundamental Education, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 2 (The Olen Press, 1950) Brinson, Peter, Choice and Care of Films in Fundamental Education, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 3 (The Olen Press, 1950) Srager, George, Choice and Care of Filmtrips in Fundamental Education, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 4 (The Olen Press, 1950) Brinson, Peter, Film Discussion Groups in Fundamental Education, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 5 (The Olen Press, 1950) A Guide to International Film Sources, Film Centre Educational Pamphlets, 6 (The Olen Press, 1950) Film Centre, The Use of Mobile Cinema and Radio Vans in Fundamental Education, Publication No 582 of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, (1949/50) World Film News and Telivision Progress, (1936-38) BFI Special Collections Film Centre Collection (hereon, FCC), Item 1, Typescript, Public Opinion, 19 March 1940. (Same as YFC Item 6c) FCC, Item 2, Typescript copy of report & digest of research material used in preparing the Scenario Treatment for a film on Public Opinion in Gt. Britain (May 1939-Feb 1940), May 1940. FCC, Item 3, Album of Newspaper Cuttings. Edgar Anstey Collection (hereon, EAC), EHA/3/1, Correspondence to EA at Film Centre, Nov. 1944-Feb 1949 EAC, EHA/3/2, West Indian Survey EAC, EHA/3/6, 1/2, Large Folder containing Minutes of Film Centre meetings c1943 EAC, EHA/3/6, 2/2, Large Folder containing Personal Correspondance c.1943-1945 Yvonne Fletcher Collection (YFC), Item 6 (a-f), Arts Enquiry Film Reports Item 6a: Scenario Treatment for a Documentary Film About Evacuation in Great Britain, May 1940 Item 6b: Notes, May 1940 Item 6c: Scenario Treatment for a Documentary Film About Public Opinion in Great Britain (May 1939 - February 1940), May 1940 Item 6d: Scenario Treatment for a Documentary Film About Food, Rationing and Nutrition in Great Britain (The period covered finishes February 1940), May 1940 Item 6e: Report on Research undertaken for a Film About The effect of the War Upon British Leisure Activity and Cultural Life (September 1939 - May 1940), May 1940. Item 6f: General Report to accompany the Scenario Treatments and Reports of the Rockefeller - P E P - Film Centre Project, 1 July 1940. BFI Reuben Library Vigars, Norman, A short history of the Shell Film Unit (1934-1984) (unpublished, 1984).
The title ‘The Film Centre Papers’ is a play on the prestige of The Grierson Papers. A practical choice: only three films produced in association with Film Centre (C.O.I.’s ’Children Learning by Experience’ and ‘Children Growing Up with Other People’; and Petroleum Films Bureau’s ‘Ballad of the Broken Bicycle’; all released in 1947) were available to view at the BFI Mediatheque. Film Centre’s filmography spans 1938 - 1976. It was easier to use ‘writing’ as the thematic spine. Overall: a sprawling, non-exhaustive bibliographic survey.