Between 1896 and 1910, most British non-fiction or
'actuality' films (the term 'documentary' came later) employed trick effects
within a context of re-staged events, as in How It Feels to be Run Over
(1900) and A Derby Day Incident (1903); recorded events such as royal
occasions; reconstructed events, as in Attack on a China Mission Station
(1900); and drew on traditions of literature, theatre and popular culture, as in
The Life of Charles Peace (1904). Other films had more explicit publicity
objectives, as with the corporate public relations films which appeared from
1904 onwards, including The Story of a Piece of Slate (1904) and The
Manchester Ship Canal (1912).
One of the most important producers of the period
was Charles Urban, whose companies made films such as Through the
Microscope (1907) and Rodents and Their Habits (1908) with an
educational aspect designed to put 'Nature on the Screen'. During World War I,
Britain embarked upon a major programme of propaganda film production. Short
films such as The Wonderful Organization of the Royal Army Medical Corps
(1916) were followed by longer films such as the important The Battle of the
Somme (1916). During the inter-war period a considerable number of
documentary films were also made dealing with social and political issues. Some
of these were made by local councils promoting public awareness of social and
health hazards. Others were made by political organisations such as the
Communist Party of Great Britain, and by politically committed filmmaking groups
like the Workers Film and Photo League and the Progressive Film Institute. The
latter organisation also made a number of films about the Spanish Civil War,
including Spanish ABC (1938). In addition to the Spanish Civil War films,
important 1930s documentaries such as Peace and Plenty (1939) opposed
government policy on the appeasement of Hitler and fascism.
Alongside these radical filmmaking organisations, another
film movement emerged during the 1930s which was to have a significant influence
on the development of British film culture. In 1929 John Grierson made
Drifters. Following its success, Grierson went on to establish the
'British documentary film movement' at the Empire Marketing Board: a government
organisation. In 1934 the documentary film movement was transferred to the Post
Office, and the GPO Film Unit was established. It produced documentary films
until the onset of World War II, when it became part of the Ministry of
Information, and changed its name to the Crown Film Unit.
Grierson's first approach to documentary film, in
Drifters, could be described as modernist. However, he eventually adopted
a more journalistic approach. In the mid-30s he and some of his associates left
the GPO Film Unit to found independent production units, making reportage films
such as Children at School (1937). Under the leadership of Alberto
Cavalcanti the GPO Film Unit developed differently between 1937 and 1940, making
impressionistic observational documentaries such as Humphrey Jennings' Spare
Time (1939), and dramatised documentaries such as North Sea (1938).
During WW2, the documentary film movement at Crown also produced a series of
feature-length dramatised documentaries, including Target For Tonight
(1941). One of Grierson's achievements was to provide women such as Evelyn
Spice, and his two sisters, Marion and Ruby Grierson, with the opportunity to
direct and produce documentaries. Similar opportunities also existed for women
outside the documentary film movement during the 1930s and 1940s (in contrast to
the relative lack of such prospects within feature filmmaking), as the work of
Mary Field, Jill Cragie, Kay Mander and others attests.
The documentary film movement receded in the late 1940s,
and the next important documentary group to appear was Free Cinema in the mid
1950s. However, there was little continuity between the documentary film
movement and Free Cinema, whose proponents, led by Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz
and Tony Richardson, rejected the model of journalistic documentary advocated by
Grierson. Free Cinema did, however, distinguish between Grierson and Humphrey
Jennings, and regarded Spare Time and the symbolic Listen to
Britain (1941) as the model for a revitalised documentary film practice.
Free Cinema films such as Anderson's O Dreamland (1953) emphasised the
poetic qualities of documentary, while Reisz and Richardson's Momma Don't
Allow (1956) and Reisz's We Are The Lambeth Boys (1959)
adopted Jennings' portrayal of popular and working-class culture.
No over-arching movement in documentary has emerged
between 1960 and the present. Instead, a variety of films have appeared. These
range from ciné vérité films such as Roger Graef's Decision series (ITV, 1975-76); political
modernist films such as Song of the Shirt (1981);
reflexive or performative documentaries such as Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (1995)
and Geri (1999); postmodernist documentaries such as Handsworth
Songs (1986); and social realist films such as Hidden Voices (1995).
The drama documentary has also emerged as a major genre, in films such as Peter Watkins' The
War Game (1965), although many later examples of this genre have
appeared in the television work of Nick Broomfield, Jimmy McGovern and
others.
The documentary film has played an important role both in influencing
British film culture, and in allowing critical, often oppositional voices to
find expression within the public sphere. A documentary realist approach has,
for example, influenced movements such as the British New Wave of the 1960s, and
feature film directors such as Bill Douglas, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh; while the
documentary film movement has had an impact on television current affairs
film-making and policy. Similarly, the documentary film has been used as a means
of disseminating alternative political ideas from the 1930s to the present.
During the 1930s filmmakers such as Ivor Montagu, Ralph Bond and Norman McLaren,
and organisations such as Kino and the Progressive Film Institute, spoke out
against the appeasement of Hitler, and in favour of socialism. In the 1970s and
1980s filmmaking collectives such as the Berwick Street Collective, Cinema
Action, Amber Films, Liberation Films, the London Women's Film Group, Black
Audio Film Collective and Four Corners Films promoted socialist, feminist and
anti-racist ideas. Today, many critical or oppositional documentary films appear
on television, in series such as Storyville and Cutting Edge, and also
continue to to be made by made by individual filmmakers such as Mike Grigsby,
Clive Gordon and John Pilger.
Ian Aitken
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