Thursday's Children

• Richard Burton: narrator

Thursday 's Children is a British documentary short film from the year 1954. Director's work by Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton was in 1955 awarded the Oscar for "Best Short Documentary ".

Action

The film is about the children, who in Margate, Kent on the Royal School for the Deaf (English: Royal School for the Deaf ) Go. The children aged between four and seven years are accompanied by the camera during class. Students learn through play to produce the unheard sounds and to connect those sounds with letters. By means of a balloon, which the teacher holds to his mouth and speaks against, while the children put their hands on it, the children learn that language causes vibrations. Moreover, small toy cars have blown into garages and a number of animal figures are blown over. By means of breathing and a straw a child brings a toy figurines on a swing to swing. All this is intended to introduce kids to the language. The joy is great if it is possible a child to form a word, even if it is not immediately understandable and correct.

Background

Energy produced by World Wide Pictures and Morse film documentation sometimes omitted entirely on the sound, so that the viewer as well as the children shown in the film read lips and has to get a sense of numbness. 1988 was recorded Thursday 's Children in the program of the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

During the filming of Thursday 's Children Anderson worked at the same time at the also filmed in Margate documentation O, Dreamland on the local amusement park.

Review

Walter Goodman wrote in the New York Times: " Lindsay Anderson's documentation from 1953 takes only 21 minutes, each of which produces a lump in the throat or can jump the heart. "

Awards

Thursday 's Children in 1955, won the Oscar for "Best Short Documentary ". In addition, Anderson and Brenton won the British Academy Film Award for " Best Documentary ".