Flaherty put people in danger (the kid on the cliff – which people said they could feel vibrate, fell into the sea a short time later. He was also fairly manipulative. He tried to get the kid for the part, his mother refused over and over. Finally he went to the priest and made a substantial donation and the priest went and talked to the mother and she gave in.

The canoe ride is debatable. He certainly wanted it, but it is said that so did the men.

WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF THE FILM ON THE PEOPLE OF THE ISLAND.

(What responsibilities do film makers have to the people they photograph?)

Some got some money. The actors were brought to London and NY for the premieres.

Increase in tourist business.

Some more people moved there which some of the residents don’t like (this is true in many areas like Northern Scotland where English have moved in and are changing the place. Some feel the same about immigrants in the US. People come to a place because they like it and as soon as they move there they want to change it. This happens in country areas all over (Japan Oonodai)

Some arguments over the accuracy of the film at all. One man argued the women never carried seaweed like that, while an older woman says they did and she did it as a child.

We see animals but have no idea how sheep for example eat without grass on the island (or any of the other herbivores for that matter). There is no discussion about religion (Catholic vs Protestant) even though Flaherty admitted that his being Protestant while the vast majority of the people were Catholic gave him some problems in being accepted.

There is no discussion about poverty or the question of property ownership with some large land holders and others with nothing.

Some documentary film makers like Grierson objected to his ignoring actual problems to film romanticized versions of past lifestyles.

In “narration” we have talked about lies of omission and commission, so too can these concepts be used in discussing the films: What has been left out, what has been included whose veracity is in question? Both people on Aran and people in Samoa where Moana was made said that while they liked the films, they bore little relationship to life there.

Although the film has a score based on songs from the island, there is no indication that the islanders ever do anything musical.

The islanders are largely bi-lingual speaking both Gaelic and English with a preference for the former when talking among themselves. This is not at all clear in the film.

There are great disparities in land ownership with some people holding large pieces of land while others have none. This too is not mentioned

The question taht can be raised here is whether the film maker can be accused of not making the film the critics wanted made, but instead focused on other things. Flaherty said he was well aware of the fact that there was terrible poverty on the island and in fact chose to film the shark hunt which had long before passed into history because he felt if the inductry would be revived it would help alleviate some of the poverty.

Flaherty’s interest seems largely in subsistence and a large part of Moana involved people getting and making food as it is in Nanook and Man of Aran. Since Moana is set in the Pacific where getting food is not hard, the film has problems coming to a climax. What we do see, though is a pattern in interest of people as they try to wrest a living from the environment.

EARLY BRITISH DOCUMENTARUES

Empire Marketing Board

The raising of money for film making took a different turn in Britain. The British empire was trying to get people to “buy Empire” (much like “Buy American”). It was established as an alternative to a tariff against non-empire products. The board had three basic functions – scientific research, promoting economic analysis, and publicity for Empire trade. While most of the budget went to scientific research, it is best remembered for its film unit which was headed up by John Grierson, the son of a Scottish minister. The unit produced about 100 films including Grierson’s own Drifters about North Sea herring fisheries; song of Ceylon (about tea); Industrial Britain; One Family; Solid Sunshine (New Zealand butter); Wheat Fields of the Empire. Grierson had hired Flaherty to work on Industrial Britain in 1933, but their way of working were incompatible, and Flaherty was fired

Grierson occupies a position in Britain and Canada similar to that of Flaherty in the US. – the father of the documentary (or at least the British documentary) . Grierson appears to have first used the term “documentary” after seeing Flaherty’s Moana

. Grierson was born in a village near Dunblane in Scotland. His father has been said to have been a schoolmaster and/or preacher. His mother was suffragette. They were devout supporters of the Labor Party. The family were strict Calvinists – a rather strict variety of Christianity whose complex tenets emphasize hard work and the importance of education in individual freedom.

Gruerson went to the University of Glasgow and seems to have enjoyed devating politics. In these he would take the leftist point of view. He was also involved with leftist activities. .He got a Rockefeller Fellowship which let him come to the U.S. where he went to the University of Chicago, Columbia and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His major interest was the psychology of propaganda especially in mass media on the public - especially of the tabloid papers and “yellow journalism”. The battles about slanted m,edia continue to this day.

. Grierson felt that democracy was in danger because society had vecome very complex and people felt they had little imapct on what went on in government. He felt likewise that they were incapable of understanding how complex the issues were that he saw threatening democracy. He wanted to get people more involved in government and felt motion pictures would be of great assistance in this. He read what Lenin’s had t say about t film in education and as propaganda.

Grierson decided to take action since he tended to see film makers as "patriots" and tried to make films a kind of patriotism. "The elect have their duty." he said "I look on cinema as a pulpit, and use it as a propagandist.". He did not say who elected him

Grierson met Flaherty and respected what he had done for the documentary. Grierson approved of Flaherty's idea of focusing on common people and every day events. He was less enthusiastic about Flaherty's involvement with “exotic” people. Greierson wanted to focus on people at home to solve problem like the depression.

When Grierson got back from the US he was given a job of Assistant Films officer with the Empire Marketing Board. This Board was a government organization and so the financing of documentaries was handled through government funds - a very different situation than Flaherty encountered.

. Grierson’s first (and only full length film, Drifters, (1929) dealt with the North Sea Herring fishing industry. Like Flaherty, but unlike anything done previously in Britain, he went into the field and filmed in even rougher locations although not for as long or not as intense envrioments. Unlike Flaherty he staged little if any of the action.

Drifters was a commercial and critical success, but Grierson moved from directing to producing and administrating. He was responsible for bringing many film makers into the fold. Among them was Basil Wright, who went on to fame with Industrial Britain, Song of Ceylon and Night Mail). Others included Edgar Anstey, Stuart Legg, Paul Rotha, Arthur Elton, Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt, and Alberto Cavalcanti.

Grierson worked hard and managed to recruit many people and did a fine job of organizing, the Empire Marketing Board ultimately was closed down as a result of the depression. The film unit however became part of the General Post Office (GPO). Under Grierson's administration, the GPO Film Unit produced a series of unique films, including Night Mail (dir. Basil Wright and Harry Watt, 1936) and Coal Face (dir. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1935). 1934 saw the produced at the GPO Film Unit the award winning The Song of Ceylon (dir. Basil Wright). Some of the funds for the film came from the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Bureau and the EMB.

Finally he became unhappy with the problems of dealing with the government restriction and went to private industry where he made a few films. Canada invited to go there and look at Canadian film production . He did and was heavily involved in the founding of the National Film Commission (later known as the National Film Board of Canada). He made a number of “propaganda” films for the Commission after Canada entered WWII. He was however, removed from his position as commission of the National Film Board in 1945 when some people claimed he had “communist sympathies” which were evident in some of his films.

His work tended to focus on the average person (or perhaps “people”) whose jobs were never glamourized in film or press. His work with the herring fishermen and the postal workers tended to typify this interest.

DRIFTERS

A film with social commentary, influenced by Russian film making – montage, rhythmic editing and so on. Focus is definitely off any individual and tends to focus on the work with an acknowledgement of the people doing it.

This was Grierson’s first film and only full length film that Grierson directed. He is uncredited on a short called Grabton Trawler (1934) about a ship from Edinburgh that goes to a fishing grounds between Shetland and Norway.

There is little narrative in the film - just a few intertitle cards which often give little information. "The log line - it measures the miles". Actually it doesn't it measures speed from which you can deduce the miles.

SONG OF CEYLON

(Ceylon is now known as Sri Lanka)

Interestingly enough a film with “exotics”. Sponsored in part by the Empire Tea Marketing Board and the Ceylon Tea Board and made under the GPO auspices

The film received the award for best film at the International Film Festival in Brussels, 1935.

The film was recorded completely in the studio. Alberto Cavalcanti (sound) and composer Walter Leigh experimented with sounds. These are particularly complex in the third part which deals with communication and implies in the arrival of more modern times in the country

The film is in 4 parts – the first 2 deal with the “natives” and their interaction with their environment (like Flaherty’s Nanook (1922)) and their rituals (like Flaherty’s Moana (1926). Moana is the film Grierson saw and reviewed and used the term “documentary” for for the first time )

The third part deals with the “encroachment” of modern times, while the fourth returns to a ritual aspect. The implication is that tradition and modern industrialization can live side by side harmoniously rather than violently oppose one another.

Unlike Flaherty, there is no main character or story line. Rather the work and the workers (not individual worker) is the subject of the film. It does raise the status of the herring fisherman simply by making a film about them It glorifies the idea of the empire sending out food to feed the world.

The film was received warmly by critics and audiences

One can criticize these film in the same way Flaherty's were criticized. There is no indication that the people are suffering any kind of “psychological or cultural dislocation” as a result of the arrival of industry and Western civilization. In effect, Grierson ignores the very criticisms he made of Flaherty (other than nis failure to focus on a specific individual and construct a fictional story line around it) when it serves his purpose.

The opening sequence which deals with “devil worship” is a kind of “cultural imperialism” for which Britain has been noted (see concepts like “The White Man’s Burden”). Buddhism may be accepted as a "proper religion" but the earlier religions are not. Even Buddhism is cast in something of a Western mode.

The film is somewhat circular starting with dances at the beginning and end, and yet we are never given any clue as to the cotext of the dances (aer they religious? Social? How are they different than the ones at the beginning of the film?

NIGHT MAIL

(not to be confused with a 1935 thriller of the same name)

The film, again like Flaherty has a stong poetics feel. Like Drifters the film lacks a central figuer, the work and the workers collectively being the subject.

Again the stress on everyday ordinary work, in a sense “glorifying” it. Individuals are not important in the film as characters, simply people performing their tasks. Notice the editing relative to the rhythm of the music and poetry.

The poem is by the famous poet W.H. Auden. He had written the poem for Coal Face, the Cavalcanti film also turned out by Grierson’s group. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his Age of Anxiety (which was the inspiration to Leonard Bernstein to compose a symphony with that subtitle. He also collaborated on the libretti for a number of opera’s including Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress. Grierson does the commentary on the film.

The music by the equally (if not more) famous Benjamin Britten who wrote a number of operas including Billy Budd (Melville), The Beggar’s Opera (after the Ballad opera John Gay), Death in Venice (Mann) Peter Grimes (after a poem – “The Borough” by George Crabbe); and Midsummer’s Night’s Dream (Shakespeare)

His best known work may be A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

It is easy to see that a number of reasonably well known and well respected artists joined with Grierson and Wright in the production of this film.