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Paper Abstract: Life, career, major works of Scottish documentary filmmaker. Paper Introduction: John Grierson (1898-1972) made very few films but was one of the most influential figures in the history of documentary filmmaking. As the leader of governmental film units in Britain and the founder of the National Film Board of Canada Grierson's belief in the potential social impact of documentary films set the course for documentary themes in English-language films. His other major innovations were the decision to rely on institutional backing, governmental or private sector, rather than depend on box-office returns and to employ "nontheatrical distribution and exhibition" (Ellis 398). Although Grierson himself abandoned directing early on, his Drifters (1929), the remarkable beginning of the documentary movement in England, remains a vital and interesting piece of work even today and, while showing how well Grierson fulfilled his mission, raises Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. In order toestablish the film unit and, he hoped, ensure an adequate level of funding,Grierson undertook the making of the first film himself. The EMB seemed well suited to Grierson's aims for film documentaries. His other major innovations were the decision torely on institutional backing, governmental or private sector, rather thandepend on box-office returns and to employ "nontheatrical distribution andexhibition" (Ellis 398). Barsam, accepting Grierson's social interests at face valueclaims that Drifters' overall focus is on the men who brave the rough seas, do the hard work, and bring home that catch" and, he adds, theirwonderful faces are enough to preserve the film's interest" (43). (Winston 27 ). Directors. The viewer might wonder exactlyhow the former independent boat-owners (probably family businesses) feltabout this change in their way of living, what this meant for the integrityof village life, and whether there were economic benefits or drawbacks tothe new arrangements. The opening title mentions thatwhere this industry was once "an idyll [!] of brown sails and villageharbours . Ed. Ed. As theleader of governmental film units in Britain and the founder of theNational Film Board of Canada Grierson's belief in the potential socialimpact of documentary films set the course for documentary themes inEnglish-language films. 1929. Surely the promotion of the British Empire,and especially its "fair dealing" in commerce, as well as persuadingeveryone to do his or her part, is as heavily involved in awakening andstrengthening notions of state, history and political destiny as anythingproduced by Soviet filmmakers. Grierson, John, dir. Although he respected FlahertyGrierson's interest in film centered exclusively on the social impact itcould have and he judged Flaherty to be merely "an innocent naturalist tooconcerned with observation to care about making a social statement" (Barsam38). (1973). 3rd ed. Grierson visited Hollywood to observe filmmaking and during his timein America he also reviewed one of Flaherty's films, Moana (1926) and usedthe word "documentary" for the first time. In this respect Grierson's work issimilar to many documentaries today. What has happened in this opening sequence is that Grierson haselided various questions quite rapidly and has very efficiently reduced themen to cogs in a huge industrial process. The GPO supplied more secure financing and solid institutionalbacking that assured the filmmakers that they would be able to extend"their experiments with sound, [involve] ranking artists from fields suchas literature and music, and [have] the opportunity to develop thetechniques of color, graphics, and animation" (Barsam 49). (1992). The EMB Film Unit was staffed by Grierson with many of the young,middle-class, well-educated filmmakers who made up the first wave ofinnovative documentarians: Basil Wright, Arthur Elton, Paul Rotha, EdgarAnstey, Stuart Legg, Harry Watts, and Humphrey Jennings. YetBarsam holds that while working for the EMB Grierson's goal was to create"a cross-sectional view of British life," unlike the Russian films thatinfluenced him and whose goal was the "awakening and strengthening theviewer's sense of state, history, or political destiny" (Barsam 41). James Press, 396-99. Theboats shown by Grierson, for example, are the property of owners whoseprofits are not shown in the film, but the decision to allow the boats and,incidentally, the workers in action would not be made by those who appearon camera, those whose 'dignity' in work is being shown. This was hisDrifters (1929), a 49-minute account of herring fishing in the North Sea,which was given a prestigious premiere by London's Film Society on the samenight as Jean Epstein's The Fall of the House of Usher, Walt Disney's TheBarn Dance, and the British premiere of Sergei Eisenstein's BattleshipPotemkin. But Arthur Calder-Marshall, Grierson's strongestcontemporary critic, said that the film provides a way of seemingly dealingwith the world "while running away from its social meaning" (quoted inWinston 274). Laurie CollierHillstrom. He was hired byStephen Tallents to run the film unit of the Empire Marketing Board (EMB),a "unique government public relations agency intended to promote themarketing of the products of the British Empire" (Ellis 398). NewYork: Kino Video. ThusGrierson and the unit he was to organize had a mission that was both verybroad--in taking in nearly the whole of the British Empire--and rathernarrow, in being confined to the faithful appreciation of the significantmerit of the British in every undertaking. The Rise and Fall of British Documentary:The Story of the Film Movement Founded by John Grierson. Classics. But,as Winston notes, the strongest legacy of Grierson's type of documentaryfilmmaking may be the "tradition of the victim," the individual who is moreor less helpless in the face of social change and whose changed life or,sometimes, reaction to change became the documentarian's subject in arather proprietary fashion (269). Although Grierson himself abandoned directingearly on, his Drifters (1929), the remarkable beginning of the documentarymovement in England, remains a vital and interesting piece of work eventoday and, while showing how well Grierson fulfilled his mission, raisesimportant questions about artists' intentions in documentary films. Nonfiction Film: A Critical History.New York: Dutton. . Ellis, Jack C. (1997). . Yet films suchas Drifters often raise as many questions as they answer. Alan Rosenthal.Berkeley: U of California P, 269-87. And, contrary to Barsam's fatuous remarks, the men'sfaces are hardly ever clearly seen since they are usually shown in mediumshots, engaged in physical labor and bent over their tasks. The men'sgoal--though not the length, duration, or means of transport for theirjourney--is then shown in a wide right-tracking shot of an urban portcrowded with the smokestacks of steam-powered fishing boats. He also came to see how limited the entertainmentuses of film were compared to its great potential. It isnoteworthy as well that the people whose faces are shown clearly are, forthe most part, the boats' pilots or captains--who are shown looking out ofthe wheelroom windows, contemplating conditions and signaling orders--andthe men who participate in the auction process in the long marketplacescenes at the end. "The Tradition of the Victim in GriersonianDocumentary." New Challenges for Documentary. Numerous points about Drifters make it clear that Barsam's benigninterpretation of the film ignores many of its strongest implications.Knowing that the film was promoting the end of a traditional small businessand the beginning of a vast commercial enterprise makes the opening scenes(and many others) look very different. 2. John Grierson (1898-1972) made very few films but was one of the mostinfluential figures in the history of documentary filmmaking. The EMB wassubsequently discontinued and moved, more or less whole, to the GeneralPost Office (GPO) where the operations of that branch of government servicebecame its principal subject and, despite the seeming limitation of topics,the filmmakers continued to produce interesting films and develop theircraft. "John Grierson." International Dictionary ofFilms and Filmmakers. M. Whether these purposes were always soprofoundly attuned to the interests of working people, as Grierson believedthey should be, depended, of course, on a person's view of how closelyaligned the British and Canadian governments' interests were with those ofthe worker. In 1924 he was granted a Rockefeller researchfellowship which took him to the United States where he studied variousmedia and the shaping of public opinion. (1975). As he said, despite afew documentary efforts, such as Robert Flaherty's films, "there was awhole world undiscovered, a whole area of cinematic possibilityundiscovered" (quoted in Sussex 3). This study included motionpictures and Grierson became one of the first "to recognize the extent towhich the popular arts were replacing the more traditional sources ofinformation, such as the church and the school" as creators of publicopinion (Barsam 37). Grierson's intention was, of course, to show an activity that wasvital to the nation's, and the empire's, economy and he looked on theindustrializing of herring fishing as a socially beneficial change. Instead it should, he said, "be conceived as a mediumlike writing, capable of many forms and many functions" (quoted in Barsam38). Drifters. According to Barsam, Grierson understood that even though he wasallowed great artistic freedom at the EMB it was still a relative freedomand "state propaganda had its own ideological limits" (Barsam 41). And social statements were everything to Grierson who, on his returnto Great Britain, took up the question of how film could most effectivelybe used to shape public opinion on important topics. Such subjects asslums, smog, malnutrition, poverty, and education were attacked by thefilmmakers in a new journalistic style. its story is now an epic of steam and steel." But, the nexttitle adds, the men from the small villages still go to work on the boats.Accordingly the opening shot shows a beautiful white-cottaged fishingvillage in which the small figures of a group of men move about. As Arthur Elton, one of the EMB directors, said, the film was"an immense revelation" since commercial films had become so artificial andDrifters ably demonstrated Grierson's theory that "life at home is just asinteresting as life in fiction, if only you can be made to see it so"(quoted in Sussex 5). Taken as a whole the British work doneby, or inspired by, Grierson remains very impressive today. But, even though this was the beginning of the Great Depression and was,therefore, an era when "even on the right in Britain the need for measuresof state intervention in many fields was accepted," working for agovernmental body entailed numerous constraints. Grierson was born in Scotland and earned a degree in philosophy atGlasgow university in 1923, after serving as an able seaman in the RoyalNavy during World War I. Detroit: St. In his search for a way to use film meaningfully Grierson was alwaysproud that, rather than seeking Hollywood funding, "we went to governmentsfor money and thereby tied documentary, the use of realist film, topurposes" (quoted in Sussex 3). In the mid-193 s, however, Grierson and others wished to expand theirgoals with films that would call attention to important social problems andfor this they sought the support of private industry. Thisis immediately followed by four shots of waves foaming and crashing onrocks, and a few shots of gulls, ending with a gull near a pier. References Barsam, Richard Meran. B. This is important because, forfilmmakers who were interested in social concerns, the mission of the EMBlimited them to promotional efforts and eliminated the possibility ofcriticism. YetBarsam also notes that the film's "underlying theme is the shift of theherring fishing industry from small independent operations to a large,industrial effort" (43). E. Though these films lacked theartistic shaping and poetry to be found in works such as Drifters, theyalso "incorporated formal and technical experiments," such as the use ofdirect interviews which "presag[ed] the much later cinéma vérité method"and is common today (Ellis 398). Sussex, Elizabeth. Theagenda of the EMB was quite broad and the products of empire includedeverything from the merits of Charles Dickens and the Royal Navy to theempire's commerce, with its supposed "reputation for fair dealing" or theempire's "reputation for fair play" in "sport" (quoted in Barsam 4 ). (1988). Yet, even to Barsam in 1973, much ofGrierson's sophisticated command of propaganda methods was not wellunderstood. In Grierson's view it was important tounderstand that the film medium was, in itself, neither an entertainmentnor an art form. Thesuccessive shots move in closer as the men meet in a group and this isfollowed by a shot of their legs moving in unison toward their goal. Berkeley: U ofCalifornia P. Vol. Winston, Brian. As Winston notes, from "the mostprestigious publicly funded documentarist [to] the least effective of localnews teams, the victim of society is ready and willing to be the media's'victim' as well"--whether they are viewed as victims or not (269). AsEllis notes, however, Grierson's assumption was that by showing to peoplein every part of the empire people at work in other parts of the empire "anunderstanding of and appreciation of the interrelatedness of the modernworld, and of our dependency on each other, will develop and everyone willwant to contribute his or her share to the better functioning of the whole"(emphasis added, Ellis 398). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.