John Grierson

John Grierson ( born April 26, 1898 in Deanston Doune in Scotland, † February 19, 1972 in Bath, England ) was a British documentary film director and producer. He is considered the " father of British and Canadian documentary" and his introduction of the term "documentary " is attributed.

Education and route to movie

From his parents, he was educated in the sense of liberal, humanistic ideals and Calvinist morality and views. After he had used during the First World War as a minesweeper in the Royal Navy, he went to study at the University of Glasgow and was engaged there in linksaktivistischen circles. With a scholarship, he studied from 1924 in the USA at the University of Chicago, Columbia and the University of Wisconsin- Madison. His research topic was propaganda psychology and the influence of the press, cinema, and other mass media on public opinion formation.

Grierson had a special attention to the tabloid press, which he considered a threat to democracy. He saw in the United States for political tendencies reactionism, anti-democratic tendencies and political indifference. Responsible for this he held the complexity and opacity of the Society for the ordinary citizens. With education and involvement of citizens in political decisions, Grierson believed had to be countered the. One way of doing this he saw in the movie.

Grierson began to write film reviews for the Sun New York. In a review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana Pacific (1926 ) he coined it, the term "documentary " (NY Sun, February 8, 1926: " Of course Moana, being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, Has documentary value " ).

He was also required to work with pioneering works of foreign film industries in contact and was among other things, of Sergei Eisenstein's theory of montage editing techniques and how this had applied in Battleship Potemkin, affected.

Documentary movement in Britain

In the late 1920s Grierson went with the idea back to England that film be educational for the people and preachy and with its propaganda effect to overcome the Great Depression in Britain of the 20s could contribute. Although he rejected the exoticism Robert Flaherty, Grierson was thrilled by the documentary work and was planning to document the life also of ordinary people in his homeland.

Grierson got a job at the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), an agency of the British government for public work in support of the British trade. Around 1930, he was able to see the establishment of a film department and became its director. Thus began the British documentary movement.

Grierson had produced together with his cameraman Basil Emmott his first film, Drifters At the end of 1929. The film shows the work of the herring fishing in the North Sea. It differs from its predecessors mainly in documentary film that almost no scene of the film was staged. The choice of the topic is to be less self-interest Grierson as his discovery that fishing was a hobby of his financiers owed. Drifters had its first performance together with Battleship Potemkin's UK premiere and received good reviews.

Following this success, Grierson's work focused mainly on organizational tasks of Filmprodukrion within the EMB. Between 1930 and 1933 he committed young filmmakers such as Basil Wright, Edgar Anstey, Stuart Legg, Paul Rotha, Arthur Elton, Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt and Alberto Cavalcanti in the film department and was more of an advisory capacity. Grierson was also Robert Flaherty move to cooperate in England with Industrial Britain (1933 ) and especially Man of Aran (1934 ) created exemplary documentaries.

As a result of the global economic depression, the film department of the EMB was dissolved and Grierson's boss at EMI went to the General Post Office (GPO ) as a public relations manager. He brought the film department, now as GPO Film Unit, also there under and the first productions was Night Mail (directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt), who showed the modern postal system using the example of Postzugs from London to Scotland, but also the award-winning documentary The song of Ceylon.

1938 Grierson was invited by the Canadian government to Canada where he created the national film production company National Film Board of Canada, the first of which he became manager. With Canada's entry into the Second World War there propaganda films were mainly produced. From 1957 to 1967 Grierson worked for Scottish Television. In 1957 he received the Canadian Film Award.

Grierson's younger sister Ruby Grierson was also a producer of documentary film and.

Filmography

As a director,

  • Drifters (1929 )
  • Granton Trawler (1934 )

As a cameraman

As a producer and consultant

  • O'er Hill and Dale ( Basil Wright 1932)
  • Cargo from Jamaica ( Basil Wright 1933)
  • Industrial Britain (Robert Flaherty, 1933)
  • Cable Ship ( Alexander Shaw and Stuart Legg 1933)
  • Coming of the Dial ( Stuart Legg 1933)
  • Liner Cruising South ( Basil Wright 1933)
  • Man of Aran (Robert Flaherty 1934)
  • New Operator ( Stuart Legg 1934)
  • Pett and Pott: A Fairy Story of the Suburbs (Alberto Cavalcanti 1934)
  • Post Haste ( Humphrey Jennings 1934)
  • Spring Comes to England ( Donald Taylor 1934)
  • Six - thirty Collection ( Harry Watt and Edgar Anstey 1934)
  • The Song of Ceylon ( Basil Wright 1934)
  • BBC: The Voice of Britain ( Stuart Legg 1935)
  • A Colour Box ( Len Lye 1935)
  • Housing Problems ( Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton 1935)
  • Introducing the Dial ( Stuart Legg 1935)
  • Coal Face (Alberto Cavalcanti 1935)
  • B.B.C. Droitwich ( Harry Watt 1935)
  • Night Mail ( Harry Watt and Basil Wright 1936)
  • Saving of Bill Blewitt ( Basil Wright 1936)
  • Line To The Tschierva hat (Alberto Cavalcanti 1937)
  • We Live In Two Worlds (Alberto Cavalcanti 1937)
  • Daily Round ( Richard Massingham and Karl Urbahn 1937)
  • Trade Tattoo ( Len Lye, 1937 )
  • The Face of Scotland ( Basil Wright 1938)
  • The Londoners ( John Taylor 1939)
  • Deferred Judgement ( John Baxter 1951)
  • Brandy for the Parson ( John Eldridge 1952)
  • The Brave Do not Cry ( Philip Leacock 1952)
  • Miss Robin Hood ( John Guillermin 1952)
  • Time Gentlemen Please! ( Lewis Gilbert 1952)
  • You're Only Young Twice ( Terry Bishop 1952)
  • Man of Africa ( Cyril Frankel 1953)
  • Background ( Daniel Birt 1953)
  • Laxdale Hall ( John Eldridge 1953)
  • The Oracle ( C. M. Pennington -Richards 1953)
  • Child's Play ( Margaret Thomson 1954)
  • Devil on Horseback ( Cyril Frankel 1954)
  • Seawards the Great Ships ( Hilary Harris 1960)
  • The Heart of Scotland (Laurence Henson 1961)
  • The Creative Process ( Donald McWilliams 1961)
Calvinism Robert J. Flaherty Moana (1926 film) Drifters (1929 film) John Baxter (director) Name Authority File
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