The newsreels were anything but
controversialists. Their aim was to entertain, their outlook was cautious, their
politics conservative. They stood for tradition, conformity, Empire and
monarchy. Such a position was to a degree forced upon them by cinema exhibitors,
who were interested solely in keeping audiences entertained. The cinema was
somewhere for people to get away from the news, not to be confronted by
it.
While this picture of the newsreels as supine
is not the whole story, they nevertheless were firm supporters of the status
quo, and through the images that they provide of British life and British
traditions, one can gain valuable insights into how British society was
conventionally depicted, while detecting disquieting undercurrents beneath the
surface.
The newsreels thrived on traditions, partly on
account of their regularity in the calendar. A newsreel editor was always the
happier for knowing that he could reliably fill up his schedules with such hardy
annuals as Trooping the Colour, the Eton Wall Game, handing out shamrocks on St
Patrick's Day, football finals, Wimbledon, Shakespeare's birthday and
Remembrance Day. Such stories depicted a society rooted in the customary, in
events that recurred as reliably as the seasons, a society that respected the
past. In a world torn up by its roots by the First World War, such news stories
(which were not 'news' at all) seemed to promise security.
In the 1910s and 1920s, when Topical
Budget flourished, for most British people a key part of their identity was
being at the centre of an Empire. The British looked naturally to India, Canada
and Australia as extensions of British rule, something which was confirmed to
them chiefly by films of royal tours. The Prince of Wales (the future Edward
VIII) was sent on tours of the Empire, thanking its constituent parts for their
support for Britain during the war. Images of the globetrotting, hand-shaking
prince cemented his popularity in Britain, and the newsreels showed audiences
the extent of Britain's apparent power. Newsreels from the point of view of the
Empire's subjects did not make their way to British cinema screens - it was
solely a view from Britain, looking outwards. The newsreels showed
traditionalist Britain what it wanted to be shown of its
Empire. Luke McKernan
|
