John Grierson - WikiHQ

John Grierson (26 April 1898 – 19 February 1972) was a Scottish filmmaker, film theorist, and critic, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1939, Grierson established the all-time Canadian film institutional production and distribution company The National Film Board of Canada controlled by the Government of Canada. His mother, a suffragette and ardent Labour Party activist, often took the chair at Tom Johnston's election meetings. When the family moved, John had three elder sisters, Agnes, Janet, and Margaret, and a younger brother, Anthony.

Both parents steeped their son in liberal politics, humanistic ideals, and Calvinist moral and religious philosophies, particularly that education was essential to individual freedom and that hard and meaningful work was the way to prove oneself worthy in the sight of God. however, he was unhappy that his efforts to help in World War I were only through his work at the munitions. His research focus was the psychology of propaganda—the impact of the press, film, and other mass media on forming public opinion.

In his review of Robert Flaherty's film Moana (1926) in the New York Sun (8 February 1926), Grierson wrote that it had 'documentary' value.

In his essay "First Principles of Documentary" (1932), Grierson argued that the principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's views align with the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov's contempt for dramatic fiction as "bourgeois excess", though with considerably more subtlety. Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, though it presents philosophical questions about documentaries containing stagings and reenactments.

Like many social critics of the time, Grierson was profoundly concerned about what he perceived to be clear threats to democracy. In the US, he encountered a marked tendency toward political reaction, anti-democratic sentiments, and political apathy. He read and agreed with the journalist and political philosopher Walter Lippmann's book Public Opinion which blamed the erosion of democracy in part on the fact that the political and social complexities of contemporary society made it difficult if not impossible for the public to comprehend and respond to issues vital to the maintenance of democratic society.

In Grierson's view, a way to counter these problems was to involve citizens in their government with the kind of engaging excitement generated by the popular press, which simplified and dramatized public affairs. It was during this time that Grierson developed a conviction that motion pictures could play a central role in promoting this process. (It has been suggested film scholar Paul Swann that some of Grierson's notions regarding the social and political uses of film were influenced by reading Lenin's writing about film as education and propaganda.)

Grierson's emerging view of film was as a form of social and political communication—a mechanism for social reform, education, and perhaps spiritual uplift. His view of Hollywood movie-making was considerably less sanguine:

:"In an age when the faiths, the loyalties, and the purposes have been more than usually undermined, mental fatigue--or is it spiritual fatigue?--represents a large factor in everyday experience. Our cinema magnate does no more than exploit the occasion. He also, more or less frankly, is a dope pedlar."

Film critic

Grierson's emerging and outspoken film philosophies caught the attention of New York film critics at the time. He was asked to write criticism for the New York Sun. At the Sun, Grierson wrote articles on film aesthetics and audience reception, and developed broad contacts in the film world. According to popular myth, in the course of this writing stint, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in writing about Robert J. Flaherty's film Moana (1926): "Of course Moana, being a visual account of events in the daily life of a Polynesian youth and his family, has documentary value."

During this time, Grierson was also involved in scrutinizing the film industries of other countries. He may have been involved in arranging to bring Sergei Eisenstein's groundbreaking film The Battleship Potemkin (1925) to US audiences for the first time. Eisenstein's editing techniques and film theories, particularly the use of montage, would have a significant influence on Grierson's own work.

Filmmaker

Grierson returned to Great Britain in 1927 armed with the sense that film could be enlisted to build national morale and consensus, and to deal with social problems, a theory he would enact especially during the Great Depression. Filmmaking for Grierson was an exalted, patriotic calling. Grierson's thinking was elitist in some ways, which he exposed with his many dicta of the time, such as "The elect have their duty" and "I look on cinema as a pulpit, and use it as a propagandist."

Grierson was also a cultural relativist. In the US, he had met pioneering documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty and respected Flaherty immensely for his contributions to documentary form and his attempts to use the camera to bring alive the lives of everyday people and events. Less commendable in Grierson's view was Flaherty's invalidating focus on exotic and faraway cultures. ("In the profounder kind of way", wrote Grierson of Flaherty, "we live and prosper each of us by denouncing the other"). In Grierson's view, the focus of film should be on the everyday drama of ordinary people. As Grierson wrote in his diaries: "Beware the ends of the earth and the exotic: the drama is on your doorstep wherever the slums are, wherever there is malnutrition, wherever there is exploitation and cruelty." "'You keep your savages in the far place Bob; we are going after the savages of Birmingham,' I think I said to him pretty early on. And we did.")

Empire Marketing Board

On his return to England, Grierson was employed on a temporary basis as an Assistant Films Officer of the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), a governmental agency which had been established in 1926 to promote British world trade and British unity throughout the empire. One of the major functions of the EMB was publicity, which the Board accomplished through exhibits, posters, and publications and films. It was within the context of this State-funded organisation that the "documentary" as we know it today got its start.

In late 1929 Grierson and his cameraman, Basil Emmott completed his first film, Drifters, which he wrote, produced and directed. The film, which follows the heroic work of North Sea herring fishermen, was a radical departure from anything being made by the British film industry or Hollywood. A large part of its innovation lies in the fierce boldness in bringing the camera to rugged locations such as a small boat in the middle of a gale while leaving relatively less of the action staged. The choice of topic was chosen less from Grierson's curiosity than the fact that he discovered that the Financial Secretary had made the herring industry his hobbyhorse. It premiered in a private film club in London in November 1929 on a double-bill with Eisenstein's -then controversial- film The Battleship Potemkin (which was banned from general release in Britain until 1954) and received high praise from both its sponsors and the press. The film was shown from 9 December 1929, in the Stoll in Kingsway and then was later screened throughout Britain. When Canada entered World War II in 1939, the NFB focused on the production of propaganda films, many of which Grierson directed. For example, captured footage of German war activity was incorporated in documentaries that were distributed to the then-neutral United States.

Grierson grieved the death of his sister Ruby in 1940; she was on the SS City of Benares while it was evacuating one hundred children to Canada. Grierson resigned from his position in January 1941. Over his year as Commissioner at the National Film Board 40 films were made; the year before the Motion Picture Bureau had made only one and a half.

Commission on Freedom of the Press

Grierson was appointed as a foreign adviser to the Commission on Freedom of the Press in December 1943, which had been set up by the University of Chicago. A few days earlier on 4 July 1969, Grierson had opened the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther.

Granton Trawler (1934)
The New Operator (dir. Stuart Legg 1934)
Scotland for Fitness (dir. Brian Salt 1938)
They Made the Land (dir. Mary Field 1938)
Sport in Scotland (dir. Stanley L. Russell 1938)
Wealth of a Nation (dir. Donald Alexander 1938)
Sea Food (1938)
The Londoners (dir. John Taylor 1939)
Four Men in Prison (dir. Max Anderson 1950)
Judgment Deferred (dir. John Baxter 1951)
This Wonderful World (dir. various 1957–67)
I Remember, I Remember (dir. James Sutherland 1968)
The Image Makers (dir. Albert Kish 1980)

Awards named for John Grierson

Grierson Documentary Film Awards

The Grierson Documentary Film Awards were established in 1972 to commemorate John Grierson and

are currently supervised by The Grierson Trust. The aim of the awards is to recognise outstanding films that demonstrate integrity, originality and technical excellence, together with social or cultural significance.

Grierson Awards are presented annually in nine categories:

Best Documentary on a Contemporary Issue
Best Documentary on the Arts
Best Historical Documentary
Best Documentary on Science or the Natural World
The Frontier Post Award for Most Entertaining Documentary
Best Drama Documentary
Best International Cinema Documentary
Best Newcomer
Trustees' Award

Other

The Canadian Film Awards had presented a Grierson Award for "an outstanding contribution to Canadian cinema in the spirit of John Grierson."

References

Sources

Canada's Awards Database
Credits from: British Film Institute Catalog (Film Index International)

External links

Grierson Bibliography at UC Berkeley
The Grierson Trust
The John Grierson Archive at The University of Stirling
Bfi Screenonline entry.
John Grierson in South Africa: Afrikaaner nationalism and the National Film Board
Biography and biographical documentary , National Film Board of Canada
Online essay about Grierson and Flaherty from the University of Glasgow (no link)
Literature on John Grierson
National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE (selection of archive films relating to John Grierson)

bbc:The Voice of Britain

Social critic