Flaherty
British Documentary Movement
Muut 1930-luvun dokumentaristit

• Kuvajako lähikuvineen ja diegeettisen illuusion luomisineen
• Henkilöhahmon konstruoiminen, joka on varustettu ominaisuuksilla kuten neuvokkuus, sitkeys, hyväntuulisuus
• Henkilöiden päämääristä kehkeytyvä toiminta
• Toiminnan ajallinen tiivistäminen ja jäsentäminen
• Konventionaalisesti koodautuneet kameratekniikat kuten ylä- ja alakulma, objektiivivalinnat, leikkaus toiminnan muotoilijana
• Kerronnan kaaret huipentumineen ja sulkeumineen

• I am not going to make films about what the white man has made of primitive peoples ...
• What I want to show is the former majesty and character of these people, while it is still possible - before the white man has destroyed not only their character, but the people as well.
• The urge that I had to make Nanook came from the way I felt about these people, my admiration for them; I wanted to tell others about them.
Barnouw, s. 45

• ... we come again to that 'participation mystique' we found in Nanook.
Here is the 'way' of the camera, of this machine: through its sensitivity to movement it can take us into a new dimension of seeing, through the mysterious rhythmic impulses of life and love take us inward into the spirit, into the unity of the spirit.
Robert Flaherty let the camera see everything, avid as a child, filled with a childlike wonder. His pet word was 'marvellous'.
Everything was marvellous, and his enthusiasm was equalled only by his patience. Patient as a scientist, he let the camera see everything exhaustively ... [all this] for one reason only: to give the camera a chance to find that 'moment of truth,' that flash of perception into the heart of the matter, which he knew the camera, left to itself, could find.
The point in this process was that it was purely visual. Words played no part in it; it went beyond words. It was simply a degree of seeing. As ice turns to water and water to steam, and a degree of temperature becomes a transformation, so a degree of seeing may become a transformation

• JOHN GRIERSON: A creative treatment of actuality
• BASIL WRIGHT: Documentary is not this or that type of film but simply a method of
approach to public information."

• PARE LORENTZ: A factual film which is dramatic
• RICHARD MACCANN: "[not the] authenticity of the materials but the authenticity of the result [matters]
• WILLARD VAN DYKE: A film in which the elements of dramatic conflict
represent social or political forces rather than individual ones. Therefore, it has an epic quality. Also, it cannot be a re-enactment. The social documentary deals with real people and real situations - with reality
• PHILIP DUNNE: "By its very nature the documentary is experimental an inventive. Contrary to the general impression it may even employ actors. It may deal in fantasy or fact. It may or may not posses a plot. But most documentaries have one thing in common: each springs from a definite need, each is conceived as an idea-weapon to strike a blow for whatever cause the originator has in mind. In the broadest sense, the documentary is almost always, therefore, an instrument of propaganda."

• ... all methods of recording on celluloid any aspect of reality interpreted by factual shooting or by sincere and justifiable reconstruction, so as to appeal either to reason or emotion, for the purpose of stimulating the desire for, and the widening of human knowledge and understanding, and of truthfully posing problems and their solutions in the spheres of economics, culture, and human relations.

• Empire Marketing Board (EMB)
• General Post Office (GPO)
• Tuotannon organisoija: John Grierson, myöhemmin Alberto Cavalcanti

• WILLIAM CRAWFORD: "Advertising is education. It makes people think.
And thinking leads to action.” The goal. ”engineering of consent”
• R.S. LAMBERT : “The moving picture is a far more powerful instrument for influencing thought than the printed word or the spoken word. For even a backward mind can grasp a picture, where it could not comprehend a newspaper article or remember a spoken message clearly.”
• GRIERSON: The secret of Russian success in this field is due to the constant governmental drive (in state controlled production units) in favour of propaganda and to a certain freshness of technical approach which this limitation of genre forced on the film artists. By new-found devices of editing and photography they have been able to add dramatic emphasis to what might seem intractable and dull everyday material.

• Monarkia (tulossa harvinaisemmaksi ja siksi arvokkaammaksi)
• Parlamentaariset institutiot (ensimmäiset sellaiset)
• Laivasto
• Englantilainen raamattu, Shakespeare ja Dickens
• Kansainvälisissä asioissa - pyytteettömyyden maine
• Kansallisissa asioissa - oikeuden, lain ja järjestyksen traditio
• Kansallinen luonne - "a reputation for coolness"
• Taloudessa - rehellisen maine (fair dealing)
• Tuotannossa - laadun maine
• Urheilussa - reilun pelin maine

• Don’t treat generalized subjects; you can write an article about the mail service, but you must make a film about one single letter
• Don’t depart from the principle which states that three fundamental elements exist: the social, the poetic, and the technical
• Don’t neglect your script or count on luck while shooting. When your script is ready, your film is made; then, when you start to shoot, you begin again
• Don’t trust in the commentary to tell your story; the visuals and the sound accompaniment must do it. Commentary irritates, and gratuitous commentary irritates even more
• Don’t forget that when you are shooting, each shot is part of a sequence and part of a whole; the most beautiful shot, out of place, is worse than the most trivial
• Don’t invent camera angles when they are not necessary; unwarranted angles are disturbing and destroy emotion.

• Don’t abuse a rapid rate of cutting; an accelerated rhythm can be as pompous as the most pompous largo
• Don’t use music excessively; if you do, the audience will cease to hear it
• Don’t supercharge the film with synchronized sound; sound is never better than when it is suggestively employed
• Complementary sound constitutes the best sound track
• Don’t recommend too many optical effects, or make them too complicated
• Dissolves and fades form part of the film’s punctuation; they are your commas and periods
• Don’t shoot too many close-ups; save them for the climax. In a wellbalanced film, they occur naturally; when there are too many, they tend to suffocate and lose their significance

• Don’t hesitate to treat human elements and human relations; human beings can be as beautiful as the other animals, as beautiful as the machines in a landscape
• Don’t be vague in your story; a true subject must be told clearly and simply. Nevertheless, clearness and simplicity do not necessarily exclude dramatization
• Don’t lose the opportunity to experiment; the prestige of the documentary film has been acquired solely by experimentation. Without experimentation, the documentary loses its value; without experimentation, the documentary ceases to exist.

• ... the most important field by far is propaganda. The circles devoted to the art of cinema mean well and they will help to articulate the development of technique, but the conscious pursuit of art carries with it, in periods of public difficulty, a certain shallowness of outlook
(author's italics)
• The G.P.O. Film Unit, which succeeded the E.M.B. Film Unit, is the only experimental centre in Europe. Where the artist is not pursuing entertainment but purpose, not art but theme, the technique is energized inevitably by the size and scope of the occasion. How much further it reaches and will reach than the studio leapfrog of impotent and self-conscious art!

• JOHN GRIERSON: Drifters (1929)
• WALTER CREIGHTON: One Family (1929)
• EDGAR ANSTEY: Housing Problems (1935)
• ALBERTO CAVALCANTI: Coal Face (1935)
• BASIL WRIGHT: Song of Ceylon (1935), Night
Mail (1936)
• JOHN TAYLOR: Smoke Menace (1937)

• Rakenne: asioiden esittelyjärjestys ja hierarkia
• Kuvan, äänen ja kommentaarin laatu ja keskinäiset suhteet
• Ongelma ja sen ratkaisumalli
• Kenen ääni kuuluu?
• Millaiselle katsojalle osoitettu?

• HARRY WATT & HUMPHREY JENNINGS: London Can Take
It (1940)
• JENNINGS: Listen to Britain (1942), The Silent Village
(1943) A Diary for Timothy (1945)
• WATT: Target for Tonight (1944)
• ROY BOULTINGING: Desert Victory (1943).
• CAROL REED & GARSON KANIN: The True Glory (1945)
• ALBERTO CAVALCANTI: Yellow Caesar (1940)
• LEN LYE: Lambeth Walk (1940)

• De Brug (1928)
• Regen (1929)
• Borinage (1933)
• Nieuwe Gronden (1934)
• The Spanish Earth (1937)
• The Four Hundred Million (1939)
• Power and the Land (1940)

• Workers’ Film ja Photo League (1930): Workers’ Newsreel
• Kuvattiin vuosien 1930-32 nälkämarsseja → dokumentti
Hunger (1932)
• Frontier Films ja The March of Time 1935 alkaen
• RALPH STEINER & WILLARD VAN DYKE: Hands (1934), The
City (1939)
• PARE LORENTZ: The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936),
The River (1938)
• FLAHERTY: The Land
• PAUL STRAND & LEO HURWITZ: Native Land (1942)